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Second to None? Evaluating a Second Island Chain Strategy · Net Assessment

• 0:08
  Melanie Marlowe: Hello, and welcome to Net Assessment, where we debate the hard choices facing America's national security and foreign policy communities. Today we're going to talk about the American footprint in Asia. Should the United States shed formal alliances in Asia in favor of shorter-term, less demanding security agreements? Would pulling back to the second island chain be a better strategy for the United States? And should U.S. policy shift from strategic ambiguity to a clear non-intervention policy in the event of any military confrontation over Taiwan? I'm Melanie Marlowe of CSIS, here with Chris Preble of the Stimson Center and Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute. I don't even have to ask how you are, Chris.
• 0:45
  Chris Preble: Hello. Hello again, listeners. So, excited to be here.
• 0:51
  Melanie Marlowe: You sound pretty cheerful for a guy who lost last night.
• 0:54
  Zack Cooper: Yeah, for a Vikings loss. Yeah.
• 0:56
  Chris Preble: Hey, you know what? We weren't as good as six and 0, and I think we might be as good as six and one. So, there you have it. I think that's an accurate representation of how this team is. We're going to see it even more so. They play the Bills next week, so that's an even tougher test. So, we'll see how that goes.
• 1:11
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. All right. Anything else, Chris?
• 1:14
  Chris Preble: The Minnesota Wild are in first place in their division and the second most point totals in the NHL. So, there's that. This is why you have multiple sports teams, because you can fix on the ones that are doing exceptionally well, and right now the Wild are really killing it, so.
• 1:33
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Zack, how about you?
• 1:35
  Zack Cooper: I mean, you know, I'm a Washington sports fan, so...
• 1:39
  Melanie Marlowe: And you admit it.
• 1:41
  Zack Cooper: It's been a long-
• 1:42
  Melanie Marlowe: We'll get you help.
• 1:43
  Zack Cooper: ... life. The Commanders did win a game.
• 1:45
  Chris Preble: The Wild beat the Capitals yesterday five to one. Just throwing it out there, so you know, yeah.
• 1:50
  Zack Cooper: The Washington sports teams, listeners, are not the best. The Nationals are struggling. The Capitals have a team captain who's supportive of Vladimir Putin. You know, we haven't won an NBA playoff game in forever, and the Commanders won a game yesterday, so that's, I guess that's success.
• 2:11
  Melanie Marlowe: Well, I always have a Caps hat in my suitcase for when I go walking or whatever when I travel. So, whenever I go visit my nieces and nephews, I tell them, "If anybody talks back to Mom, you have to wear the Caps hat," and they're especially mortified by that, so. Well, I have been shockingly enjoying the dark nights, at least.
• 2:30
  Chris Preble: I thought you hate daylight saving time. Wait, what?
• 2:34
  Melanie Marlowe: I do hate daylight saving time. It's lovely that it's dark early. It's so nice and cozy. It's perfect.
• 2:40
  Chris Preble: Yeah, whatever. You're weird.
• 2:42
  Melanie Marlowe: Especially great night last night with Denver beating the Chiefs, and just the cherry on top of that is Freddy, our German friend, was at the game. Enjoyed that. Okay. Well, Zack, you have the discussion today. Tell us what we're talking about.
• 2:57
  Zack Cooper: All right. Well, we have a piece that I think a lot of our listeners may have heard about. Some of them may have read it. It's Jennifer Kavanagh's essay called "The Second Island Chain Strategy for Asia." This came out from Defense Priorities in about mid-September of this year. And the core argument here is that the United States maintains a much larger footprint in Asia than is necessary for the defense of its interests. And as a result, Jennifer suggests ending U.S. commitments to most U.S. allies in Asia and withdrawing to the second island chain. So, as I said, this piece has gotten a lot of attention, and I want to say two positive things about it before we delve into it in more detail. The first is, I do think we, as the national security community, should be thinking about a broad set of options. Even if we are somewhat skeptical of those options, we should be thinking about what they would mean in detail, and Jennifer does that here. And the second point I'll make is that Jennifer goes into a fair amount of detail on individual relationships, alliances in particular, and also on the force structure that would result from the changes that she's advocating. And so, I think it means that readers can get a much better sense of what this new world would look like that she's proposing, and I think that's beneficial. So, people should read the piece. I'll wait a couple of minutes before I weigh in with my own opinions on it. But before I do, why don't I turn to both of you? Melanie, do you want to start?
• 4:41
  Melanie Marlowe: Sure. I will agree with Zack that it's actually a real report. I have to say she defines what she thinks American interests in that region are, and she gets to hard numbers and capabilities which, you know, we often criticize authors for not, you know, making some of the hard decisions and choices. But that said, I disagree with a lot of it. Although I suspect it might be appealing to people who might populate administrations on either side of the aisle in 2029, just because of where we actually are right now. But a couple of issues that I am concerned about, I feel like there's something dangerously lacking in the absence of discussion about what alliances might mean institutionally here. Maybe it's assumed to be implicit, but I think that the more dangerous things get, that the more I want real ties. There's not very much discussion, I think, about the domestic politics of some of these countries and what that would really mean for some of these capabilities or things that she might wish see happen. I think that there's a downplaying of what China's intentions already are. There's like, you know, "Oh, China needs to have good trade policies because, you know, they need to export their stuff." Although I would say, and this happens a couple of times in the piece, there's something at the beginning that then it's taken a little more seriously at the end. But, you know, China doesn't steal fish catches in other countries' water until it does. It doesn't harass and injure Philippine sailors until it does. It doesn't have ports around the world until it does. It doesn't build islands until it does. It doesn't make those islands more technologically sophisticated and dangerous to everybody in the region until it does. It doesn't harass Australian pilots until it does. So, there's a lot of things that I think are going on that are signals of bigger intentions than perhaps Jennifer does. And then the last two things I'll say is, if the point is not to get into a war in the first place because we can't, you know, maybe because we're further away and we're just not going to be able to do much, or I would say today because, you know, we are strategically naked in a lot of respects with, you know, in terms of weapons and capabilities and so forth, that's fine. If the point is to win a war if something breaks out, then I fail to see how being further away with fewer assets helps. So, in my view, look, this is a strategy that makes deterrence and security harder, more expensive, and less credible. And I think Chris is going to disagree.
