So Much for the ‘Pivot to Asia’

The American industrial base, like the budget, is finite, and arms sent and used in one region cannot be used to project power in another. The recent decision by the Trump administration to move components of an air defense system from South Korea to the Middle East underscores this basic reality. It also demonstrates that the American adventure in Iran, far from hurting China, risks involving the U.S. in another Mideast quagmire that distracts from strategic competition in Asia.

The end of the Obama administration saw the beginning—or what many thought was the beginning—of the long awaited ‘pivot to Asia,’ and the incoming Trump administration recognized the threat from China in a way few others in the pre-2016 era of politics did. President Donald Trump staffed up with China hawks who recognized a need to seriously commit to East Asia and, to that end, to wind down the Middle Eastern wars—a thought process that led to the negotiated end to the Afghanistan war.

Leaving Afghanistan was a rare foreign policy goal that Presidents Trump and Biden shared, and the latter was the one who made the decision to implement the withdrawal after two decades of boots on the ground, in keeping with his long reported skepticism of the conflict. For a moment, it did seem that there was a bipartisan consensus, long overdue, that the future of American dominance must be in East Asia and that the Middle East could no longer be the main focus of foreign policy. 

However, after years of renewed Mideast conflict following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, and especially after Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran in late February, that emerging consensus has been shattered before it could truly take hold. The “pivot to Asia” feels as far away as it was in the early 2000s. There is one crucial difference though—in that era, we had economic and political capital to waste, and waste it we very much did. Today, we face a challenge in China, which has rapidly risen to become America’s first peer competitor since the Cold War if not the end of World War II. The unipolar moment is truly over.

The moment requires Asian allies, and those allies in turn require a serious commitment, especially if they are to align with America to balance against China, the aspiring regional hegemon. But the actions of the U.S. government over the past month are unlikely to stiffen the spines of its partners in the region. Consider U.S. Naval power. The USS Tripoli amphibious assault ship, along with the 2000 Marines on board, was moved from Japan to the Strait of Hormuz, missile destroyers were sent from the country to the Arabian Sea, and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was sent to the Gulf of Oman from the South China Sea. All of this is in addition to the aforementioned THAAD air defense system parts sent from South Korea, as well as the nearly $200 billion the Pentagon is likely to ask Congress to approve for the war efforts. 

The THAAD system is one of the most egregious examples on the list. The Korean government, when it agreed to host the system, faced significant diplomatic and economic blowback. China’s then-ambassador warned that the move could destroy the ties between the two countries, and Beijing encouraged its citizens to boycott South Korean goods and services. The Chinese people honored the request sufficiently to have a negative impact on South Korean sales and tourism. Not even a decade later, the costs for Seoul of hosting the system seem to have been for naught, and the South Korean government justifiably opposed the U.S. decision to pull the THAAD components out of the country. Such episodes make Asian countries think twice about deepening their partnerships with the U.S.

As such skepticism rises, American options in Asia become more limited. And the longer that munitions are expended in the Middle East, the more limited the options to project power in East Asia become. Production of key defense systems is already constrained, and after manufacture, they can only be sent to one place. By deploying so much materiel to the Middle East, the U.S. demonstrates it doesn’t really prioritize Asia, and partners and adversaries alike wonder what weapons America would have available to fight a future war with China. To paraphrase former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the industrial base, the force posture, and the allies you have, not the ones you wish you had. 

The industrial base we have can and will expand, but that won’t erase the need to make hard choices about foreign policy priorities. As of now, it seems American leaders prioritize litigating the challenges of the past few decades, rather than focusing on the challenges of tomorrow.

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