Draft not to be quoted without author’s prior approval. The views represented here are those of the author alone, not the National War College or the Department of Defense.
Policy Without Strategy
Marvin C. Ott; Professor, National Security
Policy
The National War College
Clear strategic thinking is the bedrock upon which effective foreign policy and security policy must be built. But today, US foreign policy toward Southeast Asia is being made in something disturbingly -- even dangerously -- close to a strategic vacuum.
A retrospective look at American strategy toward this region is a bit like looking at a movie where the picture keeps going in and out of focus. There have been periods of strategic acuity, but they have been episodic and occasionally parts of the picture have been in focus and other parts not.
During World War II and the early stages of the Cold War, Washington did think strategically and clearly about the region. Southeast Asia was an important theater in the World War and quickly became a significant arena in the Cold War that followed. Communist and Communist-inspired insurgencies and revolutionary movements roiled the waters of Southeast Asia. The US became engaged in a considerable effort to buttress counterinsurgency efforts by non-Communist governments, most notably that of President Magsaysay in the Philippines. During this period American interests and objectives were clear – the defeat of Communist insurgencies as part of a global containment strategy – and the means and costs were roughly proportionate to those goals.
These efforts culminated in Vietnam where, by the mid-1960s, Washington had lost its strategic moorings. The commitments made, the resources expended, the costs incurred all vastly exceeded any reasonable assessment of US interests. This is not to say there was no strategic rationale for the defense of an independent South Vietnam. It is to say that the essence of strategy is to identify real national interests and determine whether a proposed course of action serves those interests at an affordable and proportionate cost. It is easy to produce a wish list of desirable policy outcomes; it is hard to prune that list to only include those that can be achieved within budget and to abandon those whose costs prove greater than anticipated.
Following the Vietnam War, US strategy erred in the opposite direction. After investing over 50,000 lives in support of the proposition that Southeast Asia was strategically vital, Washington then treated the region as if it had no strategic significance whatsoever. In the strategy maps of the National Security Council and the Pentagon, Southeast Asia became terra incognita.
The grip of the Vietnam syndrome on Washington policymakers was partially broken when the Vietnamese Army invaded and occupied Cambodia at the end of 1978. In response to quiet but urgent requests from Thailand and other ASIAN governments, the US joined with them and with China in semi-covert support for a Cambodian guerrilla resistance against the Vietnamese occupation. That military effort was complemented by an international diplomatic campaign led by ASIAN to deny international recognition to the Vietnamese installed regime in Phnom Penh – and by international economic sanctions, led by the US, against Vietnam. It was, in short, a real strategy, thoughtfully conceived and skillfully implemented. From a US standpoint, it was also low cost. The military effort was inexpensive as these things go, the economic opportunity costs were minimal, and the domestic political costs within the US were contained by the covert nature of much of the program. ASIAN’s leadership of the public diplomacy dimension of the strategy provided further cover for Washington. Finally, the Cambodian program coincided positively with a much higher priority effort to strengthen US-China relations.
But for all the positives, the Cambodia policy did not constitute a US strategy for all Southeast Asia – and was even incomplete with regard to Cambodia. This became evident in September 1989 when, to the surprise of Washington, Vietnam withdrew its army from Cambodia. Having not anticipated or planned for success of its Cambodia strategy, Washington soon became enmeshed in a policy dispute between the NSC and Capitol Hill over what to do next. That debate was only concluded with the end of the Bush Administration and the signing of the Paris Accords.
The next shoe to drop was the 1991 rejection by the Philippine Senate of a renewal of US basing rights at Subic Bay. US Air Force facilities at Clark Field had been taken off the negotiating table by the dramatic volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Suddenly, the southern anchor of the American military presence in East Asia had disappeared. In response, Washington formulated the closest thing to a region-wide strategy since the 1950s. A collaborative effort involving the Pentagon, the Senate Armed Services Committee and CINCPAC produced what Admiral Charles Larson labeled a "places not bases"/"cooperative engagement" approach. Receptive and cooperative officials in Southeast Asia, notably in Singapore made implementation of this initiative possible. In a word, this involved a strategy of dispersing the US military presence through access arrangements and small footprint facilities around the region. Altogether it was a well-conceived and superbly implemented design for preserving the viability of an American military presence in the face of a major adverse development in the regional environment. As such, however, it was only part of a strategy. It dealt with the instruments of security but not the purposes to which they would be used.
