Conflict and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Strategic Net Assessment

The Asia-Pacific region is undergoing enormous change, fueled by high levels of economic growth and deepening levels of integration. These and other forces are generating a shift in the distribution of economic, political, and military power across the region. This changing security environment poses a major challenge for the United States, the historically dominant power in maritime Asia. Efforts to enhance regional cooperation, reassure allies, and deter and shape potentially destabilizing behavior are demanding a more complex mixture of U.S. skills and understanding. An array of current and likely long-term forces will drive both cooperation and conflict across the Asia-Pacific region.

Key Findings

There are five different security environments that could emerge in the Asia-Pacific region over the next twenty-five years (in order of likelihood):

Status Quo Redux: Constrained economic and political competition alongside continuing cooperation
Asia-Pacific Cold War: Deepening regional bipolarization and militarization, driven by a worsening U.S.-China strategic and economic rivalry
Pacific Asia-Pacific: Reduced tension and increased U.S.-China and regional cooperation
Asian Hot Wars: Episodic but fairly frequent military conflict in critical hot spots, emerging against a cold war backdrop
Challenged Region: A region beset by social, economic, and political instability and unrest separate from U.S.-China competition

Risks in the Evolving Security Environment

The primary risk: movement toward the conflictual side of the Status Quo Redux security environment due to an uncertain pattern of economic, political, and military multipolarity and a divergence in opinion concerning the proper distribution of power
A shift in resources toward security competition
Increased tests of resolve and political-military crises
A United States embroiled in third-party disputes
Greater challenges to the U.S. alliance system
Exclusionary political and economic arrangements
Domestic instability and regime collapse in North Korea
Domestic instability and ultranationalism in China
U.S. miscalculations in response to a more assertive China

Factors That Could Restrain or Eliminate Risks

Common support for sustaining economic growth
The absence of existential disputes
Enduring U.S. strength
The possibility of a more flexible China
Cooperation in dealing with North Korea
Collaboration in addressing transnational threats

Steps the United States Can Take to Avert Conflict

Identify U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific. U.S. agencies should identify the United States’ longterm primary, secondary, and tertiary strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific.

Conduct an unprecedented U.S.-China strategic dialogue. An ongoing, government-supported but unofficial track 2 effort could eventually feed into a more formal track 1.5 dialogue in the military and diplomatic realms.

Undertake a range of strategic assurances between the United States and China. A variety of specific reciprocal and joint actions should be considered as near- to medium-term initiatives to provide greater strategic reassurance between Washington and Beijing.

Clarify and strengthen the U.S. position on maritime disputes. In the South China Sea, Washington should encourage all sides to lower the perceived value of the disputed islands by delineating joint fishing, hydrocarbon, seabed minerals, and environmental protection zones. The United States should also encourage the disputants to enhance crisis management.

Coordinate a force for sea lines of communication (SLOC) defense. Washington should undertake a sustained effort to establish a joint maritime force involving the United States, China, and other Asian states in SLOC defense.

Provide greater support for crisis management mechanisms. These mechanisms could help avert or manage future political-military crises over maritime territorial disputes and other contentious issues.

Establish a forum for the discussion of energy security issues. Such a forum would be a vital channel for addressing tensions over the control of energy resources and transportation routes in the region.

Strengthen engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and with individual member states. The United States should promote a U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement and strengthen ASEAN institutions by endorsing their role as action-oriented bodies that are able to tackle regional issues.

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authors

Michael D. Swaine
Senior Fellow, Asia Program
Nicholas Eberstadt
M. Taylor Fravel
M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Taylor studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia. His books include, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes, (Princeton University Press, 2008) and Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949 (Princeton University Press, 2019). His other publications have appeared in International Security, Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, International Studies Review, The China Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces & Society, Current History, Asian Survey, Asian Security, China Leadership Monitor, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. Taylor is a graduate of Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his PhD. He also has graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2016, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation. Taylor is a member of the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Maritime Awareness Project.
Mikkal Herberg
Mikkal E. Herberg is Research Director of NBR's Energy Security Program. He is also a senior lecturer on international and Asian energy at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego.
Albert Keidel
Evans J. R. Revere
Alan D. Romberg
Alan Romberg is a distinguished fellow and the director of the East Asia program at Stimson. Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues including 27 years in the State Department, with over 20 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer.
Eleanor Freund
Junior Fellow, Asia Program
Rachel Esplin Odell
Nonresident Research Analyst, Asia Program
Audrye Wong
Junior Fellow, Asia Program

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

authors

Michael D. Swaine
Senior Fellow, Asia Program
Nicholas Eberstadt
M. Taylor Fravel
M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Taylor studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia. His books include, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes, (Princeton University Press, 2008) and Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949 (Princeton University Press, 2019). His other publications have appeared in International Security, Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, International Studies Review, The China Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces & Society, Current History, Asian Survey, Asian Security, China Leadership Monitor, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. Taylor is a graduate of Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his PhD. He also has graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2016, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation. Taylor is a member of the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Maritime Awareness Project.
Mikkal Herberg
Mikkal E. Herberg is Research Director of NBR's Energy Security Program. He is also a senior lecturer on international and Asian energy at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego.
Albert Keidel
Evans J. R. Revere
Alan D. Romberg
Alan Romberg is a distinguished fellow and the director of the East Asia program at Stimson. Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues including 27 years in the State Department, with over 20 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer.
Eleanor Freund
Junior Fellow, Asia Program
Rachel Esplin Odell
Nonresident Research Analyst, Asia Program
Audrye Wong
Junior Fellow, Asia Program

Conflict and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Strategic Net Assessment

Key Findings

Risks in the Evolving Security Environment

Factors That Could Restrain or Eliminate Risks

Steps the United States Can Take to Avert Conflict

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