Indo-Pacific grand design a recipe?

Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, Singapore | Thu, 12/08/2011 8:59 AM A | A | A | - Klipping the Jakarta Post

In his visit to Australia last month, US President Barack Obama announced a plan to station 2,500 US marines in Darwin. Rather than building new bases, the US marines will share the Australian Army’s Robertson Barracks instead.

Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith said the deal also included greater access for US military aircraft to Northern Australia and even expanded ship and submarine visits in Western Australia.

With all eyes still glued to Darwin, talks have also been ongoing to build a joint US-Australian air force and naval base in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The Cocos group of two atolls and 27 islands is roughly 600 nautical miles (nm) southwest of the Sunda Strait and only 1,272 kilometers from Jakarta.

The Cocos currently serve as a refueling station for Australia’s P-3C Orion maritime surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft, and soon, its new P-8 Poseidons. The Cocos would certainly provide a better vantage point for the US to monitor and, should it wish to, control Southeast Asia’s vital sea lanes than the Diego Garcia military base, nearly 1,500 nm west of the Cocos.

At the strategic level, this policy could be understood as part of America’s Pacific re-engagement. In a Foreign Policy magazine article, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that “strengthening bilateral military alliances” and “forging a broad-based military presence” would be among the top items on the US Indo-Pacific agenda.

Clearly, the US is both trying to hold China’s military in check and assure regional friends and allies that America is still around. China’s unilateral claims in the South China Sea and its growing assertiveness in enforcing them, make the US more popular among Beijing’s Southeast Asian neighbors. The US, Australia, and India, are also increasingly wary of China’s so-called “string-of-pearls” strategy to forward-deploy its naval assets into the Indian Ocean.

Operationally, Australia makes perfect sense for US military deployment. Unlike Japan, Guam, or Korea, which are located within China’s military operational reach, Australia provides a relatively more stand-off position — neither too close nor too distant.

An Australian international security expert, Alan Dupont, said US forces in Australia would be “out of missile range from China” and Chinese missiles are already believed to target US bases in the western Pacific. Furthermore, Australia also offers operational flexibility for US forces to maneuver across the Indo-Pacific rim.

James Holmes, an associate professor from the US Naval War College said Australia provides “a central position” for US seaborne forces to “swing” between its bases in Japan and Bahrain, while “bypassing the South China Sea, a body of water that would be hotly contested during a shooting war involving China.”

With the facilities in Darwin and the Cocos the US could throttle China. Most crude oil tankers bound for China from the Middle East are simply too large to transit the shallow Malacca Strait. Hence, the deeper Sunda and Lombok Straits provide the most viable alternatives for these tankers to transit — and the US to interdict them.

They are also deep enough for ballistic missile nuclear submarines (SSBN) to transit. China’s new Type 094(Jin)-class SSBNs, currently based in Sanya, Hainan Island, could transit these sea lanes should they be deployed for future deterrence patrols in the Indian Ocean.

However, with US military footprints already widely scattered across the Indo-Pacific rim, one must ask whether adding more American boots on the ground will be better off for regional peace and stability, particularly with China being perceived as the bogeyman. While China’s “string-of-pearls” strategy remains sketchy at best, Washington is already underway crafting its own “necklace” around China’s periphery. And these moves have drawn mixed responses from Southeast Asia.

Vietnam and the Philippines strongly welcomed the idea. Ricky Carandang, Philippine Secretary of Communications, said the American presence is “ultimately a stabilizing force”. Others, like Indonesia, are more cautious. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the US move could “provoke a reaction and counter-reaction that would create a vicious cycle of tensions and mistrust”. A reaction which many would expect from China.

Although the Chinese Foreign Ministry only gave a modest response by calling the new US military deployment “not appropriate”, it might belie the true extent of China’s anxiety. Indeed, several weeks later, the Chinese Defense Ministry said US military deployment in Asia reflects a “Cold War mentality”. People’s Liberation Army Maj. Gen. Yuo Luan further wrote in the People’s Daily newspaper recently that “the intent [of the US] is very clear, it is aimed at China, to contain China.”

The US Indo-Pacific grand design, therefore, will further confirm China’s suspicions over the US-led containment strategy. Worse, this could set a “China-versus-the-rest” perception on the part of Beijing that is certainly unhelpful in defusing tensions and addressing regional security challenges.

For Indonesia and Southeast Asia in general, such a destabilizing move is certainly not in their interests. Already, Southeast Asian countries themselves are modernizing their militaries with acquisitions ranging from long-range strike aircraft to killer submarines. Before long, it might only need a small incident to spark off a crisis, if not conflict, and should that occur, it is not Australia, but Southeast Asia which would be caught in the cross-fire.

Perhaps a less sensitive approach by America could be through what international relations expert Stephen Walt calls “offshore balancing” — to diplomatically and militarily support regional allies and friends, without adding more military footprints overseas. For example, America could conduct more joint military exercises and training with regional states, or for the latter to acquire sophisticated US military hardware more easily.

Faced with a cash-strapped defense budget and economic woes at home, Washington should see this as an attractive option. This could also allay regional concerns over the presence of foreign military bases in their backyards, for an American presence does not have to come with the presence of Americans.

The writer is a research analyst with the Maritime Security Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. The opinions expressed are his own.