This summer, during a trip to Asia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reiterated that the Indo-Pacific is the U.S. Department of Defense’s priority theater. Yet unlike Europe, the region still lacks a multilateral defense alliance, relying instead on a patchwork of bilateral ties and minilateral arrangements. Should the U.S. push for a formal defense pact in the Pacific? Advocates say a new alliance would bring stability and peace, while critics argue it would escalate tensions with China.
In this episode of Pivotal States, Christopher S. Chivvis speaks with Dr. Ely Ratner of the Marathon Initiative to unpack the risks and benefits. Dr. Ely Ratner, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs for the Biden administration, lays out his vision in a recent Foreign Affairs essay, “The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact.”
Transcript
Note: this is a rush transcript and may contain errors.
Ely Ratner:
The United States has these different alliances, but if we had to operate together in a crisis or a contingency, we do not have all the mechanisms in place to be able to do that as effectively as we should. And so having a Collective Defense Pact would allow us to do a number of things together in a coordinated way.
Chris Chivvis:
The question that I always have when people say, "We need to do this because of strength of deterrence," is, "Okay, what's the marginal gain here?"
Ely Ratner:
The argument that we're better off burying our head in the sand to me is not a viable argument, because it will result in exactly the instability that we ... Is Beijing not going to like it? Of course they're not going to like it. Why are they not going to like it? Because it is going to prevent their revisionist designs on the Indo-Pacific.
Chris Chivvis:
I'm Chris Chivvis. Welcome to Pivotal States, where we examine the strategic challenges and opportunities facing the future of American foreign policy. Today I'm talking with Ely Ratner, who was recently the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs in the Biden administration. Ely is now a principal at the Marathon Initiative, and one of Washington's leading experts on China, specifically on US defense policy toward China. So delighted to have you here with us today, Ely. I've been really looking forward to talking to you about this.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, great to be here, Chris.
Chris Chivvis:
One of the reasons I've been looking forward to talking to you about this is because it gave me the chance to think back to when we were at RAND together, which I think was maybe 15 years ago. Is that possible?
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, just about, yeah.
Chris Chivvis:
And I remember just being so impressed when you came on board at RAND with your analytic capability, which in a group of people who were already really smart, really shone, I mean, a lot of us who were slightly more senior analysts, were really super impressed by that.
Ely Ratner:
Well, thank you.
Chris Chivvis:
So you were in Obama obviously, then working for Biden, but under President Obama, where were we in the relationship with China at the time? Because this was sort of around the time when the signs that the China that we thought we were dealing with was not the China that we were actually dealing with started to appear. So you were sort of at the epicenter of that.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, I think the Obama administration was the period of, I think the cracking of the consensus and the paradigm on our China policy where we had inherited a policy from the Bush administration that had been predicated on integration, well-known speeches about China as a responsible stakeholder, Hank Paulson and others, still looking to integrate China into the economic and security structures of our conception of international order. And bit by bit throughout the Obama administration, as you said, it became increasingly clear that there was a large delta between our aspirations and expectations and assumptions about China's evolution and what we were actually seeing in practice during that time. So I think it was a really critical period and paradigm breaking. And then the first Trump administration fortified that in terms of at least their strategy documents, not as much their policy, but in their strategy documents.
Chris Chivvis:
That's interesting. How much credit do you give Trump One for reorienting American statecraft toward China?
Ely Ratner:
I give them a lot of credit for breaking the paradigm. I think in terms of the implementation of a comprehensive competitive strategy, there's still a lot left to be desired, including at the Pentagon. But I think in terms of being willing to be out there and saying the priority for the United States is on great power competition now, we need to wind down the global war on terror that's distracting us from this more important challenge. That was a really important evolution.
Chris Chivvis:
I mean, it's interesting because you just made me realize that, I mean, that strategy, especially from the Defense Department under Trump, was really the brainchild of Bridge Colby, who is now the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Defense Department again. And in addition was at the Marathon Initiative where you are now a principal.
Ely Ratner:
That's right. And Bridge was a former colleague of mine at CNAS as well.
Chris Chivvis:
At CNAS. Okay, okay.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah. So there's been a community of people who have been focused on the China challenge for quite some time.
Chris Chivvis:
And it's bipartisan, which is what I'm pointing to.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, I think it has been bipartisan.
Chris Chivvis:
Which is rare in this day and age in Washington DC, so I think significant for that reason alone.
Ely Ratner:
That's right. But I think still a minority both inside and outside of government.
Chris Chivvis:
So take me a little bit to how you saw the problem of China when you entered the Biden administration. I mean, what did you expect to be working on, and did things go more or less as planned or were there some big surprises or changes of course that were necessary? Because you were there for all four years, which is in this really important position in the Defense Department. So how did it sort of unfold?
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, I was there for all four years, and what I was tasked with was running what was called the China Task Force, where I built and led a team of about 20, 25 folks from all around the Pentagon, from the military departments, from the combatant commands, from parts of the Office of Secretary of Defense, to do a down-and-in study on how was the Pentagon doing on the China challenge. Yes, we'd had this rhetorical doctrinal shift toward great power competition and highlighting China as a primary focus, but how is that really going?
And what we found after doing literally hundreds of interviews around the Pentagon is that yes, rhetorically people had gotten the message and were starting to turn a little bit bureaucratically, but we weren't anywhere near what we needed and what we were aiming for-
Chris Chivvis:
A lot more needed to be done, yeah.
Ely Ratner:
... which was a comprehensive and synchronized approach toward competition with China. So what we went about doing was thinking much more comprehensively, whether it's in the space of forced posture or capabilities or operational concepts or information operations. How do we have a more coherent strategy? And that's the strategy, it's the processes, it's the inter-agency coordination, but building that more comprehensive approach and synchronized approach was much of what we spent our time doing.
Chris Chivvis:
So it’s operationalizing a strategy. But how did you define the problem from the Defense Department's point of view when you entered back in 2021?
