Former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs - US, Japan, Australia, Philippines should form defense pact

 

WASHINGTON -- In a much-discussed article in Foreign Affairs, Ely Ratner, the former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs in the Biden administration, proposed forming a collective defense pact in Asia. It would go beyond the traditional bilateral security arrangements the U.S. has with allies and would oblige the allies to come to each other's rescue.
 
Ratner suggested that it should start with fellow "Squad" nations Japan, Australia and the Philippines. "The concept is to work with the countries who are most aligned strategically, who are already working together very closely, and are already doing activities that could be built on," Ratner told Nikkei Asia.
 
The one glaring absence was South Korea, a stalwart U.S. ally. Ratner said he would welcome South Korea to the pact on several conditions, including the nation acknowledging China as a threat and doubling down on its cooperation with Japan.

Ely Ratner, who served as assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs in former president Joe Biden’s administration, argued in a Foreign Affairs article published last week that Beijing was nearing the capability to reshape Asia by force.

“The time has come for the United States to build a collective defence pact in Asia,” he wrote. “For decades, such a pact was neither possible nor necessary. Today, in the face of a growing threat from China, it is both viable and essential.”
Beijing is intent on fulfilling President Xi Jinping’s vision of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, according to Ratner – a project he says includes reunifying with Taiwan, dominating the South China Sea, and weakening US-led alliances to reshape the regional order.

“If it succeeds,” he wrote, “the result would be a China-led order that relegates the United States to the rank of a diminished continental power: less prosperous, less secure, and unable to fully access or lead the world’s most important markets and technologies.”

Speaking to This Week in Asia, Ratner said the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines “are the four countries who are most aligned on the China challenge and are already deepening collective military cooperation in response”.

 His proposal is similar in some ways to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad. This grouping, which is primarily diplomatic and does not constitute a formal defence pact, also counts among its members the US, Japan and Australia.
The defence ministers of those three countries held a meeting with their Philippine counterpart on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore at the weekend. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said there was “none closer than this group, none more strategically positioned to manifest deterrence, to bring about peace”.
Ratner stressed that his proposed pact would differ from the “Asian Nato” concept floated by Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba last year, which drew little support from regional leaders.
Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro had also expressed scepticism about a regional defence alliance, arguing last year that “dichotomies and divergence in country interests” among Southeast Asian nations made it difficult to forge a unified military alliance. He instead urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to acknowledge that China was “overstepping” in the South China Sea.

Ratner pointed to three factors that he said made a smaller-scale collective defence pact viable, adding that he had deliberately avoided the term “Asian Nato”.

“First, US allies are more aligned than ever. Second, there is unprecedented cooperation among US allies. And third, there is an increasing demand for US allies to do more to contribute to peace and security. These trends all point in the direction of a collective defence pact,” he told This Week in Asia.

While he praised the Biden administration for taking “historic steps to link allies and partners together in new ways”, Ratner said current frameworks were too informal.

“A more formal mutual defence pact is necessary to deter the growing threat from China,” he said.