• 7:04
  Chris Preble: Yeah. I disagree. I want to make two points right out of the gate. First of all, I'm speaking today for myself. Now, I always speak for myself, but I want to go an extra step here and remind listeners that I am speaking only for myself today because I know that some of my colleagues disagree with my take on this paper. And partly that's because many of my colleagues are not chiefly focused on U.S. policy per se, or even on whether any particular policy makes, as Jennifer writes, "Makes Americans safer or more prosperous." That's the framework she uses on page two, and that's also my framework. That's how I analyze U.S. foreign policy. Does it make Americans safer and more prosperous? And where I disagree with President Trump and some in the America First crowd is I believe that Americans can be safer and more prosperous without others being less safe and less prosperous. It is not a zero-sum game. So, there is a key distinction between how the America Firsters talk about U.S. foreign policy and the way I talk and think about foreign policy. So, that's number one. Second, and I appreciate Zack teeing this up at the outset, the response to this paper, I think, has been completely outrageous. Michael Swaine and Charles Glaser, for example, have both recently made arguments for rethinking U.S. commitments in East Asia, and yet some seem to suggest that Kavanagh simply writing this paper was treasonous. It is not. It is not treasonous. Treason means selling one's own country out to another country. Aldrich Ames, Jonathan Pollard, that's treason. It is not treasonous to scrutinize one's own country's policies with an eye to whether or not those policies make your own country safer and more prosperous, advance that country's interests. It is not treasonous. And so, the response to this paper, I think, has been, for the most part, completely over the top. So, I'm glad that we have a chance to talk about it because I've been stewing on it for a while now, and I think we're going to get into some of the details. I agree with some of the prescriptions that Kavanagh makes. I don't agree with all of them. There are elements that I wish she had played up more than she did. But fundamentally, this paper is about U.S. alliance commitments. Do those commitments make war more or less likely? And can the United States cover those commitments with its available resources or resources that can be made available? And on those grounds, I think she is correct that retrenchment, for all of those reasons, is the correct policy. Now, again, we can disagree on the specific elements of which places we retrench from, but I believe that retrenchment of some form, again, as Charles Glaser makes a very compelling argument in his book, makes that case, partial retrenchment.
• 10:08
  Zack Cooper: Okay, so there's one thing I really agree with you on there, Chris, which is that I don't think there's anything problematic with people proposing ideas for discussion in Washington. And I think one of the things that's good about this piece, but also good about Charlie Glaser's work and also Michael Swaine's to some extent, is that they state assumptions very clearly. For example, I've always appreciated that Charlie Glaser, in his comments on Taiwan, acknowledges that if his assumption that China would not have additional objectives beyond taking Taiwan is wrong, then his strategy would be highly ineffective. And I do think Jennifer tries in this piece also to be pretty clear about what she is assuming so that you can actually have a discussion about her argument from, sort of, within that argument, right? By which I mean there are going to be lots of people that critique this by saying, "Well, this has the American objectives wrong." And I actually think it's more productive for us to have a discussion about if we were to accept Jennifer's objectives as she lays them out, is this the right way to achieve them? And for me, when I read the piece, it was clarifying in the sense that I'm less convinced after reading this piece that a second island chain strategy would work than I have been when I've thought about it in somewhat less detail before reading this piece. And I think that's to Jennifer's credit. Like, she lays out, in many ways, what this would look like, and some of us will find it convincing, some of us won't. For me, the two questions that I end up with, and I think this is similar to Melanie's, are if we really think that the United States is incapable of deterring China in the first island chain, do we think that a second island chain deterrence strategy can hold? Because when I look at the second island chain, I see a handful of very small islands with relatively few defenses compared to the first island chain, which is massive bodies of territory with major U.S. allies on them. So, I think, first, the second island chain strategy seems less persuasive to me, frankly, than, like, a full pullback to CONUS or Hawaii or something like that. If you think the assumptions that Jennifer lays out here are right, I don't see why we're just pulling back to the second island chain. Why not pull back to Hawaii and California and Washington and Oregon? The other point I would make is that if you disagree with her assumptions in some areas and think, for example, that China could in fact cut off U.S. trade within the first island chain, and that would be very damaging to U.S. interests, then I think she's pretty clear here that the second island chain strategy is going to accept some amount of risk, and we're going to have to, sort of, assume or hope that China won't cut off those trade routes because it's not in their interest. So, I think this piece is clarifying, or will be for some people, because it helps lay out the terms of the debate, and I think that's really valuable. So, I thought before we take a step back and ask these really big-picture questions, it might be helpful for us to delve into what she says on some specific alliances, just one at a time and do it, kind of, quickly. And I think the place to start is where she begins with South Korea. She says, and I'll quote her here, "Of all U.S. treaty commitments, it is the alliance with South Korea that offers the fewest benefits to the United States, especially when compared to its costs and risks. The U.S. role in South Korea is an unnecessary one." End quote. It's pretty direct. It's part of what I appreciate about Jen and this piece, she says what she thinks. So, what's your take on this? Do you think that the U.S. role in South Korea is necessary at all? Do you think that we should see the relationship with South Korea ended, or at least the formal treaty alliance ended? And if we did, what do you think the repercussions would be?
• 14:37
  Chris Preble: I'm glad you added that caveat, Zack, because the United States has relations with lots of countries that we do not have a mutual security commitment to. So, I think that throughout this discussion, I think it's key to, sort of, fix on those details, and whether or not the United States would continue to have productive relations with South Korea in the absence of a formal security commitment, and I believe that we would. I believe there are lots of reasons why the United States would interact often and well with South Korea, in the same way that we, much closer to home, you know, the United States has no formal treaty commitment to Mexico, neither do they to us. And so, I think first and foremost, this is a trading relationship and will continue to be a trading relationship as it is with many other countries in the region. So, I start there. The second thing is, I think that I am going to look at each of these on a case, and I understand we're going to go on a case-by-case basis, but for each of them, the question for me is the same, how effective is our deterrent threat? Is that deterrent threat more or less likely to lead to war? Because again, there's a question about how does the security dilemma come into play here? Because the United States taking measures to defend its stated interest in the region, and therefore on behalf of its allies, may be interpreted as threatening by the states in the region. And I think in the case of South Korea, just to be very specific on this one, I think we have had instances in the last not even quarter century, last 15, 16 years or so, when the credibility of the U.S. deterrent to South Korea was reasonably called into question. There was the Cheonan incident in 2010. You had 46 sailors killed, and what was the United States' response? Nothing. No response at all. And there are other questions about U.S. alliance commitments. And so, for all the talk about doubts about the U.S. commitment to come to Korea's defense in the event of a danger, I think the South Koreans have for some time realized that that's an unlikely proposition and are taking steps to protect themselves as they should and, you know, as they must.