Ely Ratner:
Well, I think the problem was that, and this was stated very clearly in the interim national security strategy that went out right at the beginning of the Biden administration in the National Defense Strategy. The problem is, as was stated repeatedly, was that China is the only country in the world with both the will and increasingly the capability to overturn and reshape the international order according to its authoritarian preferences, and in a way that would dramatically undermine the security and future prosperity of the United States.
So I think the problem set was very clear. And from the Pentagon perspective, the problem is that we have a leadership in Beijing that was increasingly seeing and using the PLA and the military as an instrument of its national power, its national strategy, and that if left unfettered, it would use aggression to exact that kind of revisionism that it was aiming for. So the direction from Beijing was crystal clear, and if not for deterrence by the United States and regional allies, we were likely and still are likely to see crisis and conflict in the Indo-Pacific that would have devastating consequences for the region, the world, and the American people.
So the principle problem is, and the principal objective is stopping that, and we want to stop that through deterrence, and the National Defense Strategy had integrated deterrence as its central concept, and that integrated part is about that synchronized and comprehensive approach of approaching deterrence.
Chris Chivvis:
That's a big challenge in and of itself. I mean, it's setting the bar very high. How do you feel that the Biden administration did on that after four years?
Ely Ratner:
Well, I think we made an immense amount of progress in a number of areas. I mean, number one, we put forward a national defense strategy that for the first time ever highlighted China as the principle pacing challenge. The 2018 National Defense Strategy did shift from counter-terrorism to great power competition-
Chris Chivvis:
Great power and competition, which implied China, but didn't specifically call it out in the way that you did. Yeah.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah. Included Russia as well. So the '22 National Defense Strategy, the first to say China is what we call the pacing challenge for the Pentagon, meaning the principle focus of our investments and concept development and whatnot. We then developed budgets that for the first time were really closely connected to that strategy in terms of investing in the kind of capabilities that were necessary for the Indo-Pacific.
Chris Chivvis:
Can you give a couple of examples?
Ely Ratner:
Well, the key areas that would be necessary, cyber, space, long-range fires, the undersea domain, a whole number of areas that were relevant to the Indo-Pacific. Then of course, continuing to develop operational concepts that were specifically designed to deal with the operational problems in the Indo-Pacific, and China's own strategy against the United States. So the joint war fighting concept very much developed with a mind toward how do we fight against the military that China is building.
So the way the United States fights being as important as the material it has to do so. We also made generational changes in our forced posture in the Indo-Pacific, meaning the places and the disposition of our forces in the region, which heretofore had been very concentrated in Northeast Asia, we were able to create a much more distributed forced posture throughout the region.
Chris Chivvis:
Which is valuable because it makes them harder to attack.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, and this is something that my office, in coordination with other important stakeholders throughout the department, made tremendous progress on, that again, we had our model of forced posture in the region was very focused on Northeast Asia and Japan and South Korea, tens of thousands of troops stationed there. That doesn't really work for crisis and contingencies against China because of their missile capabilities and otherwise.
What we went about doing is developing new access and forced posture arrangements with Japan that allowed us greater distribution down to the Southwest Islands, more access in the Philippines, more in Australia, Papua New Guinea, other places in the Western Pacific. And all of a sudden we are now working toward, it's not a finished product, but we are working toward a much more lethal, distributed, mobile resilient force posture through which deterrence can be much better maintained. So I think the force posture achievements of the administration were enormous.
And then the final one is just on the alliance front, which again is one that I spent a huge amount of time on, and there are two things to highlight there. One, our individual alliances, whether with South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Australia, India, all these major players, indisputably at a high watermark by the end of the Biden administration. Historically, US officials has a way of saying at every meeting, this is the stronger alliance has ever been. In this instance, it was true from a defense perspective across the board, but even more important to that, and this gets to the piece that I've written recently for foreign affairs, we started knitting these alliances together, and that was a huge innovation.
Again, something that strategists had been writing about for a long time, but had always been sort of more theory than action. And we made just tremendous achievements in actually integrating our alliances in new innovative ways that from my perspective, do have enormous deterrence potential and can prevent that kind of crisis and conflict that I was expressing concern about earlier in our conversation.
Chris Chivvis:
So I want to talk about your Foreign Affairs piece here, the case for a Pacific Defense Pact. Let me just try to put it in context of what you've just said. This is maybe a little bit of a simplification, but there were three or four key lines of effort in the Defense Department while you were there when it came to China. The first was capabilities, building the right kind of weapons. The second was developing operational concepts, you said, which means how the United States military is going to actually operate and fight wars.
The third is where the US military actually is in the Indo-Pacific, and that's the part about distribution that you just discussed. And then the final part, as you say, is alliances. All four of those are essential. They need to work together, but it's really the alliance part that's at the core of this innovative piece that you've written here for foreign affairs. Can you sort of encapsulate the basic idea? And then we can obviously get into it and try to pick it apart. And I'm curious about different aspects of it, but tell us what is it that you're proposing and how would the world be different in five years if there is a Pacific Defense Pact than it is today?
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, well, thanks, that was excellent summary of our conversation. And the basic idea is that historically our alliances in the Indo-Pacific have been bilateral. They get described as a hub and spoke model where the United States is at the middle and the spokes are the different bilateral alliances. And as I described, there was a significant evolution during the Biden administration of trying to integrate those alliances more together as they would need to be, to be providing the kind of deterrence necessary in the medium and long-term vis-a-vis China.
But that it is my assessment that although we made historic progress during the Biden administration, that the types of, and we can talk about them in particular, but the types of minilateral or networked or integration arrangements that the United States was building with its allies were too informal. That to actually be able to actualize the kind of deterrence, combat-credible deterrence that you would need to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, those relationships would need to be formalized to allow for the kind of planning and operating, the exercising that you would need to truly be effective. So that's the essential argument about formalizing a trend that was already underway.
