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| Image: Flickr User - Morning Calm Weekly Newspaper, U.S. Army |
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
A member of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, participates in the joint South Korea/US Exercise Team Spirit '84 >>
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership just two days ago, but this morning, multiple experts and one four-star general agreed that America’s Pacific alliances — except perhaps the Philippines — would survive and even thrive. A few hours later, aptly enough, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary James Mattis, the new administration’s most outspoken proponent of strong alliances, will visit Seoul and Tokyo next week in his first foreign trip.
But it’s not just longstanding allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia that want the US to reach out. Across the Pacific, more nations than ever before are asking to hold joint exercises with the US military. Why? Because as unsettled as Asian leaders are by Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and his demands that allies spend more on their own defense, they’re even more unsettled by a rising, militarizing China and a consistently erratic North Korea. In brief: Threats trump Trump.
Yes, “we’re going to see some surface noise and chop” as the political leadership changes, said Andrew Shearer, a former Australian national security official now at the Center for International and Security Studies, which hosted this morning’s event. Some Asian leaders may clash with the new administration, like the Philippines’ erratic and fiery Rodrigo Duterte. But others may be quite simpatico with Trump, like Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, himself a brash businessman turned politician, or Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, who wants to boost his country’s defense spending and has already met with Trump in New York.
But in a way that transcends personalities, Shearer said, the alliances have been and will remain strong because “they’re driven by threats and, guess what, the threat’s not going away. The North Korean threat in particular is going to be a real driver.”
Read the full story at Breaking Defense