• 16:39
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. We've talked about this a few times on, and maybe my feelings about South Korea aren't as strong as, for example, Japan, but I don't want to give it up. The cost of keeping forces there isn't as much as it might be elsewhere. I'm not exactly sure what we would do with the forces that we have that are there. I don't really want to give up that real estate just in case something happens. I know that, you know, we've talked a lot about the bases in the Middle East and how they were in danger and all of this. Part of the reason they were damaged so much is because although they were told many times to be more hardened and prepared and that bad things were going to happen, it appears that they did not take as many steps as they could or should have to mitigate incoming damage. But I'll say a couple of other things about South Korea. Number one is I do worry that if we left, that they would be more anxious about nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons are brought up many times in this article. And she says that North Korea would be the issue. Well, has there ever been a time when it wasn't just North Korea fighting the war? I'm just not convinced that if there were a real fight in Korea, I'm not sure that it would just be North Korea. I worry that there would be something bigger going on. So, do I really want to pull everybody out of there? No, I don't.
• 17:55
  Zack Cooper: Okay. So, I think part of what's hard in the Korea case is that, and this is why I wanted to start with it, in some ways, you could imagine a U.S. first island chain strategy that doesn't involve South Korea...
• 18:12
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. Chris Preble: Absolutely.
• 18:13
  Zack Cooper: So, in a weird way, South Korea is on its own. You couldn't say this about the Philippines, right? Or Taiwan or Japan in the same way, right?
• 18:24
  Melanie Marlowe: No.
• 18:25
  Chris Preble: No. Melanie Marlowe: Not at all.
• 18:26
  Zack Cooper: Because South Korea is, sort of, within the first island chain in a way, not on the first island chain as people usually think about it. The defensive logic of South Korea is a bit disconnected from other players in the region. And the nature of the threat from North Korea is also very different than the nature of the threat from China. And so, I think what's interesting about the South Korea piece here is there's a great table that Jennifer has on page 16 where she lays out very directly her views on U.S. military requirements. And she says that South Korea is not needed for U.S. homeland defense. It's somewhat needed for economic security for the United States, and its geographic importance is moderate, but she proposes fully ending the alliance with South Korea nonetheless. I actually think the South Korea question is therefore, in some ways, harder than the rest. Which is not to say for listeners in South Korea that I think the U.S. should end its alliance with South Korea. I think, as most people know, I would continue it. But I think what's interesting about this is that, in some ways, it's an easier case for Jennifer to make than I think the first island chain players, because you could walk away from the South Korea alliance without necessarily pulling back all the way to the second island chain. And I don't think this is necessarily the case for some of the other players.
• 20:01
  Chris Preble: It's interesting that you say that in the sense that we have a formal security relationship with South Korea, and we do not have one with Taiwan. And so, I understand what you're saying in terms of geography and in terms of military effectiveness and whatnot, but then there's the question of what does it mean to have an alliance with the United States and vice versa? My comments on this are going to be pretty clear throughout. Jennifer writes on page 22, "The United States benefits from its allies spending more on their defense and being able to protect themselves without U.S. support." I believe that is accurate. I agree with that point. And so, we can quibble over whether or not these states will do what we want them to do, and they won't necessarily, but that's the whole point is that the United States is going to lose some leverage. But I think in the case of South Korea's role in the event of many other contingencies in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, it's a real question mark. Would the South Koreans allow us to use our bases in the event of a Taiwan contingency or in the event of a fight in the South China Sea? That's an open question. It is not certain that they would. And then at Melanie's point, Melanie says she doesn't want to give up this land. Whose land is it? Right? So, if the South Koreans, if Seoul says, "No, you are not allowed to use this territory to send forces, you know, in this contingency," is the U.S. position going to be, "Tough. It's our land, not yours. We're going to do what we think is necessary." Again, this is not a unique scenario entirely to South Korea. I think another point that Kavanagh makes many times in this paper is that access is not the same as bases, and you don't need to have an alliance to have access. And I think that's a point that you don't. We have bases in countries that we do not have a security...
• 21:43
  Melanie Marlowe: Don't say 800.
• 21:44
  Chris Preble: We do not have a security relationship with Djibouti. We do not have an obligation to Djibouti. We have a base there. We do not have an obligation to Syria. We have a base in Syria for now. I hope not much longer. You know, there are places where the United States has access agreements, where we can send ships, where we can refuel. We do not have a security alliance. And I think, again, it's, sort of, like there's a presumption among many in the national security community here in the United States that the alliances confer some suite of benefits to the United States that could not be obtained were it not for the alliance. I just think that's not true.
• 22:19
  Zack Cooper: I think there's a really important question that you raised at the end there, Chris, which is, could we retain access in these countries if we decided to formally end the treaty commitments? I think it's actually a really important question. I'm going to suggest that we come back to it at the end because I think we should talk about some of the other players first. And what I might do here is put together both the Philippines and Australia, which I know are not often mixed, but the reason here is that for both of them, the argument that Jennifer makes is that we should end the alliances but replace them with narrow partnerships, which I think goes to Chris's point. I think what she has in mind from narrow partnerships is some U.S. basing access, but not an actual commitment. There's not a lot in here on Australia. It's really about one paragraph. What she says is that the U.S. should maintain base access and some rotational presence because it could be useful to safeguard necessary access to sea lanes and choke points in Southeast Asia for U.S.-linked commercial trade, but that this partnership need not include a mutual defense clause. On the Philippines, I think the argument is pretty similar. She says that the defense of the Philippines and its outlying claims would need to clearly advance U.S. interests in a significant and sustained way. This is simply not the case. But she does say that she thinks that the Philippines has some benefits from a geographic perspective for the U.S. to be able to operate there. But she says that the mutual defense treaty should be renegotiated to a much narrower and more limited commitment. So, I think one of the questions here is connected to what Chris was just asking, which is, to what degree can you, sort of, downgrade these alliances by getting rid of the U.S. defense commitment and yet maintain the presence and activity that you would want in those countries? Melanie, it looks like you want to jump in on that.
