America’s Dysfunctional Grand Strategy in Asia

For decades, the United States has been following a grand strategy in East Asia that violates many of the main maxims of genuinely strategic thinking. In consequence, the nation is being exposed to more and greater military risks than it is reducing or eliminating, and is exacting large and unnecessary economic costs—especially on American workers. The major flaws in U.S. grand strategy for the region begin with the mistaken view that the United States is highly vulnerable to changes in the Asian balance of power and the resulting conclusion that the nation requires a highly activist policy of shaping military, political, economic, and social trends in the region to achieve acceptable levels of security and prosperity for itself. Because U.S. policymakers have fundamentally misread America’s geopolitical and geoeconomic position in Asia, they rely on policy tools incapable of achieving Washington’s stated objectives. Finally, U.S. security and economic objectives in the region are hopelessly at odds with each other. Rather than continue to face excessive risks and exhaust itself economically trying to micromanage this vast, turbulent, and unpredictable region, the United States should adopt a more passive strategy of withdrawing militarily from East Asia and the Western Pacific and using its economic leverage to create more favorable terms of trade and investment with the region.