That element of strategy was addressed in a succession of public documents produced by the Pentagon under Congressional mandate. The 1995 edition of the so-called East Asia Strategy Report (EASR) came the closest to articulating an actual strategy including interests, objectives, threats, capabilities, and policy.
Even that document contained anomalous elements. Most notably, it committed the US to forward deployments of approximately 100,000 uniformed personnel without providing a clear mission-based rationale for that number. To its credit, the document did cautiously address security issues involving China and Southeast Asia.
The United States military presence in the region . . . . guarantees the security of sea-lanes vital to the flow of Middle East oil, serves to deter armed conflict in the region, and promotes regional cooperation. It also denies political or economic control of the Asia-Pacific region by a rival, hostile power . . . . Contested claims to islands and territorial waters in the South China Sea are a source of tension in Southeast Asia that could carry serious consequences for regional stability. . . . It is worth noting in this context that the United States regards the high seas as an international commons. Our strategic interest in maintaining the lines of communication linking Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and the Indian Ocean make it essential that we resist any maritime claims beyond those permitted by the Law of the Sea Convention. (United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region, February 1995, pp. 7 and 20.)
Beyond the documents, the strategy was weakened by a mismatch between means and ends. With the loss of Clark and Subic, but with the new access agreements, PACOM could maintain a presence adequate for peacetime reassurance. But if a major military contingency required a substantial operational commitment of US forces, the supporting infrastructure in the region would be inadequate.
The EASRs up through 1995 at least represented a progressive sharpening of US security thinking about Southeast Asia. That progress has apparently ceased. The recently released (December 1998) iteration of the EASR is a remarkably anodyne product. The core strategic issues posed by emerging Chinese power go essentially unmentioned. The 100,000 commitment is still there but it remains disembodied from any specific mission requirement. The casual reader would get the impression that in the entire sweep of East Asia, much less Southeast Asia, those security challenges that remain are muted and controlled. To the lay reader it is clear that America is carrying a big stick in Asia, but it is not at all clear why. It reads like a document designed to avoid controversy or offense – and in that it is successful. This would be of less concern if one were confident that out of the public eye a real comprehensive strategy document guided US policy. The suspicion, however, is that no such document exists.
Apparently responding to the financial/economic crisis that has afflicted the region has become the near sum and total of US strategy. But an economic strategy, however well conceived and executed, is not a security strategy.
None of this would matter greatly if Southeast Asia were free of serious security issues. In fact, the strategic challenges – and with them the need for strategy – are growing. China is emerging as a regional great power -- diplomatically, economically, and militarily. This is hardly a trivial development because China is the one potential peer competitor to the US in world affairs. This is not to presume China will be an adversary. But it will surely be a competitor on all the dimensions that great powers interact. Moreover, China for the first time in at least two centuries is unimpeded by its two traditional security preoccupations, Russia and Japan. Beijing is strategically free to pursue its natural inclination to assert influence and interests to the south.
The rise of China presently coincides with the Asian economic crisis and the consequent loss of cohesion, confidence, and capacity of the Southeast Asian states. The crippling of Indonesia alone greatly alters the balance of capabilities between ASIAN and China. Japan’s apparent loss of stature in the wake of an arguably ineffective response to Asia’s economic difficulties and its own persistent recession have further accentuated China’s rise. The logic of all this is to push Southeast Asia, however reluctantly, back toward greater reliance on the US as a strategic counterweight to China. Only a few years ago, a rough regional security balance seemed to be emerging between ASIAN, China and Japan with a united Korea waiting in the historical wings. With that prospect at least deferred, regional security is once again dependent on the powerful external balancer.