• 24:28
  Melanie Marlowe: And that's, kind of, what I meant by the institutional issue. Like, there is something that is heftier than the security agreements, and I get that there are still some things that some of these countries won't allow us to do or won't want us to do. They may not want us to have nuclear weapons or whatever is going on in a particular contingency. But is there more heft to our asks if we have an alliance? Yeah, in some cases, there is going to be more endurance and more weight given to what the United States is requesting when we have something more than a security agreement.
• 25:02
  Chris Preble: I disagree.
• 25:03
  Melanie Marlowe: I have a hard time believing the AUKUS thing would've happened without an alliance.
• 25:08
  Chris Preble: I disagree. I think alliances reveal common security interests, they don't create them, and that there are common security interests between the United States and Australia, for example, that would have been advanced in the absence of a formal security alliance. I'll put my cards on the table. The alliance with Australia doesn't really concern me. I think that that's fine. But I do think that Kavanagh raises some important questions with respect to Filipino territorial... Not just claims, but territory, disputed territories in the South China Sea. And here again, we have alliance commitments to countries that people believe obligate the United States to treat an attack on those territories as we would an attack on our own. And, you know, pick your distant, barely inhabited island, you know, we have Kiska and Ni'ihau, and we are supposed to treat these the same as Svalbard or the Orkney Islands or Mischief Reef and the Scarborough Shoal, right? That we're supposed to treat an attack on these features, or the Senkaku/Diaoyu, we're going to talk about in Japan in a minute. And I think that when those territorial claims are in dispute, that raises the risk of conflict that I think the United States would not normally be entertaining a notion of a conflict over. And yet, that's exactly what we are doing. We are postured to defend other countries' territories as we would our own. I mean, again, we just have to be honest about it. This is the posture we have chosen, and it is a posture we have chosen in part because we have defined their security interests through the alliances as part of our own security interest.
• 26:52
  Zack Cooper: So, this is part of the essay that I'm not sure I found convincing. I think U.S. commitments are actually much more carefully delineated than that. And in the Philippine section, this comes up a little bit. I think what Jennifer writes is maybe technically accurate here. She says the United States could easily be dragged into a direct war with China over what some have called rocks and reefs in the South China Sea. But the U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines very clearly was limited to the metropolitan areas and an armed attack against Filipino armed forces. So, it did not, when it was first written, specifically require the U.S. to defend all Philippine claims. The same is true right back when the U.S. had a defense treaty, a formal alliance with the Republic of China, with Taiwan. That treaty did not apply to all of Taiwan's outlying claims. It only applied to the main island of Formosa and what was then called the Pescadores, the Penghu Islands, is what we would now say, right? It didn't apply to, like, Kinmen and Matsu in particular because the U.S. didn't want to get dragged in. So, I actually think, like, there is a nuance in existing U.S. commitments that is meant to avoid the U.S. getting dragged into wars, in particular with the Philippines and Taiwan over these smaller claims because we were worried about this. And I think Jennifer here, like, there would be an option that would say, okay, and I think, frankly, this is what Bridge Colby is advocating, the U.S. should just give up on those smaller claims. Now, I think that has some real troubling implications for alliance solidarity and for deterrence, but I don't think it's so much the case that the U.S. has these cut-and-dry claims to defend all of Philippine territory. I think it's much more carefully limited.
• 29:02
  Chris Preble: Fair enough.
• 29:03
  Melanie Marlowe: I agree with that. I mean, even NATO Article 5, people who run around saying that that's just an obligation that we have to go to war with every country that sends a drone into Romania, that's just not true. So, we still make judgments and so forth. The other thing I'll say is about the Philippines, and what really concerns me is what I talked about at the beginning, and I think we're going to get to this is she says, "The United States might try to maintain some military access locations, ports, and airfields that could host rotational air and naval forces. In a crisis, it might offer some combat support or air and naval backstops." Might, might, might. Are you telling me that we would actually try to get involved in a conflict with China that we thought was in our interest, and we wouldn't have access to all of our investments that we have made in the Philippines? I think that's bonkers.
• 29:47
  Chris Preble: Hey, listeners. I want to take a quick break from the show to shout out one of our new supporters, Rob Kremer. Thanks so much, Rob, for being such a loyal listener to the show, and thanks for supporting us. You too can do the same thing that Rob did. You go to stimson.org/donate, indicate it's for "The Net Assessment Podcast." We'd be so grateful for your support. We'll give you a shout-out on the show. And for those of you who love the show but you're not ready to make a donation, that's totally cool, too. You can help us out by giving us a rating or review. I see several of you have done this in the last few weeks. Thanks so much to Rneal1994, who calls the show a joy to listen to, and ColdSteel06 says that it is a must-recommend to people interested in foreign policy and national security. That kind of support just means the world to us, so thanks so much for listening. Thanks, everybody, for your support. And now back to the show.
• 30:40
  Zack Cooper: So, let me suggest, for the purposes of time, we move on to quickly talk about Japan. I don't think the three of us are going to agree on what to do on the Philippines or Australia. But again, just to remind listeners, so with South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia, the recommendation from Jennifer is to fully end those alliances, but maybe keep some rotational presence if possible. In Japan, she has a different approach. She says that the U.S. should phase out over time, but she says Japan, quote, "Remains the most important player in the region's balance of power. The ideal U.S. commitment then would be just enough to push Japan down the balancing road, given its incentives not to bandwagon with China while slowly removing U.S. support." So, here she's not saying that the U.S. should just get rid of the U.S. treaty commitment overnight. She's suggesting something a bit slower and more nuanced, I think, because she's worried that the regional order will, sort of, collapse if the alliance goes away. So, I found it interesting how different this approach is from the three others that we've just talked about. What was your take on the Japan section here?
