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America’s Indo-Pacific allies must accept shared responsibility and defence capability spending to preserve the “geopolitical hinge of the 21st century”, according to US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby.
Under Secretary of War for Policy Colby made the comments about the Indo-Pacific region during a conference with ASEAN Secretary-General Dr Kao Kim Hourn and outgoing ambassador of the Republic of Korea to ASEAN Lee Jang-keun at the Sejong Institute in South Korea on 26 January.
The discussion was part of Colby’s first international trip to South Korea since taking up the role as Under Secretary of War for Policy.
“The Indo-Pacific is now a primary centre of gravity of global growth, a hub of global manufacturing, including here in South Korea, and the geopolitical hinge of the 21st century. As a result, as these documents make clear, Americans’ long-term security, prosperity and liberties will be decisively shaped by developments in this region,” Colby said.
“Americans need to be clear-eyed about what our interests are in Asia, what we are prepared to do to defend those interests, and what a satisfactory equilibrium looks like.
“It will be preserved by power intelligently and rightly applied; and specifically by a durable favourable balance of power that, as the National Security Strategy lays out, prevents domination of this crucial region by any single state … The protection of American and allied interests through a stability rooted in credible deterrence and strategic balance.
“A favourable balance of power requires capable allies with real military strength, real industrial capacity and real political resolve … President Trump has consistently argued that alliances are strongest when they are based on shared responsibility rather than permanent dependency.
“The model he has laid out is based on simple common sense; alliances are most durable and formidable when they are partnerships. With each member motivated by love for its own country, when the alliances are grounded in shared interests, and when they governed by pragmatic mutual respect and adaptation.”
Colby also fired a shot across the bow at historically deficient defence spending by NATO allies in Europe.
“For a generation, polite American pleas to Europeans to spend more on defence fell on deaf ears. Rather, Europeans effectively calculated that they could continue to underspend and America would, motivated by gauzy abstractions like the ‘rules-based international order’, still hold the bag as we say in the US,” he said.
“The upshot of that was the result in the dramatic weakening of European military power; something that benefited neither Europe nor America, and was a violation of the noble example of the Cold War, when Europe did pull its weight far more.
“Now, thanks to President Trump’s leadership, our NATO allies, after decades of underinvestment, have pledged to meet what the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy declare as a new global standard of allied defence spending; 3.5 per cent of GDP on core military functions.
“I must stress, these principles apply as much in Asia as they do in Europe.
“Now this is intimately and fully understood and reflected in action here in this great country of South Korea … South Korea understands strategic reality.
“South Korea has invested consistently in its own defence because it understands geography, threat and the centrality of concrete military power. And in this time, President Lee’s decision to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent to this new global standard and to assume greater responsibility for South Korea’s conventional defence reflects a clear-eyed and sage understanding of how to address the security environment that we all face, and how to put our storied and historic alliance on sound footing for the long haul.
“That is a rational, practical and hard-headed response to step up to partnership. It is in America’s interest to be sure, but even more, it is in South Korea’s interest. And that is exactly the kind of action and logic that the United States is encouraging from our allies.
“Alliances cannot be built on sentiment alone. They must rest on aligned interests, shared risk, proportionate contributions and mutual benefit.”
Colby also drew on the US’ National Security Strategy and the newly released National Defense Strategy to discuss the geopolitical balance with China in the Indo-Pacific.
“President Trump has been clear that we can and should strive for a stable, peaceful relationship with China that protects the interests of the United States and our allies,” he said.
“The United States under President Trump’s wise leadership does not seek to dominate China, nor do we seek to strangle or humiliate it.
What we seek, and what the President has consistently articulated, is a genuinely stable equilibrium that works for Americans as well as for our allies: a favourable balance of power in which no state can impose its hegemony.
“This stability will allow us to trade with each other and for our nations to prosper, agreeing where we can and differing where we must in a respectful and clear-eyed fashion.
“We must be clear-eyed about China’s ongoing military modernisation and build-up, and the growing activities of its military in this region and increasingly beyond. I say that not as an accusation but rather as a simple but evident observation.
“We are not pursuing regime change against Beijing nor seeking to dominate China. We acknowledge and respect China’s proud history.
“We are focused on building a military posture in the Western Pacific that ensures that aggression along the first island chain is infeasible, that escalation unattractive, and war is indeed irrational.
“This includes a resilient, distributed, and modernised force posture across Japan, the Philippines, the Korean Peninsula, and elsewhere in the region, a posture optimised for a denial of quick or decisive gains through military force, that is resilient rather than fragile, and that binds us together in our shared pursuit of peace and stability.
“We are not seeking a hostile relationship with Beijing. We are seeking a stable one: a decent peace.”