Chris Chivvis:
So we have this hub and spoke alliance system in the Indo-Pacific that dates from the Cold War. So obviously the idea that it needs to be renovated is just intuitively appealing. So is the idea of building connectivity between America's alliances, because the hub and spoke model means that we have alliances with specific allies in the region, but they are not aligned with each other.
Ely Ratner:
That's right.
Chris Chivvis:
So your proposal is aiming to create a more holistic approach to the alliances in the region, but it doesn't include all of America's allies, right? I mean, your proposal focuses on Japan, the Philippines, and Australia.
Ely Ratner:
That's right.
Chris Chivvis:
So at the beginning, at least, this defense pact would only involve those four nations.
Ely Ratner:
That's right.
Chris Chivvis:
So what is the reason for that? I mean, why not include South Korea, Thailand, or potentially other partners in the region who are not allies?
Ely Ratner:
Well, it gets to the question also of why hasn't this happened before and why now? And the answer to that is that historically, yes, during the Cold War we had these bilateral alliances, and at different periods people have had ideas about potential multilateral collective defense agreements. In the Indo-Pacific, we had one in CETO, which was a little bit of a motley crew of countries that never really came together to have substantial effect.
The principal problem historically has been the Indo-Pacific is a huge geographic area. You've got a lot of different countries with a lot of different interests, and there was never clear that there was sufficiently coherent alignment to allow for a set of countries to actually bind together in a mutual defense pact. And so I think the starting point here is that when you look at those four countries in particular, the United States, Australia, Japan, and the Philippines, all four have now very clearly identified China as their principal national defense challenge.
And all of those countries, including the United States, have gone through significant evolutions in strategy, in budgets, in force structure, in response to the China challenge. So we have an alignment of concern against China from a defense perspective that we have not had previously and that differs from other partners in the region. Yes, South Korea is concerned about China, but not yet quite aligned in the same way. Yes, India is concerned but not aligned quite yet in the same way.
So that alignment is sort of recipe ingredient number one, unprecedented and now very close among these four partners. Ingredient number two has been an increase in intra-Asian cooperation. So exactly as you said, in some ways the innovation here is the Allies binding together and making mutual commitments to each other. Right now, the only alliances in Asia period are bilateral alliances between other countries and the United States with the possible exception of-
Chris Chivvis:
This is the hub and spoke that you were talking about.
Ely Ratner:
... China and North Korea. Right. None of those countries have mutual defense agreements with one another. Yet one of the profound processes separate from the Biden administration, I think the Biden administration helped advance some of this, is that the amount of defense cooperation between the partners themselves is like nothing we've seen before in terms of between Australia and Japan, Australia and the Philippines, Philippines and Japan. So those networks between the partners, the political and military alignments and agreements that are occurring facilitate this kind of a grouping in a way that hasn't been possible before. And these four countries stand as first among equals in terms of that level of cooperation. I think that would be recipe ingredient number two.
And then the third is what I describe in the paper as the new reciprocity, which is I think a perspective here in Washington that certainly I share, the particulars matter, but in the broadest sense that the bargain upon which our alliances were built in the Indo-Pacific of the United States will be the predominant security provider for these partners in return for other things is neither politically nor strategically sustainable, and that these countries have to play a more pronounced role in the alliances. That's something they were all doing, but I think pushing that forward gets you more toward this kind of a collective defense pact. So those are the three pieces that I saw as new, different, and unique to this collective.
Chris Chivvis:
So it might be helpful to talk a little bit individually about each of these three countries, just if you're able to provide a sort of thumbnail sketch of what they bring to US defense and to the United States as allies. Obviously, as you I think point out and support, we already are allies with each of these three countries. So that's a very important point. So in that sense it makes what you're proposing a little bit less of a heavy lift. Also, maybe a little bit less of a change than it could appear from the outside.
Ely Ratner:
Which is an important point, just to jump in here for a second, because there's often a knee-jerk reaction to this concept of, "Well, what about Trump? How can we even talk about this under a Trump administration?" And again, yes, the United States already has defense treaties with these countries. The principle innovation here is them aligning with each other. There is no new or additional commitment or burden upon the United States in this proposal.
Chris Chivvis:
And I think that's an important point, because I had that bias when I first read it. I said, "Asian NATO, knowing a lot about NATO, I'm not sure that that's really that feasible or such a good idea," but obviously you point out we already have them as allies. Let's try to go through each of them because these are very different countries. Let's be realistic.
Ely Ratner:
Absolutely.
Chris Chivvis:
I mean, Japan, leading world economy, technologically extremely advanced, very close to China. Australia, much further away, although because of China's own changing military capabilities feels a lot closer than it did 10 or let alone 20 years ago. But a smaller economy and a very different kind of a country. The Philippines also a totally different story, very different kind of a geography. It's archipelago, closer to China, has a conflict with China ongoing in the South China Seas, which worries me to some degree. Although again, we are already allies with the Philippines.
Ely Ratner:
That's right.
Chris Chivvis:
But also economically much less very, very different story from Japan or Australia technologically, same thing. And also in terms of its own policy towards China kind of vacillating. So talk a little bit about the role that each of these three countries can play from the Defense Department's perspective in terms of US defense strategy. What do they bring to the table now?
Ely Ratner:
So you're right, each of them is quite different and deserves separate treatment. So Japan, our most important defense partner in the Indo-Pacific in terms of our alliance, the capability they can bring, the geography they provide, we have tens of thousands of troops stationed in Japan, and the integration we have with Japan in terms of our planning, our command and control, which is an area which we're building with Japan, is second to none in terms of its focus on the China challenge in particular. So Japan, yes, deeply integrated with China from an economic perspective, but the transformation in the Japanese defense establishment and within their military-
Chris Chivvis:
Talk a little bit about that, because that's an important change that's occurred in Japan within the last few years.
