The world outside of INDOPACOM is not a safe haven that America can safely ignore.
At times, the strategic conversation of the United States appears to be a zero-sum bargaining exercise: push the majority of assets to the Indo-Pacific Region, do away with other theaters such as the Middle East. This is an incorrect template for questioning. The right approach is not about where to invest all the assets, but rather how to best organize American power and allied industrial capabilities so that the US can deter high-end war in the Indo-Pacific while also being meaningfully involved and resilient in other regions. The alternative, however, is brittle: either to be overcommitted or to invite strategic surprise.
Agreed. Surely a pivot to the Pacific is justified. But the rest of the world is composed of economy-of-force fronts that need lesser amounts of routine American military attention.
The author advises three pillars of policy template:
- The logistics and force posture to avoid a theater-wide Pearl Harbor, as I've called it.
- Increasing joint production capabilities with allies. Production is key.
- Build forces to last rather than assuming short and glorious wars. Agreed.
I've warned against tunnel vision in regard to the China threat.
And while a potentially dangerous threat, remember that China is the "pacing" threat and not an acute threat that both Russia and Iran are. As a pacing threat China has the type of military that we must match our military capabilities against. Pace China and lesser threats are within our capabilities, too. And if those threats are acute, we must defeat them.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 continues here.
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