U.S.–Southeast Asia Relations in the Age of the Rebalance

As the Barack Obama administration moved towards its last year in office, the United States’ relations with ASEAN were ostensibly sound. However, Washington’s future ties with the region remained contingent on larger forces of global change that could undermine such relationships. Most regional leaders quietly welcomed, for example, the American naval destroyer USS Lassen’s passage within the twelve nautical mile territorial limit claimed by China at Subi Reef near the Spratly Islands during late October 2015, as a symbolic demonstration of the United States’ determination to maintain freedom of navigation (FON) in the South China Sea. If China continues to rise, the United States will invariably be viewed by ASEAN policymakers as an indispensable counterweight for maintaining regional stability in Asia. American policy planners, however, are facing increasingly daunting challenges in the Middle East, in Europe and from international terrorism which is increasingly threatening to envelop their homeland. Given the growing intensity of such challenges, matching resources with the capabilities required to implement and sustain a viable U.S. geopolitical footprint in Asia will become increasingly formidable.

The case of the U.S. “pivot” or “rebalancing” strategy is illustrative. This policy approach was touted by key officials serving during President Obama’s first term in office (2009–12) as “a sustained and multi-dimensional strategy” rather than as “simply a shifting of [U.S.] military resources” to the Asia-Pacific region. It was represented as a posture with widely diverse diplomatic, economic and cultural designs underpinning Washington’s regional engagement.¹ However, one of its key instigators, Kurt Campbell (Obama’s initial Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs) has since lamented that the military aspects of this strategy have been exaggerated relative to its broader objectives, including the solidification of the international norms and law upon which Asia-Pacific order-building should be predicated, strengthening regional prosperity and promoting democratic values.²

A subsequent policy correction in this regard has indeed been realized, but largely by default. Confronted with intensifying budgetary constraints affecting all U.S. government expenditures, the U.S. Department of Defense has recently served notice in key documents forwarded to the American Congress that the FY2016 U.S. defence expenditures would be predicated on a “global” rather than an “Asian basis” due to intensifying global strategic concerns.³

How the United States has adjusted its rebalancing policy as it applies to Southeast Asia during the period 2014–15 is initially discussed. Southeast Asian responses to such American policy adjustments are then evaluated. A concluding section briefly discusses how rebalancing may evolve and its relative importance as a new American presidential administration takes office in early 2017. The underlying argument posited here is that while rebalancing is complicated by various Southeast Asian states’ particular concerns over the nature of their security relationships with Washington, it has generally facilitated a more active U.S. geopolitical involvement in their region at a time when the growth of Chinese power there may require that effective American counter-balancing be instigated.

U.S. Rebalancing: The Southeast Asian Dimension

When formally announcing his rebalancing strategy to the Australian Parliament in November 2011, President Obama emphasized that the United States’ defence posture needed to evolve in ways that would create a more “broadly distributed” force presence in the region. He specifically designated the need for U.S. force enhancement in Southeast Asia.⁴ Rotational contingents of U.S. Marines in Darwin, the permanent deployment of littoral combat ships in Singapore and the planned increase of naval and air support elements in the Asia-Pacific to 60 per cent of total U.S. force capabilities constituted the foundation for a “reinvigorated” American military presence. As the rebalancing concept evolved over subsequent years, its framework broadened commensurately. In March 2013, Obama’s National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon, identified six fundamental “pillars” upon which rebalancing rested: a comprehensive multidimensional strategy, strengthening alliances, deepening partnerships, building more stable relations with China, empowering regional institutions such as ASEAN, and building a regional economic architecture that can sustain regional prosperity.⁵ A seventh...