The case for pulling US military back from the first island chain

The case for pulling US military back from the first island chain

Late last month, Japan’s defense ministry made an unsettling announcement. A U.S. ground-based missile system, known as the Typhon and capable of firing Tomahawk missiles, would not return to the United States after being deployed to Japan for military exercises. Instead, it would be stored at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, at least temporarily. Tokyo tried to downplay the move, noting that the decision was intended to support training, not warfighting, and that no U.S. Army units would deploy with the missile system. But the reassuring language is unlikely to forestall the negative consequences of the posture change: an increase in military tensions along the first island chain in East Asia. The timing of the decision, following closely on the heels of the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington, may seem out of sync with Donald Trump’s “dovish” outreach to Beijing. But the contradiction is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration’s Asia policy. By calling for a “decent peace” but building a “denial defense along the first island chain,” a region that stretches across Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, Trump seems destined to undermine his own efforts to stabilize the U.S.-China relationship and even to increase the medium-term risk of conflict between the two global powers. The paradox in the Trump administration’s approach to Asia is best articulated in the National Defense Strategy published earlier this year. The strategy lays out two aims. First, it calls on the U.S. military to “set conditions for a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific that allows all of us—the United States, China, and others in the region—to enjoy a decent peace.” Second, it declares the U.S. intention to “erect a strong denial defense along the first island chain to…ensure that the Joint Force always has the ability to conduct devastating strikes and operations against targets anywhere in the world.” In the Pentagon’s strategic rationale, the latter aim is a prerequisite for the former. This is wrong. Instead, the two goals are fundamentally incompatible. To understand why, it helps to take a closer look at what a denial defense in Asia requires and its practical effects from Beijing’s perspective. The U.S. interest in building a “denial defense” in East Asia is not new to the Trump administration. In fact, the U.S. military has long used the first island chain as the center of gravity of its military posture in Asia, positioning some 80,000 military forces at bases in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and even Taiwan. The primary purpose of these forces is deterring Chinese aggression toward its neighbors (and especially Taiwan) by raising the perceived costs of such aggression for Chinese military planners and political leaders. To that end, the United States has positioned dozens of fighter jets; warships; artillery and longer-range missiles systems; and air defense on U.S. bases along the first island chain. The Trump administration’s focus has been on strengthening this first island chain denial defense. In addition to the new missile system housed in Japan, Washington is planning to upgrade the fighter jets deployed at bases in the country. It is also building new military infrastructure in Luzon, the island in the Philippines closest to Taiwan, and modifying the types of forces deployed at strategic locations in Japan, the Philippines, and even South Korea. In the future, these personnel will be armed with new anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles intended to prevent China from projecting military power across the Pacific. But while Washington describes this military posture as defensive, from the Chinese perspective, the U.S. position along the first island chain is abrasive and threatening. It is not hard to understand why. Intermediate-range missiles positioned close to the Chinese mainland, fighter jets at bases only a few hundred miles away, and warships patrolling waters off China’s coast can only seem aggressive to China’s leaders. At the very least, such a military presence seems aimed at containing China’s power and interfering with its ambitions in its near abroad—the same types of ambitions that Washington claims in the Western Hemisphere under the “Donroe Doctrine.” At worst, these forces have hostile intent and aim to work against China’s security interests. It should be unsurprising, then, that as the United States deepens its first island chain investments, China accelerates its military buildup, deploying more missiles on Chinese territory opposite Taiwan and expanding its patrols in the South China Sea and closer to Japan. The net result is not Washington’s “decent peace,” but rather a region that is gripped by an arms race, less secure, and closer to war. The United States can achieve a decent peace with China, but it will require a willingness to adjust its regional posture, giving up on regional dominance and accepting a balance-of-power approach that creates physical and strategic distance between the U.S. military presence and the Chinese mainland. This balance can be achieved by a shift in the U.S. center of gravity in East Asia, from the first to the second island chain, made up of U.S. territories and the Compact of Free Association states. Specifically, the United States would reduce and consolidate its military presence, including both personnel and assets, into bases in Guam, Palau, Micronesia, Tinian, and others, leaving at most a small number of rotational forces in Japan and the Philippines. Alongside this change in military footprint, a narrowing of U.S. military commitments would also be required, with expansive mutual defense treaties being replaced by a more sustainable set of narrow security partnerships. There are several reasons why this set of posture changes makes sense. Most importantly, the outcome of the U.S. war in Iran reveals clearly that the current U.S. first island chain presence is not sustainable or survivable. Defenders of the status quo argue that first island chain bases are essential for dispersing U.S. forces and assets for any contingency situation, such as a war over Taiwan, but bases in Japan and the Philippines cannot serve this purpose if they cannot be effectively defended. Pulling forces back to the second island chain would not make them invulnerable to Chinese attack, but they would be more defensible and significantly reduce the risk of conflict with China. A second island chain strategy would have other benefits as well. It would be more aligned with core U.S. national security interests, sufficient to protect U.S. access to regional economic markets against physical interdiction and to balance Chinese power in East Asia, especially with the addition of a coherent U.S. economic strategy. The first island chain denial defense, by contrast, leaves the United States vulnerable to entanglement in unnecessary wars (including one over Taiwan) that the U.S. military today seems unprepared to fight and weakens the incentives of U.S. allies when it comes to investing in their own defense and reaching out diplomatically to China. Finally, the physical space between the U.S. military presence and the Chinese mainland could act to significantly reduce the risk of war between the two countries, creating momentum for the decent peace that Washington says is its ultimate goal. Critics argue that the opposite is true, that if the United States pulls back to the second island chain Beijing will be emboldened, seizing Taiwan and moving on to assert dominance over Japan and others in the region, before pushing the United States out of Asia entirely. But there is little evidence to support such dire predictions. China, a nation dependent on trade, has little incentive to shut the U.S. out of the region’s economic networks, and it does not have the military capabilities to become the region’s sole hegemon, especially if countries like Japan and South Korea invest in their own military development and work to balance Chinese power. Of course, U.S. retrenchment would create some new risks, including possible efforts by Japan and South Korea to pursue nuclear capabilities or to over-invest in offensive military capabilities that increase regional insecurity, at least temporarily. But these risks are manageable with a careful U.S. economic and diplomatic strategy. Changes in U.S. posture and commitments can be gradual, for instance, to give countries like Japan time to invest in their own defense and to avoid feelings of abandonment that could trigger a too-rapid build up or race for a nuclear weapon. The United States might retain security partnerships with current allies that include rotational military deployments and the option for support in a military crisis as well as joint defense industrial projects and economic investment. Finally, the United States should also communicate carefully with China about its planned retrenchment and intention to remain a Pacific power, even while accepting a more narrow remit. It is true that China would like a smaller U.S. military footprint in Asia, especially close to its shores. But this does not mean that a smaller presence would not also serve U.S. interests. In the longer run, the ultimate responsibility for the region’s stability should not fall on U.S. shoulders but on efforts by the region’s middle powers to achieve a modus vivendi with China that accommodates Beijing’s security interests and makes further military competition unnecessary.