• 31:55
  Chris Preble: My take was that she did not convince me that this, sort of, middle ground was necessary. So, first of all, again, my assumption, not just in this region, but generally, is that countries balance, they don't bandwagon. Countries don't often willingly throw over to an adversary and hand over their sovereignty to other states. We live in a balancing world, not a bandwagoning world, and that's a fundamental assumption. And so, then the question becomes, how likely is it that Japan will bandwagon with China in the event that the United States were to withdraw its formal commitment, a mutual security commitment to Japan? I think it is highly unlikely, and on multiple occasions in this paper, Kavanagh points out that she thinks that bandwagoning is unlikely, that balancing is a more likely thing. Then the question becomes, well, is it the balancing we're more worried about than it is the bandwagoning? And for me, pretty clear. I'd rather have countries balancing against China with less support from the United States because I think that it is more credible, because it's a more credible deterrent if it's coming from that country as opposed to an extended deterrent, and it's also because we are overstretched, and so we need to rationalize and prioritize our commitments around the world. And even if you put Asia first, which I generally do, even that, it's a big ocean, it's a long way away, and so we need to prioritize. So, I wasn't convinced by her argument that we need to do even what she's proposing to prevent Japan from bandwagoning with China.
• 33:25
  Melanie Marlowe: Well, Chris said they don't willingly bandwagon, and I think that's the truth. I think that there would be a different situation, or could be a different situation, if Taiwan actually fell. And I just abhor seeing "peaceful reunification", I want to do the mostly peaceful meme from the riots, which is what it would be. It would be coerced. It would be forced, and that would not be great. And what I worry about is the Hong Kong scenario happening to other countries where the atmosphere in the region changes, the trade relationships change, the surveillance in some places changes, all of those kinds of things that have an effect. I'm not, like, worried that China's going to go invade all these other countries and necessarily take them over. But you say that you want to see them balancing with less help from the United States. I want to see that, too. And these countries are doing that. Japan is doing a lot better on its security than it was even two years ago. Its spending is better. It's spending on the right things. You know, they are saying the right things. They are making the right partnerships and their bilateral agreements and so forth. And so, all of that is happening. But I'm just not convinced that… You know, I mean, she does acknowledge that the drawdown from Japan should be slower, but what she wants to do with the drawdown, that just doesn't have me convinced that it's going to add to our security. It makes me think it makes us more vulnerable.
• 34:44
  Zack Cooper: Yeah, it's funny, Chris, you're probably not expecting this from me. I agree with you, and I think, to some degree, also with Melanie on the Japan part here. I don't see why drawing down slowly in Japan in this context would make much of a difference. If the U.S. ended its treaty alliances with Australia, with South Korea, and the Philippines, and then went to Tokyo and said, "We're going to slowly end your treaty alliance. Don't worry, we're treating you differently." I don't think it really improves the situation that much from just walking away from that alliance as well. And frankly, that's what the Japanese, I think, would expect. Now, we can have a conversation about what Japan or other countries might do in response. I don't think it would really slow down their actions because I think they would see the writing on the wall.
• 35:35
  Melanie Marlowe: I think they do.
• 35:36
  Chris Preble: They do, even in the absence of abrogating the treaty or suggesting an alteration of the treaty, which is what... This is the point, really. How credible are our commitments today? How credible will they be ten years from now? Leave Donald Trump out of the question, he's two years gone. How credible is it that the United States of America is prepared to fight a major conflict with China over any of these places? And how credible is it to them? Does it deter? Continue to deter? Does it, you say, Melanie, you want to see balancing, and you want to see other countries do more without our assistance, and you say they're doing that. Great. That's great. I have no concern about that. In fact, I support that. So, ultimately, it comes down to, do we think that these security commitments reduce the likelihood of conflict? And in the event that it did not prevent conflict, do we think that it would enable the United States to effectively wage war with China over these places? Because I think that the likelihood of a conflict like that staying at the conventional level is actually quite low. At some point in the paper, she says, I agree with her that the risks of conflict are immense, and I think that is correct.
• 36:57
  Zack Cooper: I think there are two fundamental areas where my read is that Jennifer, and you, Chris, might have different views from mine and from Melanie's. We'll see if Melanie agrees. So, one of them is, I think the likelihood of deterrence holding is, I think, much higher than you probably believe. So, I think deterrence is holding now. I think China is not 10 feet tall. I think the Chinese military has been terribly purged. The Chinese economy has all kinds of problems. Yes, the United States also has many problems, but I think we still have a military edge in most of the contingencies that we're talking about. So, I think deterrence is holding and can hold, and I also think that the United States can maintain an alliance network in East Asia, in the first island chain, that is strong enough to convince those countries that they don't need to spend more, because I do think they're spending more, but that the existing security order can be upheld. So, I'm much more optimistic about our ability to maintain the current posture without a conflict happening than I think you, Chris, and Jennifer are. But Melanie, do you agree with that?
• 38:19
  Melanie Marlowe: I do agree with that, mostly. I mean, I'm really worried about, you know, our munitions stockpiles and things like that making us appear vulnerable and maybe thinking China that they could do something a little sooner than they might otherwise. But I generally do agree with that.
• 38:34
  Chris Preble: Okay, so where my disagreement then is, and again, this is why we treat these individual cases on a case-by-case basis. We haven't yet talked about Taiwan. And I think the way that Charles Glaser talks about partial retrenchment in the region and focusing on altering the U.S.’s stated commitment to the defense of Taiwan hinges on his assessment, which I agree with, that the salience of Taiwan is so high that the risk of war over it is higher than it is with any other U.S. security commitment. And here again, we do not have a formal security commitment to Taiwan in the same way that we do with all of the other countries we've been talking about. And so, I think for me, the risk of war is a combination of the salience of any particular dispute, whether or not any country at question will interpret that dispute as worthy of conflict, and whether in turn that conflict is so existential that it actually merits consideration of the use of nuclear weapons. I think that the posture that the United States has to adopt, both in conventional terms and in nuclear terms, to make our commitments to our allies credible moves in the direction of damage limitation and first strike, and that sounds to me like nuclear war-fighting. And that's where again I'm like, "Time out. We need to time out here. We need to take a breath. We need to back up and say, 'Hold on a second. Is this actually what we are prepared to do? Should we be prepared to do this?'" Because look, these extended deterrence commitments, at their core, Melanie, you're absolutely right. I mean, there have been many other instances where the United States ostensibly had a security commitment to an ally, and we didn't honor that commitment. And yet the risk remains that the United States is implicated in a conflict with a nuclear-armed state.
