Allies remain necessary even if we have the determination to act alone if necessary.
This is sound advice in an era of great power competition:
America can't risk alienating allies in the new era of great power competition, which will require strengthening military partnerships in a global defensive chain aimed at maintaining an "asymmetric advantage" over China and Russia, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday.
"Our global constellation of allies and partners remains an enduring strength that our competitors and adversaries simply cannot match," he said in remarks to the Atlantic Council that rehashed many of the themes he has stressed in what could be the waning days of his tenure at the Pentagon.
The U.S. can't afford to "take our long-standing network of relationships for granted," including relationships with the often-overlooked smallest partners, such as Malta, Papua New Guinea and Palau, Esper said.
China wants those countries to believe that [America is too weak to help allies close to China]. But China is not destined to surpass us in power. Which means that China won't grow so powerful that countries can't arm up to balance China's power.
But for all those neighbors to be willing to stand up to China's power, they have to be confident that we have the power and determination to use it against China and to be confident that other potential partners won't stop absorbing some of China's power by making deals with China to ally with Peking. If these countries don't have confidence that we will help them, they'll cut a deal with China to protect themselves and turn away from us.
So we have to be careful about maintaining our power in the Pacific and maintaining our reputation for supporting allies and fighting until we win. If any nation, like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, or Vietnam think that they can't count on us for effective military support, they'll withdraw from the potential balancing coalition against China. And once one country defects, the power potential arrayed against China will drop enough to perhaps push another country to defect and align with China rather than with us.
Thus, even a reduction in our military power that may seem marginal to us could be what tips the system against us in a cascade of defections, causing a dramatic drop in coalition power arrayed against China, and denying us the capability of operating in the western Pacific. Instead of being a rear base to support our allies against China, Guam would become an outpost as we are pushed back to the Aleutians-Hawaii line for our line of defense against Chinese naval power.
Keeping allies is as much about denying their power to enemies as it is about adding their power to our side. Make the effort to maintain those relationships and forge new ones.
