Getting the Pacific Deterrence Initiative Right
The PDI will undoubtedly set the groundwork for U.S. defense posture in Asia for the foreseeable future. Getting it right matters.
By Benjamin Rimland and Patrick Buchan
May 02, 2020
Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Aaron B. Hicks
America’s “Pacific Pivot,†promised by three administrations, has at last found consensus in popular and policy circles thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Coming on the heels of years of Chinese coercion in the South and East China Seas, information warfare, and “lawfare,†U.S. INDOPACOM has proposed a supplementary budget to put financial and hardware muscle into rhetorical commitments that the Pacific is the United States’ “priority theater.†The coalescing of both U.S. popular and elite opinion on the threats that China poses to Asia’s regional order has given space for this initiative to leap from op-ed page speculation to real-world policy. With news that INDOPACOM has officially submitted its “regain the advantage†supplementary budget, that policy has begun to take shape.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/getting-the-pacific-deterrence-initiative-right/