• 40:36
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay, I think there's a difference between saying we don't go fight at number 10 every time something happens to an ally versus we think about how to have a measured response and what the best way to approach something is, and that should be a good thing. I don't think that that's the problem. But I don't understand why... Why don't we just have a third island chain strategy? I mean, if we're going to need forces at the second island chain because we might go in, like, why don't we just go to the third island chain? I mean, the second island chain thing to me is silly because many of them are tiny little places that don't have that much land, and they have a lot of people there, and we'd have to go build in some infrastructure... Where's our energy? Where's the toilets? There's not infrastructure in some of these places where the United States would be. And then I'm looking at this like want to be dispersal. That's what agile combat employment is. Like, we're going to be at some of these big bases, then we're going to go into these other places and disperse. There's a strategy for when we want to do that. We don't have to do that all the time. And then we're just going to do this with drones that are, like, going to swim, I don't know how many thousand miles away, this is not a deterrent. I think that we deter better and, if need be, fight better the closer that we are. And if we can start to minimize some of those commitments as our allies, because I think that there are things that are in our interest. This is not just about taking care of them and babysitting Japan. I think a free Japan is in my interest, and so I don't mind having some forces there.
• 42:03
  Chris Preble: Right. Melanie, I also agree that a free Japan is in the United States' interest. The question is, does the U.S. security commitment determine whether or not there continues to be a free Japan? How important is that security commitment to Japan remaining free and independent? Because I believe, as I said a few minutes ago, that Japan is unlikely to bandwagon with China, highly unlikely to do so. They will be an independent sovereign state. And again, I don't think Kavanagh disputes that. I think Kavanagh believes that they will be. If anything, she says there's some combination of factors that will ensure a certain amount of balancing, but not too much kind of thing, and that's the part where I'm just like, "Well, actually, I don't even think it's that necessary." And that, and again, Zack seemed to agree with that.
• 42:57
  Zack Cooper: Okay, we're running out of time, but I think we do have to touch on a couple of quick issues. The first is we haven't really talked about Taiwan. Chris brought it up. In the piece, Kavanagh says the United States should shift from strategic ambiguity to a clear non-intervention policy in the event of any military confrontation over Taiwan. She also talks a little bit about semiconductors, and she says here, "The disruption of the U.S. supplies of the most advanced semiconductors would be temporary." Let me put my cards on the table here. I did not find this part convincing. And I thought Stephen Wertheim had a thoughtful response on some of these issues, where he said on Twitter that he thinks Chinese control of Taiwan would hit the U.S. economy hard. I think that's true. I think a lot of the modeling suggests that essentially the U.S. economy would crater. And I don't think this is a short-term disruption. The U.S. is not going to be able to remake the number of advanced semiconductors that we would need in even, like, a period of years. And so, I think the question then is, does this violate the second objective that Jennifer lists, which is prosperity, right? Does it violate American prosperity if you allow Taiwan to be taken? And I think, again, Stephen was right here, that he thinks there's a real risk of China taking Taiwan if you simply say that you're not going to defend it, in which case he favors maintaining strategic ambiguity, restraining Taipei where necessary, and affirming or strengthening elements of One China policy. That's what Stephen said. I found that argument fairly convincing because I just don't see how U.S. economic dependence on Taiwan, which is massive, can be managed in any sort of near-term situation. I think we're talking, like, 10 to 15 years before U.S. dependence on Taiwan semiconductors would be low enough that it wouldn't just decimate the U.S. economy.
• 44:55
  Melanie Marlowe: I 100% agree with you on this, on that part of this. And I just want to say, you know, she also says, "Well, we could make a deal with China trading access necessary IP for Chinese guarantees to sell Washington chips." Oh, we now want Chinese chips in all of our stuff? We're going to use Chinese chips in the United States? That is not a convincing argument to me at all. And then the other thing that she says that I don't understand, and again, especially with the example, Iran looming right over us, is the United States could ensure, like if waterways were restricted, ensure its ability to operate in key economic markets using regional alternatives, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and including, you know, like escorts and all of this. This is a militarily feasible task for the United States. I thought we were trying to withdraw our assets from there and trying to reduce our commitments. We don't have the naval power to do this. We cannot babysit the waterways all around the world.
• 45:45
  Zack Cooper: Or at least you couldn't do it from the second island chain.
• 45:49
  Chris Preble: Yeah. Melanie Marlowe: Exactly.
• 45:50
  Chris Preble: So, the question of Taiwan, especially as it relates to semiconductors, would we be having the same problem with access to semiconductors made in Taiwan if the island was taken or became part of China without the use of force? If there was no use of force against Taiwan, if they simply capitulated, if they simply bandwagoned with China following withdrawal of even the ambiguous commitment the United States has today. Because in the event of a war, the chances of that semiconductor capability being severely damaged and set back for a period of time are present, I might say high. Whereas, is the fear that a peaceful reunification, again, I understand that's even that terminology is fraught, is that what we're mostly concerned about? Let me just say this. I agree there are some questions that need to be answered there, but it's not, to me, sufficient to say that the United States should continue to imply, or, you know, even under the ambiguous commitment, you have the instances of the President of the United States on multiple occasions, President Biden, saying that the United States would come to the defense. So, even under ambiguous commitment, it can become quite confused. But a more general comment, I think that Kavanagh could have done a better job of explaining how preventing China from dominating all of these places we're talking about economically hinges on military support. She writes on page four that, "Preventing China from dictating U.S. terms of trade in Asia cannot be achieved with military power alone. The United States would ideally like to maintain a balance of power in Asia in which China does not decisively dominate." She doesn't explain that, and I think that's a really important point. I would like her to have talked more about how preventing Chinese economic domination of the region does not hinge on military power, because I think she's right, but that's really the only time she talks about it in the paper.
