Last Friday the Biden administration quietly released its Indo‐Pacific Strategy, which will set the tempo for U.S. policies in a critical region. For supporters of a grand strategy of restraint, the Indo‐Pacific Strategy is a mix of good and bad that echoes many of the aspects of the March 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance. Both documents show signs of smart tactical adjustments to U.S. policy, but these adjustments are in the service of broader strategic goals that are overly ambitious and will be difficult to achieve even if the tactical tweaks are successful.
This strange limbo of improving the details of policy but pursuing questionable strategic goals reflects broader changes in the global balance of power. As other great powers like China rise, the United States enjoys a less dominant position. In such a world, the limits of U.S. power, and especially military power, are more pronounced. The Indo‐Pacific Strategy’s emphasis on leaning more on regional partners and improving non‐military tools of foreign policy indicate that the Biden administration is aware of the changing balance of power. However, the set of strategic objectives laid out in the strategy also suggests that the administration is loath to accept a more limited or less ambitious set of U.S. goals.
While the Indo‐Pacific Strategy is not without shortcomings, it would be a mistake to gloss over its positive aspects. First and foremost among these is the strategy is an actual strategy as opposed to a buzzword. In Washington, “great power competition” with China has been the go‐to explanation for U.S. actions in the Indo‐Pacific, but competition is not a strategy. The Indo‐Pacific Strategy clearly lays out strategic goals and ends and explains the ways and means that will be used to achieve those ends. Even if one disagrees with the particulars of the strategy, having this “ends, ways, means” formula provides a much better starting point for assessing the effectiveness of U.S. policies than “great power competition.”
The other major positive aspect of the Indo‐Pacific Strategy is the attention it pays to the non‐military aspects of U.S. engagement with the region. Security is one component of the strategy, and thus far in the Biden administration’s tenure it has been the predominant form of U.S. engagement, but the strategy recognizes that the United States needs to do more in the economic and diplomatic domains. Moreover, the Indo‐Pacific Strategy repeatedly emphasizes that the United States will work closely with regional partners in many areas, which should help shift some of the burden away from Washington and produce greater buy in for policies. In general, enhancing the non‐military tools of U.S. foreign policy is a positive step. However, turning the Indo‐Pacific Strategy from words into reality will be a challenge given the many years of Washington’s overemphasis on military power as foreign policy tool.
Tactical adjustments are well and good, but the chief problem of the Indo‐Pacific Strategy is its adherence to lofty strategic goals. It is not surprising that the Biden administration wants to aim high, but it may be setting itself up for over promising and under delivering by not interrogating the assumptions undergirding the goals it is setting.
The Indo‐Pacific Strategy’s (very short) section on North Korea is a good example of this problem. The strategy contains good things about a willingness to negotiate with North Korea, but it maintains the U.S. goal of denuclearization. This ship has long since sailed. There is no realistic path to the denuclearization of North Korea that does not entail another crisis at best or a war at worst. A more realistic way to advance regional stability would be to refocus U.S. efforts on building a peace regime on the Korean peninsula and emphasizing arms control instead of denuclearization.
A similar issue exists throughout the rest of the Indo‐Pacific Strategy. The United States mentions a free and open Indo‐Pacific as its first of five objectives, and this is defined as having a region wherein countries can make decisions free of external coercion. The problem with this strategic goal is that coercion can come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes ranging from comparatively minor economic actions to threats of military action. Some forms of coercion are easier to prevent than others, but the United States makes no fine‐grained distinctions in its strategy.
The Indo‐Pacific Strategy is an actual strategy with ends that can be debated, and ways and means that can be judged for their success or failure. For a supporter of grand strategic restraint, the strategy is a conflicted document. On the one hand it provides a tacit recognition of the limits of U.S. power as China rises and the importance of thinking about foreign policy in more ways than military might. But on the other hand it does not seriously interrogate the assumptions or sustainability of broader U.S. strategic goals.
