Guam recedes into the distance

A US official has finally admitted that it is unlikely that the US and Japan will meet the 2014 target date for initiating the relocation of US Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of US Pacific Command, was in New York City last week, where he reviewed the state of the Defense Policy Review Initiative (DPRI). In his remarks, he acknowledged that in light of the financial situation in both countries, it is likely that "it'll take a little bit longer to effect – we won’t be done by 2014, or maybe even 2015, but it’s about a decade in execution."

Admiral Keating's admission is the first such admission — to my knowledge — from a senior US official involved with the process. It confirms the picture presented by the Government Accountability Office in its report on Guam. I still think the official view is too optimistic. I see too many potential obstacles to be confident that the process will be implemented according to schedule and according to plan. The biggest question in my mind is what happens if and when the DPJ forms a government. The DPJ's "Okinawa vision" paper — discussed in this post — strongly suggests that should the DPJ take power, it will seek to revise the 2006 agreement.

For now, the extent of the delay will depend on the makeup of President-elect Obama's Asia policy team. If the bulk of Asia policy positions go to China or Korea hands, I would suggest that the outlook for realignment is grim indeed. Realignment will proceed smoothly only if the foreign policy team is seeded with individuals intimately familiar with the issues at stake and capable of making the case for why it is essential that the realignment must proceed as soon as possible. (And, I hope, be willing to consider doing it unilaterally if Japan drags its feet.)

But even with the right people in place the outlook isn't good for Guam. In the current environment, it will be hard to get the necessary support from Congress and the upper levels of the administration.

Japan may have to accept that the Marines may be in Okinawa for longer than expected.

More retrograde thinking on China from Gertz

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times finally got around to commenting on Admiral Keating's offer to help the Chinese — which I have been told by someone who would know that it was more a "half-joke" and thought experiment than serious offer — develop aircraft carriers. Gertz noted, "Critics say the comments are a sign that the U.S.-China military exchange program is spinning out of control under Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations."

Got to love that — "critics say."

I have written about Gertz's utterly blinkered Sinophobia before, but Tom Barnett lays into him here with far greater anger than I could ever muster, expertly smashing the thinking of Gertz and others who look at the rise of China as a replay of the rise of Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union all rolled into one.

As for me, I like that Keating made the offer. I like that someone in a position of tremendous responsibility for US Asia policy has moved beyond the linear thinking that characterizes so much of how Washington views the world. Ours is a world marked by ambiguity and contradiction, and China hawks like Gertz, rather than embracing ambiguity, reject it, claiming that nothing has changed, that China is just trying to lull the US into passivity before it strikes.

Since when did the world have to make sense, neatly divided into friends and foes?

As Barnett notes, and as I've discussed before, outside of Taiwan, the chances of war with China are nil, and the more US policymakers come to recognize that and make policy accordingly, the greater the basis for Sino-US cooperation on the shared goal of maintaining regional stability.

Seeing the world through China's eyes

Susan Shirk, author of China: Fragile Superpower, noted in an interview at China Digital Times:

To get anywhere diplomatically you have to put yourself in the shoes of the person sitting across from you at the table. I traveled with Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji when they visited the U.S. and joined many meetings with them. I have met Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao as well. In their informal comments as well as their formal statements they make no secret of their worries about China's political stability. But the leaders do try to hide differences of opinion over foreign and domestic policy which undoubtedly exist.

I'm with Shirk. How the US, or any country, can make foreign policy without trying to understand how an interlocutor sees the world is beyond me. As such, I think that was the thinking behind Admiral Keating's offer of help on aircraft carrier development; looking through the eyes of the PLA Navy, Keating seemed to recognize that China might have legitimate reasons for wanting an aircraft carrier, and from there sought to provide practical advice from a navy that has been operating carrier groups for decades.

A recent article by Richard Halloran spells out Keating's thinking in more detail, and notes that among the five reasons why China might develop an aircraft carrier — international prestige, power projection, defending lifelines, regional rivalry, and relief operations — attacking Taiwan is not one of them. Indeed, there seems to be little in Halloran's list that would result in war. Rather, after decades of watching US carriers show the flag, especially in the Taiwan Straits, it should hardly be surprising that China wants a similar platform.