Ely Ratner:
Well, you have of course a history with a Japan that has not had a normal military to one evolving toward more toward a normal military, but one very focused just on territorial defense, and the defense of Japan to one to now starting to think more and more, and this occurred under Prime Minister Abe thinking more about being a net security provider to the rest of the region. So Japan has been slowly loosening the restrictions on its military, also its defense spending, which had historically been below 1%. They had committed to increasing that up to 2%. It may go higher from there in the coming years. So being a third or fourth-largest economy in the world, when you have a 1% increase of GDP in defense spending, that's really significant.
So they're a very capable military, and we're very close partners. The opportunities are quite vast in terms of how we could be cooperating with Japan from a operational perspective. They have substantial naval capabilities, they're developing offensive strike capabilities, and the forced posture and geography is really important, as are their relationships with the Philippines, Australia and others. So they have been a leader in connecting themselves with other partners in Asia and facilitating that more networked approach. So they're-
Chris Chivvis:
Because they are the other major power in East Asia beyond China.
Ely Ratner:
That's right. That's right. And they are, certainly from a national security strategy perspective, very concerned about what the implications of Chinese aggression against Taiwan would mean for Japan, much less a China-led order in the Indo-Pacific would be quite detrimental to Japan's interest. Similarly, in the Philippines, a country that for a long time was very focused on internal defense, dealing with counterinsurgency problems, terrorism and otherwise through much of the 2000s and 2010s, but as a result of some very aggressive and illegal actions by China in Philippines' exclusive economic zone and around contested territories, the Philippines itself has been transforming its national defense strategy, and frankly its foreign policy in response to that kind of Chinese aggression. And they now have strategies to have a much more externally oriented military. Now their military modernization is further behind.
Chris Chivvis:
It's pretty far behind. Let's be clear, I mean there's a big difference between what Japan is going to be able to contribute and what the Philippines is going to contribute in any medium-term scenario in terms of their own capabilities.
Ely Ratner:
I think that's true to a degree.
Chris Chivvis:
What I'm driving at is that the importance of the Philippines, to US defense strategy, is not their capabilities, it's their geography, right?
Ely Ratner:
Geography is very important as it relates to the Philippines, but their capabilities are increasing more rapidly than they have been in the past. Yes, it will be a longer build for them to be participating in a really significant capacity from a military perspective. But I think we're on that path and they seem committed to going there. So part of the goal of the Philippines, not to divert into a conversation here about US strategy with the Philippines in particular, but as I saw it was to set that alliance on a path to be at the table with the US-Japan Alliance and the US-Australia Alliance and the US-Korea Alliance as one of the major military alliances in the region, and not thought of as sort of a secondary to Japan and Australia and others.
So that was the ambition. And as you said, their political approach toward China has differed. It is my view that as that alliance became more critical and essential and clearly in support of their sovereignty and national security and national interest, then the future politics around the US military alliance would also be more positive. So there's a self-reinforcing aspect to that. So that would be the Philippines.
Chris Chivvis:
So would it be fair to say, just to summarize, so for the Philippines, right now, it's primarily about geography and proximity to Taiwan from a US Defense Department perspective. But your hope is that over time the Philippines will develop sufficient military capability of its own to be what we often, for lack of a better term, call a security exporter in the region.
Ely Ratner:
And I think we're already starting to see some of that in some of the more asymmetric domains, unmanned systems, and otherwise.
Chris Chivvis:
Let's talk about Australia. What does Australia bring to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific?
Ely Ratner:
So in Australia, I'll just say in one sentence, has had a similar trajectory of having gone from a more disaggregated national security and defense strategy, to one very focused on its own defense because of the threat from China.
Chris Chivvis:
Because its relationship with China has deteriorated so much over the course of the last 10 years.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, and because of the military threat that China is posing to Australia and its interests have become severe in Australia's immediate area in the way that wasn't the case before. To the extent they had believed that geography created a sanctuary against the China military threat, I think they're disabused of that notion now. So in terms of specific contributions to deterrence, again, geography is really important because they do provide an alternative pathway into the Indo-Pacific that doesn't leave the United States overly reliant on, for instance, operating just through Japan. So there are important logistics and other types of capabilities-
Chris Chivvis:
That could be a safer route in wartime.
Ely Ratner:
... and maintenance and repair and overhaul. So lots of different opportunities for them to contribute and support alliance efforts rather than United States having to, for instance, go all the way back to San Diego. So the geography is very important, and we are operating in a number of locations throughout Australia now, really tremendous amount of rotation of US forces. And then they also are now modernizing and building up their military. Of course, the AUKUS effort that will put them in the future to be operating conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines, which is an area of principle, US and allied advantage over China, and very important to deterrence. So they will be in that domain.
And then also in the area of munitions, which is an area where the United States and its allies overall have a capacity problem, we need a larger collective defense industrial base. Australia has been, as a national effort from the Australian defense perspective, on par with AUKUS or close to AUKUS, has been an effort to try to build up their own indigenous munitions defense industrial base, which will be important for their own capabilities, but also contributing to the overall US stockpile as well. So a really important partner. Their special operations are obviously really strong. So they have a smaller military in terms of overall size, but extremely capable.
Chris Chivvis:
Okay. So Japan, the Philippines, Australia, your idea is to bring them together with the United States into a single alliance. Can you summarize what the main benefit in military terms would be?
Ely Ratner:
The challenge right now is that this gets to the context of the hub and spoke versus some alternative future, is that the United States has these different alliances, but if we had to operate together in a crisis or a contingency, we do not have all the mechanisms in place to be able to do that as effectively as we should. And so having a collective defense pact would allow us to do a number of things together in a coordinated way.
Chris Chivvis:
Such as what?
Ely Ratner:
Such as planning together, having no kidding plans for crises and contingencies that would outline who is going to do what at what stage of crisis and conflict-
Chris Chivvis:
Which you could exercise, presumably.
