ASEAN and many of its member nations are asleep at the wheel, a Singapore-based geopolitical specialist warns. Bilahari Kausikan, a former Permanent Secretary at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Ambassador to Russia and the UN, says ASEAN and many countries need to step up engagement with the US on security matters or risk getting left behind.
Speaking at the Air and Space Conference in Canberra last week, Mr Kausikan said the US remained a vital presence in the Indo-Pacific. However, the assumption it will step in militarily is deeply flawed.
The new world order is about regions, regional balance, and regional power blocs. The US is a vital cog in the wheel, but not the only cog.
“Ukraine has underscored the importance of regional balances and the vital role of US leadership in such regional balances,” Mr Kausikan, now Chairman of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, warns. “Without the United States as a backstop, there is no regional balance to China or Russia or, for that matter, Iran.”
But Bilahari Kausikan says the role of the US as a global leader is undergoing long-term change. While China is a formidable competitor, it does not pose an existential threat to the US like the Soviet Union did during the height of the Cold War.
Consequently, the view in Washington is that there is no reason why the US should keep shouldering the bulk of the burden or pay any price to uphold international order. Except for George W. Bush dealing with 9/11, that view goes back to the Clinton administration.
“This is not a retreat from the world or a new isolationism that some have portrayed, but recalibration of the terms of America’s engagement with the world,” said Mr Kausikan.
While Afghanistan and Iraq remain notable exceptions, the US has been notably reluctant to directly or militarily intervene in disputes beyond its shores since Vietnam. Instead, the US has asked its allies to contribute more militarily and shoulder more of the burdens in their region.
Mr Kausikan points to the US role in Ukraine as evidence of this doctrine in action. The US expects Ukraine’s neighbours to step up rather than the neighbours assuming the US will swing by to save the day. It’s a long-term change in US strategy that is playing out right now in Europe that ASEAN and many of its member countries are failing to take onboard.
Singapore’s former Ambassador to Russia and the UN says the US is not in retreat. However, it is demanding more of its allies, partners, and friend in terms of sharing the burdens of upholding order.
“The Biden administration has engaged and consulted allies, partners and friends much more than his predecessor, and this is good,” he says.
“But remember this, the United States does not consult you merely because of your good looks or for the pleasure of your company, but to ascertain what you are prepared to do to meet strategic and regional challenges -it’s a more polite form of Trump’s transactionalism.”
Bilahari Kausikan highlighted AUKUS as an example of the US being happy to partner up when other countries are also happy to do their part. And he warns new partnerships like AUKUS risk overshadowing more established and lethargic regional alliances.
He argues ASEAN risks getting left behind because it has not taken onboard the lessons of or adapted to the current US worldview.
“The hard fact is that while the US under Biden will still be polite to those not prepared to step up, it will not take them seriously either.
“Unless ASEAN finds the strategic imagination and political will to define the parameters of what it is prepared to do, and equally important, what it is not prepared to do, with both the US and China, ASEAN will be marginalized.”
Mr Kausikan says the US will not go out of its way to proactively work with ASEAN until it drops its lean towards diplomatic and political neutrality.
With China stepping up pressure on Taiwan and the very real likelihood of a Ukraine-style invasion playing out in the North Pacific, Mr Kausikan argues asleep at the wheel ASEAN member nations cannot expect US assistance unless they step up with resources and display some political backbone against Chinese aggression.
“That Thailand, the former US ally, was bypassed twice in 2021 – by Secretary of Defence Austin and Vice president Harris ought to have been a salutary lesson for all ASEAN members.”
