America is not "distracted" from its main threat by preparing for other threats, too.
Washington now treats Europe and the Indo-Pacific as one linked strategic theater. The United States expects all of its allies and partners to maintain the same approach towards China and Russia, regardless of their strategic position or relationship to the Indo-Pacific and Europe. In his recent visits to Japan and Australia, President Joe Biden “huddles with allies on their continued response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as ways to confront China’s assertive economic and military moves in the Indo-Pacific region.” ...
As a nation, it is crucial for the United States to acknowledge the inherent limitations, cost, and unsustainability of pursuing global primacy or an expansive definition of American interests and responsibilities. Washington can’t do everything everywhere, all at once.
One, I agree we can't do everything all at once. We never could. Even in World War II. We shifted naval resources back and forth between theaters for specific operations. We shifted power from the Italy front to France in 1944. And we needed European theater divisions after the defeat of Germany to prepare for the invasion of Japan.
But the more important aspect is that we don't know where the big threat will explode tomorrow. Sure, China is the "pacing" threat that we measure our capabilities against. If we can handle China, we're pretty sure we can handle a lesser threat. But Russia is an active threat right now. Iran and North Korea are threats. Nor should we forget jihadi terrorists. Plus surprise threats could emerge.
All we can do is prepare as best we can by balancing threats, likelihood of threats, and the potential losses of failing to prepare for threats in different regions. Allies can help us allocate resources as best we can.
Two, the author notes that regional powers like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia don't want to be part of such a broad, unified threat assessment.
Fine. That's where diplomats come in to get the most from such friends and allies while not pushing for so much that it alienates them. And I'd add in almost all of NATO and not just Turkey probably wouldn't be happy to be committed to resisting any enemy anywhere in the planet.
But that approach to rejecting a broad unified threat assessment should not allow regional allies to wall off their alliance efforts in one region to the point where they enable with trade and technology the threatening power from outside their region.
And that approach should encompass allied tripwire deployments to the other theater that don't harm their primary theater responsibilities.
America really does have interests in almost any area of the planet. While we must have priorities on limited resources for what the biggest potential danger is and what the most pressing current danger is, basically we have to be mentally prepared to adapt to anything.
