Real international realism in Indo-Pacific

These Islands By Robert Underwood

In the islands, we live in a world defined by two powerful realities around which there is a broad consensus.

Reality No. 1: The Indo-Pacific region is the most critical part of the globe now and in the foreseeable future. Economically, it is the most dynamic and it features two great powerhouses. Other areas are significant, but at the end of the day, the future of world peace resides in the area between India, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Pacific island region and all the way to the United States, depending on how America sees itself.

We can include Europe and the other Americas, but only to the extent that they are involved in the activities of the Indo-Pacific region.

We will see new international systems of relationships in this area, where we could also bear witness to the possible destruction of our planet. That will be the end result because we fail to discuss climate change seriously and to create international stability based on shared interests and values. Along with AI, climate change and geopolitical competition remain the most significant influences on human society worldwide.

Reality No. 2 is that the Indo-Pacific region is defined by its bipolar (a power description, not a mental condition) or increasingly multipolar reality. The United States is no longer the dominant power, and it can no longer insist on an order that it creates, supports and enforces.

It is conventional wisdom that China will overtake the United States' economic strength within 10 years. By 2050, India will be the third largest economy and Indonesia will be the fourth, according to Price Waterhouse and Andaman Partners. The European Union combined will be less than 10 percent of the total world output.

Yet, the energy behind Make America Great Again seems tied to those days when superior American military might and economic heft got everyone to fall in line. Adversaries had to be contained and they were under this system. But that system is gone.

Today, China and the United States are not just competitors; they are relatively equal competitors in the economic sphere and increasingly in the military sphere. This has diplomatic consequences and requires a re-ordering of alliances, assumptions about those alliances and the identification of real commitments, not ambiguous ones. For our sake and everyone else’s, there has to be a stable understanding between them.

We may be operating under assumptions about the threats that need to be reassessed. In the explanatory logic we are being asked to accept, the militarization of our island environment, especially in Micronesia, is based on confronting a rising, disruptive adversary bent on extending its dominance over us. In this stand-off, the United States is portrayed as the stabilizer and China as the disruptor.

Scholars and global strategists have increasingly challenged that assumption.

It is the Trump administration's erratic military adventurism that is threatening to disrupt the world. The U.S. is stressing existing alliances.

It is the U.S. that is withdrawing from the world order rather than trying to reshape it. Not attending COP30 on climate change, deemphasizing the American presence at G-20, allowing China to become the major donor to the United Nations and withdrawing from the World Health Organization are examples of a power unsure of itself and unable to manage the complexities of world events.

Instead, the U.S. is arming to the teeth, and the teeth are in Micronesia. We really don’t know whether these are real teeth or just dentures, which can be moved further east. We are told that there is a Taiwan war contingency, but we are not sure whether any ally will join in that potential conflict.

   We have to await the release of the National Defense Strategy, which may prompt the U.S. to turn further inward and focus only on the Western Hemisphere. In that hemisphere where we do not reside, the U.S. can focus its $13 billion aircraft carriers on attacking drug traffickers.

Furthermore, the U.S. can welcome Saudi princes who will invest in Trump-related businesses. Military assets, such as jet flyovers, are then used for their ultimate purpose. It seems like impressing authoritarian regimes in the Middle East is a higher priority than deterring aggression in Ukraine.

This chest-thumping is not really a global strategy to protect U.S. interests because it focuses on the exercise of military power.

In the Micronesian region alone, we have had 12 military exercises this year. These are important activities if we know what global strategy they are pursuing, which also involves global leadership.

In her book titled "First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World," released in August by Yale University Press, Emma Ashford presented a realistic view of the world, arguing for a “realist internationalism” strategy. Of course, many in the MAGA world will dismiss her because she is a globalist. Anyone who has travelled internationally is automatically suspect.

But Ashford’s critique is not based on withdrawing from the world. Instead, it is based on identifying the world's greatest threats. She identifies our region as the United States' focus area.

While she doesn’t argue for withdrawal from military strength in the region and recognizes the need to maintain a presence in the second island chain, her view seems to diverge significantly from the current MAGA approach. She maintains that military forces should remain part of the American forward presence, but that the balance should shift toward naval forces rather than ground forces. Moreover, she argues that the American presence “must be as much about economic and trade as it is about military deterrence.”

Given the hullabaloo over tariffs and the inability of military contracts to directly benefit host communities, trade and the economy are taking a backseat to F-35s and nuclear submarines. In the meantime, islanders have to identify what matters most to themselves and their current situation. Listening to the militarization line outlined by individuals in uniform and contractors in island shirts requires a great deal of skepticism.

Merry Christmas!

Dr. Robert Underwood is the former president of the University of Guam and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Send feedback to anacletus2010@gmail.com.

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