But why is the US so prone to strategic drift in Asia, especially Southeast Asia? This is a significant question that warrants a considered answer. One factor, easily identified, is the fact that the current roster of key decision-makers in US foreign policy is bereft of anyone with sustained in-depth expertise on Asia. The incumbent Secretary of Defense comes the closest to being an exception. The paucity of senior Executive Branch experience with Asia is more than matched on Capitol Hill where very few members of Congress have made Asia a focus of their interest. It is difficult to watch contemporary American foreign policy without concluding that most planning, thinking, and effort goes into policy toward Europe, Russia, and the Middle East – not Asia.
A second factor is the in-built emphasis within PACOM on Northeast Asia. The loss of Clark and Subic simply reinforced a natural tendency to focus attention on the northern portion of the AOR.
A third factor goes beyond Asia and speaks to a fundamental tendency in American thinking about international affairs. Since the earliest days of the Republic, US foreign policy has exhibited two, often conflicting, tendencies. One is a normative, "idealist" impulse to use foreign policy to further deeply held American political values – notably democracy and human rights. The other is a geopolitical "realist" approach that stresses the pursuit of national interests generally defined in terms of power and economic advantage. Nowhere has the tension between these two propensities more evident than in China policy. Each year, for example, the President and the Congress wrestle over the question of whether to grant most favored nation (MFN) status to trade with China. Proponents of conditioning MFN on Chinese adherence to basic human rights standards clash with those who see MFN as a matter of economic self-interest. It is difficult to maintain a steady strategic vision when policy is being whipsawed between ideals and self-interest.
A fourth, and related, factor concerns the uniquely emotive quality in American perceptions of China. To a remarkable degree, US-China relations have oscillated between extremes of amity and enmity. Like a bad love affair, Americans have been either uncritically enamored of all things Chinese or convinced that China is deeply hostile and threatening toward US interests and values.
The explanation for such dramatic swings in public (and elite) attitudes is found in the peculiar emotional investment Americans have made in China. The origins of that investment go back over a century to the Christian missionary effort initiated in China by American churches in the late 19th century. That coupled with Washington’s "Open Door" policy designed to prevent the colonial dismemberment of China (and thereby preserve US access to the China market) gave a particular coloration to American perceptions of the Middle Kingdom. In that perception, China became America’s protégé. The US would protect, foster, and ultimately convert China into America’s mirror image in Asia. This outlook received a powerful boost from the fact that post-imperial China came under the leadership of President and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, both Christians. Then came World War II when US and Nationalist Chinese soldiers fought as allies. After the war, the US pressed for the inclusion of China as a permanent member of the newly established United Nations Security Council.
Then, suddenly, it all went terribly bad. An anti-American, Communist regime overthrew the Christian president followed shortly by a brutal war in Korea that pitted US forces against the PLA. American views of China swung 180 degrees; the People’s Republic had become the incarnation of evil, the citadel of the "blue ants," the new "yellow peril." The American foreign policy establishment self-immolated over the question of "who lost China?" The subsequent radical excesses of the Cultural Revolution solidified the US view of China as beyond the pale of civilized behavior.
Again, suddenly, everything changed. Almost overnight, ping-pong diplomacy and Nixon’s 1972 trip to China revived America’s infatuation. Television networks logged long hours chronicling not only the visits but presenting sympathetic portrayals of Chinese life and society. Deng Xiaoping’s return visit in 1978 was a virtual lovefest. By the early 1980s, Washington and Beijing had become quasi-allies in the global Cold War contest with Moscow. That common strategic interest seemed, finally, to have stabilized relations.
But then came the end of the Cold War and the "June 4 incident" in Tienanmen, which played out on the television screens of America. The pendulum swung again. Today, three-quarters of the American public tell pollsters they see China as an adversary. Congress has become a hotbed of criticism of China on everything from abortion to satellite launches. Conservative Christian organizations have adopted oppressed Chinese Christians as a foreign policy crusade. Republicans have attacked the White House over alleged Chinese efforts to buy influence (and perhaps national security secrets) with campaign contributions. Without the anchor of a common strategic concern, US policy towards China has become a magnet for seemingly every domestic group with a foreign policy agenda.