Ely Ratner:
That you could exercise, absolutely, and you could train toward. You will need more coordinated command and control. So right now, even in our bilateral alliances, we are working toward with Japan, with Australia, with the Philippines to have more coordinated bilateral command and control. So again, in the event of not only do you have the plans prepared and you know what the roles and missions are, but in the event you have the commanders together with the facilities and infrastructure and communication networks-
Chris Chivvis:
So this would be building a headquarters somewhere. Is that the idea? Just like we have NATO headquarters.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, you would certainly need a headquarters somewhere. And as I mentioned in the Foreign Affairs essay, I don't have a fixed perspective on this. You could do it in Hawaii at INDOPACOM headquarters. So we don't have a collective command and control mechanism right now. This type of pact would allow for that. And then the other, as I have conceived of it, is in the force posture domain, which is again, you think about the disposition of US forces out in the Indo-Pacific. I described how we are diversifying those in Japan, Australia, in the Philippines. What's interesting is that those partners are now deepening agreements with one another.
Australia already has an access agreement with the Philippines, but the Philippines is in the process of finalizing one with Japan that will allow Japanese forces to operate in the Philippines, and Australia and Japan themselves recently concluded a reciprocal access agreement just in the last couple years that are allowing their forces to be operating. And we saw Japanese F-35s go to Australia, we saw Australian F-35s go to Japan.
But the future vision here under a pact like this, is that we would have multilateral forces from these countries operating seamlessly in and out of all of these locations in the Western Pacific. And from my perspective, that creates incredible deterrent power, and it doesn't allow China to do what its principle strategy is, which is to somehow isolate these countries from one another and try to coerce and punish them individually.
Chris Chivvis:
So I want to talk about the deterrent value of this, but let's put that aside for a second because I want to ask you to make it a little bit more concrete. Because I get the integrated headquarters, for example, I can see potential benefit to that, but where I start to struggle a little bit as I think through what this would look like in practice or what it would actually mean during a conflict, what is the value of having Australia be capable of operating from the Philippines, or having Japan be capable of operating from the Philippines?
You need to flush that one out a little bit for me, because it's not something that I can really imagine. I certainly can imagine the United States operating out of the Philippines. I can imagine the United States, we do operate out of all of these countries, but the idea that there would be Japanese forces in the Philippines, that seems like a reach to me. So tell me what is the concrete benefit that we're achieving here?
Ely Ratner:
Well, I think given where these countries are with each other in their own defense relationships and the alignment that I was talking about earlier, I don't think this is such ... it would be an important evolution, but I don't think it is beyond contemplation. And in fact, these countries are increasingly joining each other's exercises with the United States. And so what do they bring? They bring unique capabilities, they bring more capacity, and they bring from a geopolitical perspective the region rather than just the United States.
And I do strongly believe that this might take us in a slightly different direction, but I do strongly believe that when we think about deterrence, the broader community of countries, including the Europeans that are committed to peace and stability in their own way in the Indo-Pacific, and to which Xi Jinping will have to contemplate that using aggression against any particular country will result in either and/or military, economic and diplomatic blow black and resistance from a much larger coalition of countries has a very strong deterrent effect. And I think we have seen that the European context, and it's certainly true in the Indo-Pacific context, and it's one of the reasons-
Chris Chivvis:
When you say we've seen it in the European context, can you clarify what you mean? You're talking about with Ukraine?
Ely Ratner:
No, I'm talking about we have seen extreme sensitivity in Beijing to European partners operating in the Indo-Pacific because I think they understand that if European countries with potentially small military contributions in the Indo-Pacific, but enormous economic and political stakes in the global economy and international politics, that will give Beijing pause. And we saw, for instance, the incredible amount of energy that China spent ensuring that NATO did not send a single person to set up a liaison office in Tokyo. Why was that so important, right? It is because of this concept that Beijing does not want to have to deal with a broader set of countries resisting its revisionist aims. And yet that is the principle pathway through deterrence. So that's at the root of this proposal-
Chris Chivvis:
Because Beijing wants to divide and conquer, and the key thing here is this makes it another notch more difficult for them to do that.
Ely Ratner:
That is one of the deterrence factors here in addition to the more specific provision of military power and coordination.
Chris Chivvis:
When we're saying deterrence here, are we talking primarily about Taiwan?
Ely Ratner:
Not principally. I think that's a big part of it, but I think a collective response to the South China Sea to PRC coercion and aggression against Australia, the East China Sea against Japan and all of these places would make that kind of aggression really unattractive. And that's really the consideration here for the other partners, because again, they already have defense treaties with the United States. That's not what's at stake here. What's at stake is for Japan, is it worth them to be committing to helping defend the Philippines and helping defend Australia for in return getting that collective defense model. From my perspective, that's what's going to be required over time to ensure deterrence, but that is the key consideration here.
Chris Chivvis:
So let me ask a little bit, and I want to stay focused on your proposal here, but deterrence is such a crucial part of this whole equation. I wonder how strong you feel deterrence is today, because there is a tendency in Washington to ... The incentives to saying that deterrence is strong enough are low, let's put it that way. The incentives to saying that we need more deterrence are high. And so what I wonder, and I don't have your level of expertise in the Indo-Pacific when it comes to security questions, but I have studied it to some degree and I know something about security issues. I wonder whether or not pretty soon we're going to be at a point, at least with regard to Taiwan, where the deterrence is awfully strong.
If you're talking about our extraordinary subsurface capabilities, air platforms that are coming online very soon, if you say hypothetically, AI gives the United States another extra edge, and the difficulty of, again, we're talking about Taiwan here, that operation to begin with, it seems to me as though there's a lot there already. So the question that I always have when people say, "We need to do this because of the strength of deterrence is," okay, what's the marginal gain here? You can make the case that, and I think it's a convincing case that you make that this could add to deterrence, because it doesn't allow China to divide and conquer, but how much more are we getting and how much more do we really need?
