Washington’s Power Recalibration In The Indo-Pacific – OpEd

In the corridors of Washington, the world is increasingly viewed through the narrow prism of a besieged fortress. For the nations of the Indo-Pacific, the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), released on January 23 under the title Restoring Peace Through Strength for a New Golden Age of America, offers a vision as unsettling as it is unambiguous. It signals a retreat into a “Homeland First” posture, leaving the region to navigate the turbulent waters of a shifting global order with a map where many traditional landmarks have been erased.

The most striking feature of this new strategic doctrine is the deliberate omission of Taiwan. In a document that purports to chart the course for regional security, the absence of the self-ruled island—long the focal point of friction—is a silence that resonates more loudly than any rhetoric. This pivot suggests a transactional recalibration, where the American administration appears to be wagering that by de-emphasizing specific flashpoints, it can clear the path for a broader economic grand bargain with Beijing. It is a gamble that treats long-standing security guarantees as variables in a larger equation of domestic priority.

For Australia, this shift presents a profound dilemma. Canberra has long tethered its security to the reliability of the American “primary producer.” Yet the 2026 NDS introduces a new and demanding vocabulary for “model allies.” Although Australia is not mentioned by name, the document’s insistence that allies must shoulder their “fair share” of the burden—pegged to a daunting benchmark of 5 percent of GDP for core and security-related spending—places a heavy hand on the scales of Australian domestic policy. The comfortable certainties of the AUKUS agreement, once framed as a seamless integration of three great maritime democracies, now look more like a steep price of admission to a club whose membership rules are being rewritten in real-time.

For Japan, the implications are equally acute. Although the Pentagon maintains that the alliance remains a “linchpin,” the fine print tells a story of outsourced stability. The NDS demands a significant increase in burden-sharing, a phrase that has become the polite euphemism for the rising costs of maintaining a presence in the Pacific. Tokyo is being nudged, with increasing force, to take “primary responsibility” for the security of its own periphery.

The recent dialogue in Washington between Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi underscored this shift. Although there are plans to expand joint training and boost production of the Standard Missile-3 Block 2A, the underlying message is clear: Japan must accelerate its own defense industrial base to fill the potential void. As regional powers stake their claims through “established facts” on the water, Tokyo finds itself in a position where its “independent judgment” must now translate into a formidable military reality.

If Japan is being asked to do more, India is being asked to wonder where it stands in the hierarchy of American interests. The 2026 strategy contains no explicit mention of New Delhi, a curious exclusion for a nation recently courted as an indispensable partner. This omission occurs even as U.S. Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll visited New Delhi on January 25 to discuss “military-to-military engagement” with General Upendra Dwivedi.

The strategic ambiguity of the NDS was brought into sharp relief on February 2, 2026, during a high-stakes phone call between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a move that mirrors the administration’s broader transactional philosophy, a “trade truce” was announced, slashing U.S. tariffs on Indian goods from a punitive 50 percent (the highest for any major partner) down to 18 percent. This “reset” was contingent not on shared democratic values, but on a hard-nosed bargain: India reportedly pledged to halt its purchase of Russian oil and commit to a staggering $500 billion in American imports. Although New Delhi hailed this as a “wonderful announcement” for its exporters, the deal underscores the NDS’s core message. In the new Washington, security is no longer an abstract guarantee—it is a commodity to be negotiated, one phone call at a time.

The disconnect between high-level strategy and ground-level diplomacy suggests a Washington that is either deeply divided or increasingly erratic. India may find this omission a blessing in disguise, reinforcing the view that relying on a capricious superpower is a recipe for disappointment. The NDS’s focus on “homeland defense” and “Western Hemisphere dominance” confirms that the American gaze has shifted inward, leaving the “Indo” part of the Indo-Pacific to seek its own equilibrium.

The strategy’s approach to China is a study in pragmatic contradiction. It labels Beijing as a priority subordinate to the defense of the American homeland, stating the goal is to deter through strength “not confrontation.” This is a significant departure from the “pacing threat” language of previous years. The administration now speaks of “strategic stability” and “de-escalation,” seeking to move away from kinetic conflict toward a more managed coexistence.

Beijing, for its part, operates within the gaps left by this shifting posture. Whether it is the presence of the China Coast Guard near the Senkaku Islands or the deployment of mobile drilling vessels, the strategy of incremental encroachment meets an American strategy of selective engagement. The NDS calls for a “denial defense” along the First Island Chain, yet it skips the very details that would make such a defense credible to the allies on the front lines.

The administration’s rhetoric about a “New Golden Age” of American power rings hollow when paired with a strategy that signals a reluctance to lead. By demanding that allies from Canberra to Tokyo shoulder the weight of regional stability, Washington is essentially admitting that the era of the global policeman has reached its sunset.

• This article was also published at FPIF