A final factor concerns the profound ambiguities of the Southeast Asian strategic environment for a PACOM planner. In Southeast Asia, there is no clear threat, no defined adversary, and no specific territorial boundaries to defend. A major objective of US policy is to avoid words and actions that seem to prejudge whether one country (China) will become an adversary. Not too long ago, as was just noted, China was a quasi-ally of the US. Allies also occupy an ambiguous status. America has two declared defense commitments in the region – with the Philippines and Thailand. But neither is clear-cut. The alliance with the Philippines is attenuated by disputes over the territorial scope of US obligations, by an unratified visiting forces agreement, and by the decision of the Philippines Senate to terminate the US military presence. Security ties with Thailand rest on executive understandings rather than a formal treaty. As a consequence, US use of Thai military facilities (as in the Persian Gulf war) is dependent on a Thai government decision at the time. On the periphery of the region, the US relationship with Taiwan is extraordinarily ambiguous with the island state in the status of a kind of unofficial, unrecognized, but de facto, ally. The ANZUS alliance was once a model of clarity, but that situation ended with the US-New Zealand nuclear dispute and the suspension of formal US security obligations toward Wellington.
One could conclude that the ambiguities in the environment are being matched by ambiguities in policy. In certain circumstances ambiguity is a valuable, even essential, element of policy. US policy toward Taiwan is a prominent example. But ambiguity can become a comfortable substitute for clear thinking – the policy equivalent of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
The South China Sea is a case in point. Serious analysts can (and will) differ as to Chinese intentions there. But one has to discount official Chinese statements and actions taken in support of them to conclude China poses no serious challenge to the status quo in the Spratleys and surrounding waters. For the ASIAN governments, several of which have competing (though less far-reaching) claims, Beijing’s assertion that the entire sea is Chinese territory is a very serious matter. It is the more so because China has buttressed its claims with "facts on the ground" in the form of permanent installations. As for the US, the South China Sea encompasses important sea-lanes traversed by both commercial and naval shipping. Keeping those SLOCs secure and unencumbered is an important American economic and security interest. For Japan those same interests are even more pronounced.
Any statement of US strategy should make such interests explicit and clear. The stakes are potentially far too high for muddled messages. Southeast Asia needs reliable cues as to what to expect, or not to expect, from the US security presence. China needs the same. America has a disconcerting history of having become engaged in major military confrontations after potential adversaries thought they had received indications of US disinterest or noninvolvement. The Korean War, the Persian Gulf War, and the 1996 confrontation over Taiwan offer similar cautionary tales.
It goes without saying that US security planners must be clear in their own minds as to US interests in Asia and how those interests are rank-ordered; what threats exist to those interests and how they should be ranked in terms of plausibility and lethality; what assets the US has (both its own and those of allies) to control those threats; and what specific policies can be implemented at what cost to maximize assets and minimize threats. In short, think strategically.
About the author: Dr. Rigby is Assistant Secretary, North East Asia Branch, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was assigned as Consul General Shanghai prior to his current position. He joined APS (Foreign Affairs Trainee) in 1975. In 1976, Dr. Rigby became Third Secretary Tokyo and later became Second Secretary and served in that position until 1980 when he was attached to the Australian Information Service, Canberra. In 1981, he was assigned as First Secretary (Information) Beijing and served there until 1984 when he was reinstated to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Dr. Rigby was reinstated to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Canberra), FAO3 Policy Planning Unit in 1984. In 1985, he became Acting Deputy Chief, Current Intelligence, ONA and later held the position of First Secretary London (Cabinet Office Liaison) until 1988. He returned to Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra in 1988. In 1989 he served as Counseller (Political) Beijing. Dr. Rigby became Director Indochina at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and served in that position until 1993 when he was promoted to SES Band One, Assistant Secretary South/Southeast Asia. Dr. Rigby earned a BA Hons (First) and a Ph.D. - Far Eastern History at the Australian National University.