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The Australian Na�onal University & The MacArthur Founda�on Asia Security Ini�a�ve The United States, Asia, and “Convergent Security” William T. Tow and H. D. P. Envall h�p://asi.anu.edu.au No. 7, 13 December 2011 ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU- MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI Policy Background Paper

Transcript of MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU ......article appeared in the Asian Journal of...

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The Australian Na�onal University & The MacArthur Founda�on Asia Security Ini�a�ve

The United States, Asia,and “Convergent Security”

William T. Tow and H. D. P. Envall

h�p://asi.anu.edu.au

No. 7, 13 December 2011

ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI ANU-MASI

PolicyBackgroundPaper

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Progressing from an Asia-Pacific security posture based on bilateral alliances to one focused on bilater-alism and multilateralism – which can be termed “convergent secu-rity” – was always going to be dif-ficult for the United States.

Yet the Obama administration has recently adopted just such a policy. It has been especially supportive of inserting “minilateral” security diplomacy into existing security frameworks, even though the US has not endorsed a single strategy.

Nonetheless, effective “convergent security” will require a creative revi-sion of such collaboration. Indeed, it will prove difficult to combine bilateralism and multilateralism in ways that will do more than just coexist.

INTRODUCTION

WHEN the Association of Southeast Asian Na-tions (ASEAN) founded the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1993, it did so to secure the best of both worlds for ASEAN member-states. The ARF helped create a “breathing space” needed to pursue an enduring Asia-Pacific regional order based on multilateral norms. But any such quest was to be tempo-rarily underwritten by American power ex-tended to the region through its alliances.

This approach has sometimes been de-scribed as “convergent security” – a pro-gression from a regional security framework focused on bilateral structures to a frame-work increasingly focused on multilateral arrangements. Yet the shift from bilateral to multilateral security politics was always going to be difficult. Because bilateral se-

curity relations are inherently exclusivist, multilateral security politics has often been regarded by the US and its regional security partners as too unwieldy.

RECENT AMERICAN POLICY

More recently, however, Washington has ad-opted a more positive approach to multilat-eral security in the Asia-Pacific. The Obama administration signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in July 2009 as a prerequisite for joining the East Asia Summit (EAS). A year later, the US agreed to join the EAS. Similarly, it has played a key role in revising the agenda for the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting+8 or “ADMM Plus.”

Indeed, the US has become increasingly supportive of inserting “minilateral” security diplomacy into its existing regional alliance frameworks. Yet it has chosen not to en-dorse a single, overarching approach, but has instead pursued a more discriminate strategy of promoting the application of dif-ferent multilateral bodies to specific issues.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping, for example, has been the principal method for advancing America’s economic interests, although it is increas-ingly being supplanted by the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The EAS has been priori-tized for developing regional security dia-logues, since it includes all of the region’s major powers and is considered less prone to Chinese domination.

The challenge for the EAS is to shape a dis-tinct structure capable of addressing extend-ed regional crises more directly. However, the degree to which ASEAN or China would support the merging of their preferred insti-tutions with the EAS is uncertain. Without such a consensus it is likely that the US will continue to regard multilateral arrangements as most appropriate for dealing with “func-tionally-oriented” non-traditional security concerns, such as disaster relief, rather than with traditional security problems.

Given such a demarcation, the US alliance

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system seems well positioned. Washington’s emphasis on “capacity-building” with region-al partners has led it to develop “minilateral” or “plurilateral” structures that can draw on the relative strengths of bilateralism and multilateralism. Capacity-building is suffi-ciently amorphous that it can be interpreted as applying allies’ increased material assets to either traditional or non-traditional secu-rity challenges. This in turn has generated a subtle process of bilateral–multilateral co-existence, what has been described as a “complex patchwork” of security arrange-ments sustained by the major powers and their smaller regional counterparts.

IMPORTANCE OF DOMESTIC POLITICS

Yet these policies are subject not only to changes in the regional order, but also to domestic changes in the US itself. The nature of the American foreign policy debate makes Obama’s strategy difficult to “sell,” both to Washington’s policy elites and to the wider American public. The major Republican can-didates for the 2012 US presidential election are unlikely to support multilateralism to the same extent as the current administration.

Consequently, unless care is taken to sepa-rate short-term domestic political point

scoring from longer-term policy formulation, the Obama administration is likely to find multilateral cooperation increasingly subject to domestic politics. This could easily influ-ence the administration’s judgment of, and behavior toward, key regional powers.