Ely Ratner:
During the Biden administration, you heard officials all the way up to the secretary, and certainly I reiterated a number of times when asked this question, we did say repeatedly, deterrence is real and deterrence is strong. So you had a number of people saying, "We believe deterrence is in place today." And the other important phrase that we said often was that we believe conflict was neither imminent nor inevitable. So that was our assessment at the time. The problem is we can't hit a pause button on PLA modernization.
So they are continuing to rapidly innovate capabilities that require us to continue with heightened urgency and resources. And this is the notion of the pacing challenge to be able to maintain deterrence and keep the costs of invasion high enough for Xi Jinping not to see that as an attractive option. I think if we were overly distracted or took our foot off the gas, it is very possible that we could find ourselves in a few years or in five years or in seven years, in 10 years, where the PLA believed they had such overmatch and we had not put in place the capabilities and the forced posture and the agreements and the alliances such that they would see an opening to exact the kind of rapid and low-cost invasion precisely which they are aiming for. And so I think if we keep focus, we can maintain deterrence, but it's not going to happen just on its own.
Chris Chivvis:
I mean, it's interesting when I think about deterrence, one of the key questions is whether or not Beijing actually understands clearly the capabilities that the United States and its allies are bringing to bear on the problem. And that part of it gives me more concern than worrying about the capabilities themselves. I think our capabilities are pretty robust, but what worries me is that Beijing will not understand the risks that are involved. They will not understand the strength of those capabilities, the strength of those alliances. To a certain extent, that's what happened to Putin in Ukraine when he believed that he could carry out an operation that actually he could not, his military had been telling him, I expect, telling him that he could carry it out. And I worry that that's the real problem with deterrence when it comes to the Indo-Pacific, more so than our military capabilities themselves.
Ely Ratner:
Well, it's certainly a consideration. I think having at its root combat credible deterrence is important.
Chris Chivvis:
You absolutely have to have it. Yeah, sure, there's no question.
Ely Ratner:
And communicating that is something we thought a lot about inside the Biden administration, and you have the lingo for this inside the Pentagon. People talk about the reveal/conceal debates around as it relates to US particular capabilities. Do you reveal them-
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah, that's really interesting. Talk a little bit about that.
Ely Ratner:
Do you reveal them for deterrence or do you conceal them? Because if you reveal them, then Beijing or others could develop countermeasures, or do you conceal them to be able to use them? And that was readily debated and discussed. I think that's another, getting back to the very earlier part of our conversation, that scenario where a coordinated comprehensive strategy against China will have systematic ways to answer those questions as opposed to how they might be occurring otherwise, which are individual commanders and individual military departments making decisions about this. Even individual military programs as opposed to a coordinated way that thinks about, okay, how do we think about deterrence?
What do we think really deters? What's the evidence for that and how does that inform our decisions about what kind of capabilities we may reveal or not? That's a level of sophistication that we ought to strive for. And I think you're right, it's an important piece of the puzzle. I think where we are now is that Beijing has a healthy appreciation for US military capability, and we need to ensure that we are making the investments and the reforms and changes to keep it that way over time.
Chris Chivvis:
Let's go back to your proposal for a Pacific Defense Pact here. I keep wanting to call it an Asian NATO, but my understanding is you don't like that.
Ely Ratner:
I don't like that term in part because it is extremely loaded and it is in many instances a PRC propaganda term to try to trigger people to not support this kind of an effort. Also, just from an objective standpoint, NATO is a pan-regional organization. This is not a pan-regional organization, and by design it is not a pan-regional organization. And one of the reasons why people have rejected this type of proposal historically is because they say a pan-regional organization is not possible, nor is this somehow an exclusive security organization against other mechanisms in the region.
And I think that's important too, that this would be embedded in a regional architecture that is overlapping and reinforcing with other types of arrangements and organizations. It is not the alliance to end all alliances. It is not meant to be usurping all sorts of activities that are otherwise ongoing in the region. So I just don't think NATO is the best analogy here.
Chris Chivvis:
I do want to talk about one other benefit that we haven't touched on yet. You did mention it and it's in the article, and this is what you call reciprocity. Because if we think about this from the US perspective, I'm very focused on what additional risks does the United States take on in this? And as we've discussed in that category, these are already allies of the United States, so the risks are not that great, but also what are the benefits that we're going to accrue? And so far you've articulated one of the key benefits as integrating really these three allies of the United States in order to present a stronger deterrent posture against China. There is also this reciprocity element of it. Can you talk a little bit more about what you have in mind there?
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, sure. And again, they differ in their particulars, but in general, the bargain in US defense treaties is that by and large the United States will work with these partners to help defend them from external attack. And what I think is necessary strategically because of the nature of the China threat, and politically here in Washington, which we can talk about as well, is that the context has changed so much from when those original bargains were struck, which was these countries, some of them were war-torn, they were not thriving advanced economies like they are today. The threats they faced were quite different than what they faced at the time. The degree of US military primacy was different, where we didn't really need huge amounts of support from other militaries in the past.
Chris Chivvis:
Because it had such extraordinary overmatch before China was-
Ely Ratner:
Yeah. And all of that has changed now. Not to mention increasing threats to the US homeland, which is something I didn't write a lot about in this essay, but over time, this is something US allies are going to have to adjust to, which is that US alliances in the world are going to be as much about the defense of the United States as it is about those partners. And we need to start thinking more in those terms that these need to be mutual defense agreements.
Chris Chivvis:
And this goes for NATO as well. I mean, I've messaged this to allies at NATO when I've been there as an official, but the question is, okay, but what do they bring? What does the Philippines bring to the defense of the United States?
Ely Ratner:
Well, maybe start with a country like Japan or Australia, right? And you can have, I think the way to concretize this a little bit is to talk about planning and roles and missions. So if we look at the development of the US-Japan Alliance, we have seen Japan being interested and willing in taking on more roles and missions beyond just the very limited defense of Japan. And that's something we need to work toward where in the event of a crisis or contingency, whether it's Australian submarines or the Japanese Navy or Philippine unmanned capabilities, that the message in the alliance is, "We need you to be doing as much as you can and contributing as much as you can, and not just relying on the United States for defense."
