US to expand defenses with regional allies around China
Editor’s Note: This article by Andrew Salmon features a quote from CSP Senior Fellow Grant Newsham.
SEOUL — The world’s attention has been focused on Chinese balloons in near space, but a far more terrestrial struggle is playing out across East Asia with the Biden administration’s moves to deepen America’s economic, diplomatic and military footprints along China’s periphery.
In recent weeks, the U.S. cheered Japan’s plan to vastly expand its defense budget and worked to improve relations between Tokyo and Seoul. In the Philippines, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed a deal with Manila to expand U.S. military access to the archipelago’s bases.
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The decision resulted from “breathtaking miscalculations [and cowardice] on the part of U.S. and Japanese alliance managers,” said Grant Newsham, a retired Marine officer and diplomat. “It had nothing much to do with actual military strategy and a lot to do with being cowed by a noisy Okinawa minority.”
A Feb. 4 agreement between Manila and Washington to open more sites to U.S. forces in the Philippines potentially places American boots on strategic soil in the range of Taiwan and the South China Sea.
210818-D-BN624-0120 by U.S. Secretary of Defense is licensed under CC BY 2.0