• 47:44
  Melanie Marlowe: Again, I'm not with her on all the military stuff, but that trade part is a big reason why the United States would go to defend it. And just going on that chips thing, she just says, "Well, the United States, you know, we should underline the virtue of finding new sources of supply." Like, all right, where's that happening? And then especially with respect to what Zack was talking about, chips, and all the money that we've plowed into chips, you know, the $54 billion and all these other companies' incentives, and she just says, "But Washington should move more quickly to expand chip manufacturing and packaging capacity." That just is, kind of, a throwaway line there, and I think that it needs more. Like, where do you think this is happening?
• 48:19
  Zack Cooper: Okay. So, as listeners can tell, we probably could have had another two hours of discussion on this piece.
• 48:27
  Melanie Marlowe: Stopping already?
• 48:28
  Zack Cooper: We might in the future.
• 48:30
  Chris Preble: Yes. Parts one and two.
• 48:31
  Zack Cooper: But I think what's really valuable about this piece is we've had a very detailed discussion about some elements of what a second-island-chain strategy would look like, and I think that's a service. Now, all three of us are going to have different views, and I'm sure listeners do, too. I come away, as I said at the start, less convinced that this would be operationally effective and strategically necessary. But I think what it lets us do is hone in on what our different assumptions are about the world, right? Like Chris has said, he thinks balancing is more likely. I'm not so sure that in this world countries are strong enough to balance. So, I have a slightly different assessment. I also think balancing in this context would probably mean these U.S. allies having to get nuclear weapons, and even that might not be sufficient. I think another set of assumptions that we talk about is, okay, would China cut off supply routes? And does China have ambitions beyond, say, taking Taiwan? That's something that Charles Glaser has laid out in his piece, which is, I think, a debate that we should be having. I think there's another debate which we talked about a little bit, which is, how likely do we actually think war is, right? Because if you think war is not that likely, then this pullback seems pretty risky. If you think it's very, very likely, then I think the need to think about alternatives becomes somewhat greater. So, even though I disagree with a lot of what's in this piece, I do think that it's helped us decipher maybe where some of our fundamental disagreements are about why we agree or disagree with the arguments that Jennifer is making.
• 50:20
  Melanie Marlowe: Yep. Very good. And I'm happy that we've got a Typhon system at Kadena.
• 50:25
  Chris Preble: Until it's moved to the Middle East. Don't give him any ideas.
• 50:30
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. Oh, Chris, way to stab me. Okay.
• 50:34
  Chris Preble: Sorry, sorry.
• 50:35
  Melanie Marlowe: Truth hurts. Okay, grievances, Chris. Frank Costanza: "The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you, people. And now, you’re going to hear about it!"
• 50:49
  Chris Preble: All right, so my grievance is with the report that employees at the State Department who have been seeking promotions have been grilled on who they voted for in the last three presidential elections. Ladies and gentlemen, this is patently illegal. Now, we know that this administration doesn't care about the law, but if they are so concerned that the so-called deep state, that the people whose staff are professional civil servants, are literally their enemies, and are so determined to root out anyone in the bureaucracy that has doubts about President Trump, then what they are actually calling for is the elimination of a professional civil service, and to have all appointments made at every single political change of power. I submit, and for Republicans listening, I'm not sure you want to go there, okay? Because you're not going to win every election in perpetuity, and I don't really think we want to go back to the days when people hung out in the lobby of the Willard Hotel trying to get jobs in government, hence the name lobbyist, right? I just don't think we want to go there. So, if you have trouble with the law, I would urge you to revisit whether or not the pathologies that have defined our conduct, if it's on foreign policy and is caused by individuals in the State Department who might not have voted for Donald Trump.
• 52:29
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay, Zack.
• 52:31
  Zack Cooper: Yeah. And it's illegal.
• 52:32
  Chris Preble: And it's illegal.
• 52:34
  Zack Cooper: Come on, people. Okay, speaking of things that are not illegal but just stupid, I don't understand why the Trump administration seems to be aligning itself so closely with Vladimir Putin and Russia in many different ways over the last couple of weeks. So, we have stories this last week that the headline is "Pentagon Urges Baltic States to Tone Down Rhetoric on Russia." I haven't heard a lot about the Baltic States threatening to invade Russia. I hear a lot from the Russians about them threatening to invade the Baltic States. Maybe we should turn down the Russian rhetoric towards NATO and the Baltics. We had Stephen Miller dressing his son up as a Russian military officer, kind of a strange decision to take his kid to the White House wearing that outfit, and it was clearly intentional. We have Steve Witkoff calling Vladimir Putin a humanitarian. We have the President of the United States trying to use fake Russian promises of selling us diesel to influence an American election. This is just not the Republican Party that I know. I realize that this has been the direction that some in the party have been heading over recent years. I just think it's disgraceful, and I hope we turn away from it, and hopefully after the midterms some Republicans will rethink some of their decisions in this regard.
• 54:10
  Melanie Marlowe: I hope. We'll see. Okay. Well, my grievance goes to the Pentagon and how they have handled the budget, and I suppose this would be Chris's grievance, but for a different reason. But we don't have an appropriations top line yet in the Senate, and we don't have a supplemental to replace the munitions that have been caught on fire in Iran, and we don't have anything close to a reconciliation bill. And right now there's disagreement among Republicans, like whether they should go for something bigger than $350 billion or whether they can even get $100 billion, and what they're going to have to do to it to get it. They might get something bigger than $350B because they may have to have Democrats jump on board with a bunch of domestic spending. And it has been absolutely irresponsible to be engaged in a war and to not have funding for that, but also to not have the things that we need the most paid for at this point. This government cannot keep functioning on a CR. It is irresponsible. Chris thinks we probably will.
• 55:14
  Chris Preble: We shouldn't, but we might.
• 55:16
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, we can.
• 55:17
  Chris Preble: Not saying that we should, I'm saying that we might.
• 55:19
  Melanie Marlowe: And I have to say, the way, the partisan way the Pentagon has handled this, you know, with the secretary, the undersecretary for policy giving briefings to Republicans or refusing to answer questions, and making enemies of the Republicans that want to give them all the money and more, and it is just shocking that... Maybe not shocking, but it's appalling that we are where we are. Okay. Chris, atta.