Again, I think these countries have been moving in that direction on their own, but the proposal here I think pushes that forward and makes clear also that reciprocity is not just about defense spending, which has been the almost singular focus of the discussion to date when we talk about NATO, right? It's got to be 3.5% or-
Chris Chivvis:
5%.
Ely Ratner:
... 5% or 2%. And many of the debates related in the Indo-Pacific have been quite focused on this question of are they paying their fair share? But reciprocity is so much more broad than that. It's so much broader than that. And it's really a question of is there reciprocity in terms of the access agreements and the overflight and the basing agreements that we have with these countries in terms of the ways in which US forces can operate out of them? How are they integrating the other allies and partners?
And then yes, operationally, whether it's in the air domain or undersea or in unmanned or in naval capacity, what can they really bring to the table? And yes, no country will be able to contribute as much to the United States, but I am quite confident that on the pathway that all three countries are on, Australia, Japan, and the Philippines in terms of modernizing their own militaries, is that they will have significant material contributions to make in the future.
Chris Chivvis:
Okay, that's really helpful. Let's talk a little bit about concerns you have. Obviously this is not something that's going to happen overnight. There are obstacles in any kind of a project like this. So let me start by asking you, I mean, what do you see as the main impediments or challenges to realizing this concept that you have?
Ely Ratner:
Well, I think the evolution of a proposal like this is in some ways it's operating in two really distinct planes. One is the degree of cooperation and integration among the defense establishments that's happening every day out in the region by military professionals and at the working level and at INDOPACOM and with our partner militaries. And I think in that regard, things are moving toward this kind of integration. So I think that is something that needs to be shaped as it is already moving forward.
And then of course there's a political diplomatic layer on top that would be required for a formalization of something like this that obviously right now is in a pretty difficult spot, particularly with Japan and Australia, but would need to be worked toward over time. So I think we'll see do the political and economic headwinds that the Trump administration is generating and facing right now in its relationships with Japan and Australia and others, do those settle or do those become worse and make this kind of political alignment much more difficult?
But I guess at the end of the day, what I would say is I do think that the strategic context calls for this from the perspective of these countries. And again, the commitment that would be required here would be with each other, not enhanced commitment necessarily with the United States. So to me, the trend lines are still pushing in this direction. But yes, the rockiness in the relationships with Japan and Australia right now make it unlikely that something like this would emerge in the coming weeks for sure.
Chris Chivvis:
I mean, it's easy for these countries to be allies with the United States. The United States military brings an enormous amount to their defense is essential to it really, I would say in all three cases. What they stand to gain from making an alliance commitment to each other is much more debatable. In fact, it made me think of you have a academic background. From a realist perspective, alliances really are almost not necessary because countries whose interests align will naturally defend each other and naturally cooperate.
And countries whose interests don't align well will not do that. And so part of what I wonder is from say, Australia's perspective, to make a commitment to defend the Philippines simply because they have a common enemy in China is a pretty big leap. Another way that your proposal could be interpreted by Australian strategists is that this is only intensifying our problem with China by promising to go and fight in the Philippines against China over their conflict in the South China Seas, which is only of secondary or tertiary importance to Australia itself.
Ely Ratner:
Well, I guess two responses to that. The first is from the realist perspective, this is happening already. And what I have written here is saying the quiet part out loud, which is this is happening already. If you really want it to work-
Chris Chivvis:
This being cooperation.
Ely Ratner:
Yes, you got to formalize it. Because the degree and the depth at which it is occurring today in this informal way is not sufficient in terms of planning and command and control and force posture and everything else we were already describing. I feel like all of the pieces are on the table and now with existing trends, they need to be brought together in a more formal capacity. So that would be the first thing.
Chris Chivvis:
Hold on, let's hold on a second. So with that, the United States can play a role in facilitating this, but there has to be a clear demand signal coming from these countries themselves. Let me say this is certainly how NATO got started. I mean, as you recall, there was the Brussels pact before the United States was involved in it, and a small group of West European nations were calling for the United States to become more involved and to help them out. Don't quite see that.
Ely Ratner:
I think there is a lot of latent energy in these countries around this kind of a proposal. And yes, it would be a significant step, no doubt, but I will tell you the number of messages that I've gotten from people inside and outside of government in these countries that say, "Thank you for writing that piece. Thank you for pushing this debate forward because this is the direction we have to go in and we have to have a serious conversation about that." And that was the purpose of the piece. You don't write something because someone's going to take it and say, "Okay, go implement this."
Chris Chivvis:
100%. Totally get it.
Ely Ratner:
You write it so that we're having this conversation. But you know what's good to hear? They're having this same conversation in Japan and in Australia and the Philippines, and they're starting to argue with each other about it. And there are people who believe that this is what's going to be necessary for those countries to be able to defend their interests. So yes, is it easy? No. Is there sufficient both kind of strategic and geopolitical momentum to make it at least worth considering? My answer is yes.
So yes, the stars would have to align to move forward, and I hope that's going to happen. But I don't think this is somehow contra, it's such a wild idea that is somehow non-existent in within these countries themselves. So that would be the first point. I think on the second point around, isn't China going to hate this? Isn't that going to make tensions greater? I mean, you get this argument already about US military modernization. Well, what trajectory are we on right now? The trajectory we are on right now is toward PRC induced instability and conflict.
If current matters are left as they are unfettered to go forward and we do not marshal sufficient urgency, attention and resources, we will have a conflict in the Indo-Pacific because the PRC will be undeterred. They have the absolute will to do this. There is zero question about that. We know that through all sorts of sources, and it is a question of capability and cost, and they are striving for the capability.
So do we have it in our hearts to maintain deterrence or not? I think that's the question. And they are on the pathway toward this. So the argument that we're better off burying our head in the sand to me is not a viable argument because it will result in exactly the instability that we ... Is Beijing not going to like it? Of course, they're not going to like it. Why are they not going to like it? Because it is going to prevent their revisionist designs on the Indo-Pacific.
