George Friedman - The Next Decade

The first step in the U.S. strategy toward Japan must be to ensure that China doesn’t splinter, because the weaker China becomes, the freer Japan will be to flex its muscles. To the extent possible, the United States should relieve pressure on China by facilitating its exports to the United States. This is a reversal, of course, and there are obvious political problems in doing this. The president will have to be very clever in justifying his generosity at a time of high U.S. unemployment. But anything that constrains Japan, even marginally, is valuable to the United States.

Only a stable China can control foreign investments in its economy, and both stability and control will be necessary to fend off Japan’s designs on Chinese factories and workers. Constraining Japanese expansion will in turn delay Japan’s ability to cope with its problems, and anything that slows down Japan’s economic resurgence benefits the United States, if only to the extent that it buys time.

The second step in U.S. strategy must be to keep relations with the Japanese as cordial as possible. The more confident Japan is in its access to raw materials, the less it will be motivated to build its own naval force. The Japanese, always painfully aware of the imbalance of power, have never been as comfortable as they might appear in their deferential relationship with the United States. At the same time, they have never wanted to confront the enormous amounts of money and risk needed to create an alternative.

In the long run, a country as economically large and vulnerable as Japan will have to search for a way to secure its own interests. That doesn’t have to be in the next decade, however, and the American strategy must be to prolong Japan’s dependency as long as possible. The longer the Japanese remain dependent on the United States, the more influence the U.S. has over Japanese policy and the more it can shape that policy. Pushed hard enough, Japan might choose a new course that returns to the destructive policies of the 1930s, when it was a nation both economically statist and driven by an emphasis on national defense. The United States must be careful not to push.

Two things will make this Asian strategy easier to sell to the American public. The first is that other matters will preoccupy them. The second is that American moves in the western Pacific will be incremental rather than sudden. The president will have the advantage of not having to declare a change in policy, and his actions will not have decisive effect, because the United States is important but not central to either of these Asian powers.

At the same time, the United States must be building relationships for the next phase of history, in which it might wish to recruit Japan, China, or both to cooperate against threats from Russia or other powers. The appetite for risk within these two countries is not very great, and the United States must realize that pressing them without inducements probably won’t work.

This is where Korea may play a critical role. It is already the thorn in the side of both parts of the Sino-Japanese balance, but it is particularly irksome for the Japanese. For historical reasons, Korea despises the Japanese and distrusts the Chinese. It is not particularly comfortable with the United States, for that matter, but at least geography has made it dependent on the U.S.

As Japan increases in power and China weakens, the Koreans will need the United States more than ever, and the United States will rely on Korea to increase U.S. options for dealing with both countries. Fortunately, the U.S.-Korean relationship already exists, and for that reason extending it would not cause significant concern to either Japan or China.

Korea also has become a significant technological center. China in particular will be hungry for that technology, and having some control over the rate of transfer would increase U.S. leverage with China. For their part, the Koreans will need help in dealing with the North Korean nuisance, particularly in handling the financial aspects of reunification when it inevitably comes. A unified Korea would want special trade opportunities with the United States, and even though Korea has nowhere else to turn, the American president should make such concessions, because over the next ten years Korea may well be the most important relationship the United States has in the western Pacific. But reunification is not the core issue. North Korea, for all its bluster, is a cripple, and its nuclear facilities exist only as long as others permit it. North Korea’s nuclear program has bought it time by deflecting pressure. It cannot stabilize North Korea permanently. South Korea, in contrast, remains a dynamic power on its own and will remain a dynamic power whatever happens in the north.

The second important relationship the United States will have in the region is with Australia. One of the last landmasses to fall under European control, it is certainly on the margins of the world geographically, and most of its population remains confined to a relatively small area of the country’s southeast.

Geopolitically, Australia is misunderstood and misunderstands itself. It appears to be isolated and secure, yet its isolation is an illusion and its vulnerability real. For example, its nearest neighbor is Indonesia, a highly fragmented and weak country, separated from Australia by hundreds of miles of water. During World War II, Indonesia and its eastern neighbor, New Guinea, served an important strategic function for Australia, soaking up the Japanese attack and leaving the Japanese too weak to think about extending themselves farther south. Interestingly, World War II and Australia’s island buffers to the north have reinforced its sense of security, in spite of creating worries about boat people.

Despite the appearance of standing alone and secure, Australia is actually quite dependent on international trade, particularly the sale of food products and industrial minerals such as iron ore, to sustain its economy. These goods are shipped by sea, and Australia has no control whatever over the security of its sea-lanes. In a sense, then, Australia is like a creature whose arteries and veins are located outside its body, unprotected and constantly at risk.

Australia’s strategy for dealing with this vulnerability has been to ally itself with the dominant naval power in the western Pacific—once Britain, now the United States. All alliances bear costs, and the British and Americans wanted the same quid pro quo: Australia’s participation in their wars. Australians sacrificed heavily in the Boer War, both world wars, and in Korea and Vietnam. Between 1970 and 1990 the Australians pulled back from this role as military partner, but during this period there were few calls for their participation. In 1990, in Desert Storm, they returned to their strategy of assisting in military operations, and they then went on to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Along with the security of sea-lanes, Australia’s well-being depends on an international trading regime that allows terms it can manage. Australia’s strategy of being of service to its Anglo-American cousins has bought it a seat at the table alongside the great powers. This has provided influence and security to its trade, something that Australia never could have achieved on its own.

During World War II, Australia served Britain by sending troops to North Africa. It served the United States by acting as a depot for building up U.S. forces for the Pacific theater. Certainly Australian forces fought as well, but if no forces had been available, Australia’s tremendous value was its location, behind the geographic shield of Indonesia and New Guinea. Should any great power emerge in the western Pacific to challenge the United States, Australia will once again be the strategic foundation for America’s Pacific strategy. The caveat is that building the infrastructure for a rear depot took several years in World War II, and any future conflict might not allow that kind of lead time.