The US Has Never Pivoted to the Indo-Pacific

Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany in 1932. His rhetoric and actions between 1932 and 1939 made it clear to anyone willing to see and hear and read that he sought German hegemony in Europe and beyond. He ignored and violated international norms, grew Germany’s military, and used political pressure to intimidate smaller powers. Step by step, Hitler upset the European balance of power, while the other major powers looked on, hoping to appease the dictator and avoid a repeat of the slaughter of the Great War. Some courageous British bureaucrats fed Winston Churchill facts and figures that revealed the dangerous trends that were manifested in Germany’s bold moves on the European chessboard. Britain under the appeasers and the United States under Franklin Roosevelt’s “leadership” eventually rearmed, but not in time to avoid the global war that all dreaded. We are facing a similar situation today in China’s moves to achieve hegemony in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

America’s war planners in the 1930s rhetorically argued for a “Europe First” strategy in the event of war, the Roosevelt administration, however, did not “pivot to Europe” but instead cut the defense budget in a way that alarmed then–Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur who nearly resigned after confronting the president with facts about America’s unpreparedness. And while Roosevelt gradually began to provide aid to Britain in the late 1930s, as late as 1940 he publicly promised that no American boys would be fighting in another European war. FDR did nothing effectively to deter war, and he left the United States woefully unprepared for war when it came.

President Xi Jinping gained power in 2012. Since then, his rhetoric and actions have made it clear to anyone willing to see, hear, and read that he seeks Indo-Pacific hegemony as a first step in replacing the United States as the world’s leading power. Xi has expanded China’s economic and geopolitical reach via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), grown China’s military with an emphasis on naval power and nuclear arms to offset America’s extended deterrent in the western Pacific, asserted China’s hegemony in the South China Sea, pressured Hong Kong into political submission, and waged political/psychological warfare against Taiwan. 

The Obama administration announced to much fanfare a “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia, but it turns out that the “pivot” was mostly rhetoric. Barack Obama, however reluctantly, kept America’s focus on the Middle East (Iraq, Iran, the Arab Spring, and Afghanistan). He permitted our naval power to atrophy while China’s navy overtook us in numbers of ships in the western Pacific. He failed to modernize our nuclear deterrent under the mistaken belief that arms control led to stability. Simon Tisdall in the Guardian pronounced Obama’s Asia pivot a failure that left the United States looking impotent in the region.

The Trump administration came into office staffed with what the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin characterized as China “superhawks,” “hawks,” and those who sought to continue Obama’s policy of engagement. At the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, the “superhawks” were ascendant, as advisers like Peter Navarro, Mike Pompeo, Matt Pottinger, and Elbridge Colby steered the administration in the direction of confrontation with China. The 2018 National Defense Strategy shifted the focus of U.S. national security efforts from the small wars of the Middle East to great power competition. Trump called for strengthening U.S. naval power, including building up to a 500-ship navy, but the Biden administration’s defense budget put an end to that.

American Navy Lt. Commander Jonathan Wachtel, writing in the National Interest, claims that the United States is in the process of once again being unprepared for a potential war against a great power opponent — this time in the Indo-Pacific. Instead of funding a “pivot” to Asia, a whopping 86 percent of our Foreign Military Financing (FMF) continues to go to the Middle East. “All told,” Wachtel explains, “under 2 percent of yearly FMF funding goes towards America’s priority theater — the Indo-Pacific.” More money, he argues, should be going to our allies in the First and Second Island Chains in the western Pacific because no conflict elsewhere “existentially threatens the United States itself.”

It is time, in other words, to back up our rhetoric about a “pivot to Asia” with the funding necessary to achieve that strategic pivot. If we don’t, it may become too late. And as Douglas MacArthur once reminded us: “The history of failure in war can almost always be summed up in two words: ‘Too late.’ Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy. Too late in realizing the mortal danger. Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance.”  

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