Chris Chivvis:
Right. They're not going to like it. I suppose that's part of the point.
Ely Ratner:
It answers your question about why is it so important to do, the fact that you're even asking about concern about China's reaction. Would we need to do it in a way that was diplomatically savvy and didn't poke them in the eye and prepared for the kinds of retaliation that they would surely exact on these three countries? Of course we do. But what's the alternative? And I think this is an important question for folks. You've been doing policy in Washington forever. It's always easy to criticize any policy proposal. You got to ask the question of what's the alternative and where does that leave us?
And the alternative of not doing this, not raising tensions with China by banding together and presenting collective defense is instability and conflict that will undermine severely our prosperity and security. And we ought to be doing everything we can to prevent that. And that's what this is about. Now, if someone wants to say conflict's unlikely, and all you're doing here is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of aggression, I understand that argument. I just think it's deeply flawed based on the facts of where we are right now.
Chris Chivvis:
I mean, I think obviously China is the nation in this equation that is changing the status quo across all of these domains. And obviously there has to be a military response to that of a certain kind. And so I agree with you 80 or 90%. The only thing that I would add, and maybe you agree with this as well, is that what America does anywhere around the world is not neutral.
Ely Ratner:
Yep.
Chris Chivvis:
And so this does increase tensions, what you are proposing. You're saying, "That's okay, we have to accept that." But I'm only making the point that again, our own actions are part of the equation.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, absolutely. And look, I don't want to be glib about the concerns about the United States taking actions that are perceived as so provocative or destabilizing, or other partners doing so that it leads to the type of conflict-
Chris Chivvis:
There are such actions, but this is not in that category.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah.
Chris Chivvis:
And I can accept that. Yeah.
Ely Ratner:
I was in the job for three plus years, three and a half years at the Pentagon and doing it for the full four. In simple terms, the art of China deterrence is don't go too fast and don't go too slow. And you got to work on those levers, and you got to make sure that you're not taking actions that are from Beijing's perspective or creating closing windows of opportunities, or leading to political actions that are deemed so unacceptable that they need to be responded to.
Chris Chivvis:
They need to have alternatives. Right.
Ely Ratner:
And so of course, and you mentioned Taiwan earlier, that is the art and the essence of the strategy there. It is not about throw everything on the table and the more, the more, the more. It is about how do you do this in a way that reinforces deterrence and doesn't create that kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I think this kind of an arrangement, if done in the right way, threads that needle. It is fundamentally about deterrence and maintaining the status quo. The United States does not have territorial designs in the Western Pacific or to somehow invade China. The purpose of this kind of an organization is to prevent Chinese aggression full stop. Full stop.
So that's what we're there to do, and we ought to signal that and we ought to message that and we can operate that way and we can exercise that way. And I think that should be palatable to the region if it's presented in the right way, and accompanied with, by the way, I make the point here this is not meant to be a new political and economic organization. This is a military cooperative collective defense arrangement focused on deterrence. And the United States needs a comprehensive diplomatic and economic and foreign assistance strategy to make something like this work, including military to military engagement with China, which is something I spent a lot of time on.
Chris Chivvis:
Sure. That's really a whole other subject.
Ely Ratner:
You need all that wrapping.
Chris Chivvis:
Absolutely.
Ely Ratner:
So this is not to say you don't need any of that.
Chris Chivvis:
One of the things that I like about your proposal, Ely, is that for me at least, it falls into the category of helping our allies and partners manage their own security better. It's a means of strengthening their own ability to take care of their own security needs, and therefore be a little bit less reliant on the United States. And I think that's just healthy for the international system. So I like that aspect of it.
Ely Ratner:
Including by working with each other. I mean, you were talking about realism earlier. In a world in which US relative power is relatively less predominant than it was in the past, what would you expect a country like Australia or a country like Japan do? It would be to supplementing its alliance with the United States with other partners, including potentially hedging against concerns about the direction of the United States. So that's, again, I think what we are talking about here is a natural development of those kind of forces. And yes, these countries need to be investing more on their own. They want to deepen their relationships with the United States, but deepening relationships with each other as an important part of that kind of more self-sufficiency.
Chris Chivvis:
And I see that, and again, the question then is how much should the United States be pushing them in this direction, facilitating them, and ultimately, how long is it going to take? I mean, it's a very forward-thinking piece that you have here.
Ely Ratner:
And I guess to that point, I mean, to your question earlier about actual implementation or headwinds on something like this, there are a lot of discussions that would have to take place as you well know. I mean, if you think about how developed in architecture like NATO is, the amount of discussions and the mechanisms, both political and military, that would have to be established and worked out about roles and missions in all headquarters and all these other types of issues, it's going to take some time.
So realistically, we are probably looking at a window beyond the second Trump administration anyway, in terms of what it would take for something like this to actually be born. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done now, and I think that's in part my motivation for this piece is to say to the folks who are actually working on this stuff, "Go after it and go after it with these kinds of things in mind," even given the fact that the formalization may be on a much longer timeframe.
Chris Chivvis:
So it's a constructive idea based in not only a high-level strategic understanding of the region, but also extraordinary experience within the defense department. So you're really to be commended for this. I guess we'll find out whether or not it happens. We should come back in five or maybe 10 years and see how this has progressed.
Ely Ratner:
Let's definitely do that. Yeah.
Chris Chivvis:
But Ely, I really appreciate you coming to chat with us here on Pivotal States.
Ely Ratner:
Yeah, I really enjoyed this. Thanks, Chris.
Chris Chivvis:
This has been Pivotal States with Ely Ratner. We've been talking about his new article in Foreign Affairs, The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact. If you like this episode, please subscribe to Pivotal States. I'm Chris Chivvis with the Carnegie Endowment's American Statecraft Program. Thanks for listening.
