America’s long-promised pivot to Asia had finally begun to gain momentum, with new security agreements with the Philippines and India, expanded military exercises and plans with allies to outpace Chinese technology.
But the Middle East, like a whirlwind, pulled Washington back. And for America’s partners in the Indo-Pacific region, many of whom already worry that the U.S. is not moving fast enough to counter Beijing, the sudden focus on Gaza — with Pentagon task forces, increased shipments of U.S. weapons to Israel and rushed visits to Middle Eastern capitals – feels like a loss that slows progress on some of their most critical challenges.
“What worries us the most is the diversion of US military resources from East Asia to Europe and the Middle East. We really hope that the conflict will end very soon,” said Akihisa Nagashima, a lawmaker and former national security adviser in Japan, at a strategic forum in Sydney, Australia, last week.
Senior US military officials said no equipment had left the Indo-Pacific region. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – will criss-cross Asia this week with messages of confidence, stopping separately or together in India, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia.
Along the way, they are likely to hear a mix of views on Gaza, with India more supportive of Israel, Japan seeking a more balanced approach, and Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, increasingly outraged by the thousands of civilians killed in the Israeli invasion that followed Hamas’ attack on Israel.
But what all these countries share are questions about how Washington’s involvement in yet another distant war, in addition to Ukraine, will be weighed against the needs of the Indo-Pacific region. Many are asking: How many pledges of support to how many nations can the United States, a power stretched abroad and politically divided at home, handle?
Guns are one area of common concern. The US defense industry is grappling with shortages of ammunition being supplied to both Ukraine and Israel, including 155mm artillery shells. Guided munitions and more sophisticated US systems are also headed for both conflicts, even as US partners in the Indo-Pacific wait for their own arms deliveries.
Japan, Taiwan and Australia may face delays in military equipment that has been agreed and promised by the US.
“It’s not just about the hardware,” said Andrew Nien-Dzu Yan, Taiwan’s former defense minister. “You have to learn or train people to operate these systems. The concern is that the United States will not have a more effective and sufficient capacity to deter China,” he added.
If the war in Gaza drags on, its impact may change. While a protracted conflict could further strain America’s arsenals, China could learn from it that waging war in urban settings is extremely difficult, perhaps deterring Beijing from carrying out its threats to seize the densely populated island of Taiwan, which he considers lost territory.
For now, however, Beijing seems to prefer to continue maintaining tensions. Two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, a Chinese coast guard ship and a naval militia vessel rammed Philippine ships on a supply mission to Second Thomas Atoll, a Philippine outpost in a part of the South China Sea that China claims. It was one of the most confrontational clashes between the two sides in the more than 20 years they have clashed in the disputed territory.
A few days later, a Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of a U.S. B-52 bomber during a nighttime maneuver over the South China Sea that nearly resulted in a collision — part of what the U.S. military called “a dangerous pattern of coercive and risky operational behavior”.
China’s goal, according to Admiral John Aquilino, commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific region, is “to force the US out of the region”. Pentagon officials emphasize that this will not happen.
But for skeptics of American commitment, Washington’s wild swings in attention are woven into the historical fabric. Vietnam stands out as an example, but so does the George W. Bush era. During the 2000 election campaign, he declared: “When I am president, China will not doubt our strength and purpose in the region, our strong commitment to democratic allies throughout Asia.”
A month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he went to Beijing to meet with then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin. Eschewing all his previous talk of the rising giant as a “strategic competitor,” Bush emphasized trade and the need to jointly fight terrorism.
India still remembers the consequences of this change – the war in Afghanistan brought the US closer to New Delhi’s rival Pakistan. And with China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, expected to meet with President Biden at a summit in San Francisco this month, some Indian commentators are questioning whether Washington could once again turn to the Middle East.
“If you go back to the old trade relationship and the idea of ’we’re going to work to accommodate Asia, that’s going to affect Taiwan, Japan, India and all our neighbors,'” said K. Raja Mohan, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. in New Delhi. “But I don’t think we’re there yet.”
For some countries, the renewed conflict over the Palestinian issue has also rekindled old beliefs that the United States is anti-Muslim or at least too pro-Israel. After years of Washington avoiding confronting the often brutal treatment of Palestinians by both the Israeli government and extremist Israeli settlers, some no longer believe the United States will be a fair mediator.
When US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrives in Indonesia, he is likely to face an angry public, if not anti-American protests, despite his efforts to advise the Israeli military on how to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.
“There is considerable cynicism about US calls for Israeli restraint,” said Chong Jae Yen, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. “In many ways, the Biden administration has a difficult task and has to carry the baggage of previous US policy, which makes it all the more important for the administration to get things right and show that it is trying to be impartial,” he added.
Blinken’s efforts to meet with Arab leaders and try to get a pause in the fighting for humanitarian aid “somewhat mitigates the impression that the U.S. is simply supporting Israel, regardless of Israeli actions,” Chong added. And at this week’s G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Japan, the grouping of leading democracies joined this call for a “humanitarian pause”.
But for Japan and many other American partners in Asia, the war in Gaza risks disrupting both oil supplies and security progress. The sooner it ends, they say, the sooner the world can return to what Washington still sees as its most important challenge: deterring and competing with China in an interdependent world.
Asked in Japan on Wednesday whether the US was too preoccupied with the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine to continue to focus on Asia, Blinken replied: “I can tell you that we are determined and, as they say, we are running and chewing gum at the same time. The Indo-Pacific region is critical to our future.” “Even as we deal with a real crisis in Gaza and the Middle East, we are also not only able but fully committed to all the interests that we have in the Indo-Pacific region,” he added.
2023-11-09 19:55:43
#York #Times #Ukraine #Israel #America #sustain #wars #deal #China
 "Bayer Leverkusen First to Qualify for Europa League Knockout Phase")