The current uncompromising partisanship in US politics could undermine the American government’s capacity to project a consistent and coherent strategy. It would then become more difficult to utilize the strengths of mul-tilateralism on behalf of US interests with-out also reigniting regional concerns about American unilateralism. The type of extreme rhetoric that some Republican candidates have employed so far in the 2012 presidential election could easily exacerbate matters.

America’s current economic turmoil might conceivably draw this administration’s, or its successor’s, attention away from impor-tant but less pressing diplomatic and secu-rity problems. The Obama administration is projecting significant cuts in defense spend-ing. Yet the quantitative dimension tells only part of the story. The US technology base and its edge in deploying advanced weapons systems are unlikely to change soon. This represents a qualitative component to future calculations about alliance politics.

THE ROLE OF THE “SPOKES”

The major challenge confronting US al-liance politics in a broader convergent security context is to supplement or even replace the “exclu-sivist” component of America’s bilateral ties with more con-temporary, symmetri-cal relationships. Im-portantly, this must be achieved without giving up the ad-vantages of bilateral security collaboration.

Photo: Edward N. Johnson (Morning Calm News)

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

William T. TowProfessor, Department of International RelationsThe Australian National University

H. D. P. EnvallPostdoctoral Fellow, Department of International RelationsThe Australian National University

William Tow is Professor of International Relations at The Aus-tralian National University. Professor Tow’s research interests include alliance politics and US security policy in the Asia-Pacif-ic. He has published numerous monographs and articles, most recently in The China Journal (No. 65, 2011).

David Envall is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Australian National University. Dr Envall’s research interests include Japan’s post-war security politics and Asia-Pacific security. His most recent article appeared in the Asian Journal of Political Science (Vol. 19, No. 2, 2011).

TERMS OF USE

Permission is freely given to publish this paper in its entirety or in part in any newspaper, wire service, internet network, news-letter or blog, providing that full credit is given to the author(s), the Department of International Relations (ANU), and the MacArthur Foundation. Kindly inform the editor (see below) and provide details as to where and when the publication occurred.

ABOUT THE ANU–MACARTHURASIA SECURITY INITIATIVE

In May 2009, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Founda-tion launched the Asia Security Initiative (ASI) – a world-wide network of 27 policy research institutions which aimed to develop new ideas for overcoming the security challenges faced by Asia-Pacific nations. The ANU has been one of the Initiative’s partner institutions through the ANU–MacArthur Asia Security Initiative (ANU–MASI) Partnership. This Partner-ship has led to numerous research conferences and publishing outcomes, including the Asian Security Seminar Series and the ANU–MASI Policy Background Paper Series.

CONTACT THE EDITOR

David EnvallEditorANU–MASI Policy Background Paper SeriesDepartment of International RelationsSchool of International, Political & Strategic StudiesCollege of Asia & the PacificThe Australian National UniversityE-mail: [email protected]://asi.anu.edu.au/papers

Please cite as: Tow, William T. and Envall, H. D. P. (2011) “The United States, Asia, and ‘Convergent Security,’” ANU–MASI Policy Background Paper, No. 7, 13 December.

The opportunity as well as the risk of con-vergent security on the part of the US is the dependence of such a strategy on America’s Asian allies being sufficiently capable of con-ducting relations with others beyond their traditional US alliances. Greater indepen-dence from the US is not inherently inimical to America’s interests if it leads to a more self-confident, but still supportive, collection of security partners.

It would be particularly beneficial if such partners were able to generate a more comprehensive spirit of cooperation across previous divides without losing the “insur-ance” of existing frameworks. Closer, more effective relationships among the “spokes” within the framework of the overall US alli-ance system would fit with such a pattern.

CONCLUSION

What do these alternative approaches im-ply for the future of “hub and spokes” alli-ance politics in the region? New approaches will necessitate that the US and its regional partners creatively revise and credibly op-erationalize their security collaboration.

} Old defense burden-sharing debates, for example, will assume new forms that emphasize niche areas of col-laboration and demand higher levels of allied commitment to US strategic postures – the air/sea battle doctrine is a graphic case-in-point.

} The broadening of “intra-spoke” alliance relations will also proceed and intensify. This may well be in the form of the US working with its allies in a plurilateral or minilateral context.

The challenge the US confronts for imple-menting convergent security in this manner is to find and pursue ways for bilateral and multilateral strategies to do more than just coexist. Complementary strategies must be identified and pursued, so that current ar-rangements can be superseded by policies more coherent, overarching, and enduring. n