So China's reaction to the Pentagon report is understandable: the US report is drafted from the perspective that the decision by China to develop its conventional and nuclear forces is an insult, as well as a threat, to the US. Clearly we're not threatening you, it thinks, so why should you need to modernize your armed forces? (Ed. — How can a report think? Quiet, you.)

But is the Pentagon really incapable of appreciating the fact that China might have legitimate reasons for military modernization that have nothing to do with threatening the US directly? And, does the Pentagon realize that the US pursuit of military predominance can last only as long as other countries are deterred? Once a country decides to develop an advanced military the jig is up; the US needs to think of more creative approaches to a country with a sophisticated military, other than insisting, "From where we stand, you're not threatened." It seems that's what Admiral Keating is groping towards.

To connect Keating to Shirk, the admiral is trying look at the world through Beijing's eyes and alter the US Military's approach to China so that it acknowledges that China has legitimate interests that may require an advanced military. That does not mean acquiescing entirely — Keating clearly communicated American concerns, after all — it simply means acknowledging that the world looks different from Beijing than it does from Washington.

I should note that I do not think that the US will be helping China with aircraft carriers anytime soon — nor should it, at least not for now. But this is yet another sign of a new flexibility in US Asia policy; the old San Francisco system of bilateral alliances is simultaneously being agglomerated, as the US, Japan, and Australia seek to deepen trilateral ties, and de-prioritized, with the US less inclined — in practice, if not in rhetoric — to view the region as marked by stark, clear divisions.

"We would...help them"

Having previously written about the strategic and political questions surrounding China's rumored aircraft carrier program, I found this VOA article (hat tip: China Digital Times) on Admiral Keating's visit to China fascinating.

VOA reports that Keating discussed the operational difficulties of deploying and maintaining aircraft carriers with Vice Admiral Wu Shengli of the PLAN — but not necessarily as a way of dissuading China from developing aircraft carriers.

Rather, Keating apparently said that if China is determined to develop an aircraft carrier, the US will offer its assistance: "It is not an area where we would want any tension to arise unnecessarily...and we would, if they choose to develop [an aircraft carrier program] help them to the degree that they seek and the degree that we're capable, in developing their programs."

With the US offering help to the PLAN in developing aircraft carriers, does anyone still think that the region's security environment can be neatly summarized as the US seeking to build up a coalition to contain China?

I think Keating's suggestion contains a certain logic. US help in building a blue-water navy reinforces the idea that a Chinese blue-water navy need not be a threat to US interests, because the US and China share an interest in keeping maritime Asia stable and open.

I wonder, though, what Japan thinks about Keating's offer.

Keating in China

Admiral Timothy Keating, newly minted chief of US Pacific Command, is currently visiting China to meet with PLA brass. As documented by Dana Priest and Robert Kaplan, among others, the heads of the US Military's unified combatant commands wield tremendous military power, of course, but also diplomatic power (America's "proconsuls," to use the imperial metaphor that has perhaps gone out of favor in recent years).

As powerful as Keating is, though, his PLA interlocutors may very well wield power that puts his to shame. As Bates Gill and Martin Kleiber write in Foreign Affairs regarding China's ASAT test, "Put bluntly, Beijing's right hand may not have known what its left hand was doing. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its strategic rocket forces most likely proceeded with the ASAT testing program without consulting other key parts of the Chinese security and foreign policy bureaucracy -- at least not those parts with which most foreigners are familiar."

Keating, in fact, pressed General Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, on the test, insisting that it sent a confusing signal and demanding an explanation.

While signs of the PLA's predominance are worrying, Keating's trip in general is encouraging, ensuring that the two militaries have, at the very least, cordial relations.

I also found comments by Guo reported by the People's Daily interesting: "Guo said both China and the United States shoulder responsibilities of safeguarding world peace and stability and promoting common development. The two countries are both stake holders and constructive partners who share strategic interests, and China attaches great importance to China-U.S. relations." While one cannot put too much stock in China's rhetoric, it is interesting that they are accommodating the US government's "responsible stakeholder" ideas. China certainly has nothing to lose from presenting itself as a responsible stakeholder — hence the "peaceful rise" rhetoric — and will no doubt continue to do so until it finds something else to be more beneficial.

In any case, China is not going away, and the US (and Japan) might as well figure out how to ensure stable relations with Beijing instead of making things up as they go along.