• 55:44
  Chris Preble: Hey, my atta goes to... I got to experience the Outrider Nuclear Media Summit in Los Angeles late last month. And I really want to give a shout-out to the organizers. Rob Elder is the president there, but the entire team. It's the first time I've ever attended this. This is a summit that calls together people who have nuclear expertise, who are storytellers and filmmakers and podcasters, communicating different ways to talk about nuclear dangers and how to reduce nuclear dangers. It was such an incredible experience, so I really want to give a shout-out to them. And a special shout-out to, speaking of podcasts, there is a new podcast that is with Jane Perlez and Matthew Bunn out of the Kennedy School called Face Off: Nuclear Anarchy. I became aware of this podcast just before heading out to the Outrider Summit. It's really well done, so credit to Jane especially, and again, Matt helps her out as well, really good storytelling, and really reminds us we are and have been living under the shadow of nuclear Armageddon for decades now. And sometimes it's easy to, sort of, take it for granted that we will always just, sort of, live through it. And I think from time to time it is useful to be reminded that this doesn't happen by accident. People have to want to stay below the nuclear threshold in order to survive. So, credit to all of them.
• 57:08
  Melanie Marlowe: Great. We didn't talk about that enough today already.
• 57:10
  Chris Preble: No, we did not.
• 57:11
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Zack.
• 57:13
  Zack Cooper: Well, that relates to my atta, I just spent two weeks in New Zealand, which I was told repeatedly is one of the two places on Earth that would potentially live through parts of a nuclear Armageddon if you look at the modeling, because it's, you know, in the Southern Hemisphere and very far away. So, that's great news. But in particular, I want to give a big shout-out to David Capie, who is at Victoria University of Wellington. He had me down to be the Sir Howard Kippenberger Chair in Strategic Studies down there for a couple of weeks, and he's an old friend but a delightful host. One of those trips where you feel like you actually leave understanding a country much, much better. So, a big thank you to so many friends down in New Zealand, and really nice to spend so much time down there, get to see so many folks in and out of the government, but in particular to David for being a wonderful host during my time there.
• 58:15
  Melanie Marlowe: That's awesome. Good job. Okay. Well, my atta sounds like a grievance at the beginning, but that is because The New York Times reported last week that the Trump administration is exploring a new concession to Russia, lifting sanctions on the country's flagship government investment fund, long viewed by U.S. officials as one of the Kremlin's most powerful tools of international influence. Russian officials have pushed for the move as part of broader talks about the fund's involvement in shipping Russian diesel fuel to the United States, and a U.S. official confirmed that the administration was assessing the fund's application for sanctions as part of an effort to improve U.S.-Russia relations. Now, my atta for that goes to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, and this is the second time I've given him an atta probably in the last year, because he really pushed back on this, on X and on TV. And I have to say that he also really pushed back on his co-host, Rachel Campos-Duffy, for her inability to understand that Russia is the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine war, and that Zelenskyy is not just holding up a settlement in order to derail the midterm elections for Donald Trump. She really had a lot of difficulty understanding that. So, good for Brian Kilmeade in an atmosphere where he might have felt like it was hard to do so, well done. And then I just want to give a shout-out to 47G for the great Zero Gravity Summit that they had last week in Salt Lake. I was hopping all over the West the last couple of weeks, and I got back for that. It was a little bit of a trauma going into the Salt Palace, I don't think I've been there since the finals when the Bulls robbed the Jazz of the national title.
• 59:48
  Chris Preble: You were beaten.
• 59:49
  Melanie Marlowe: No, they robbed us.
• 59:51
  Chris Preble: The Jazz lost. The Jazz lost.
• 59:52
  Melanie Marlowe: That was just so the Bulls could win at home. But anyway, walking into that, it has been a long time, but it was very good to see the things that are happening. When I go to Huntsville and when I go to smaller places to see all the energy going into American defense. Okay, what do you have coming up?
• 1:00:10
  Chris Preble: Well, I've already mentioned this once, and it'll post on the fifth when this episode posts. We're hosting at Stimson an event on the Iran war, eight months on. Too late to register to attend in person, but you probably could still join remotely. So, I'll include a link in the show notes again. So, if you hear this on the morning of the fifth, tune in at 1:30 on the afternoon of the fifth and join us then.
• 1:00:32
  Melanie Marlowe: Zack?
• 1:00:33
  Zack Cooper: You know, I'm just trying to catch up on a lot of writing commitments that I am very behind on, as always.
• 1:00:41
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, I'm trying to catch my breath, too. Right after this, I'm headed to help an ally try to make sense of what's going on in the world. And then at 9:00 in the morning on Wednesday, I have a presentation. So, if anybody knows what's going on in the world, if anybody has foresight into the elections, let me know so I can get some slides done before 2:00 a.m. It'd be very helpful. Chris?
• 1:01:01
  Zack Cooper: I have a prediction.
• 1:01:02
  Chris Preble: Prediction. Go ahead, Zack.
• 1:01:04
  Zack Cooper: I think the House of, you know...
• 1:01:09
  Melanie Marlowe: Bold move, Zack.
• 1:01:10
  Zack Cooper: I'm going to really go out on a limb here. I think the House will be Democratic, for listeners.
• 1:01:16
  Chris Preble: Yeah. Wow, that's a bold prediction there, Zack Cooper. One quick thing, just looking at the calendar, before we record our next episode, we'll observe Veterans Day. We know so many of our listeners are veterans, and we want to thank them for their service, and of course, it's Remembrance Day in many places. And just by coincidence, not entirely by coincidence, I watched All Quiet on the Western Front, the new version, on Friday. And 11/11 will always be a date on the calendar, and so I think it's important to recognize it.
• 1:01:45
  Melanie Marlowe: Great. Thanks, Chris. I had forgotten about that. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you for listening to this episode of Net Assessment. If you enjoyed it, please rate us wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow us @RealChrisPreble, @ZackCooper, and @ProfMarlowe. Thanks to the Stimson Center for hosting us and to University FM for producing this show. Until next time, be well.