Sooner or later, about 5,000 of those Marines are to be transferred to an expanded facility on the U.S. island of Guam, a huge construction project underwritten by the Japanese government. Another 2,700 are slated to go to Hawaii. Up to 2,500 will rotate through an expanded Royal Australian Air Force base in Darwin.
About 8,000 to 10,000 Marines are supposed to remain in Okinawa -- or, at least, Washington and Tokyo would like them to remain there. But that depends on the latest round of negotiations. At the end of December, Okinawan Governor Hirokazu Nakaima reversed his position against building a new base, thanks in part to 300 billion yen a year that Tokyo promised to inject into the Okinawan economy over the next eight years.
But it's far from a done deal. In elections this month in the town of Nago, which has jurisdiction over Henoko where the new base is to be built, Mayor Susumu Inamine won a second term after pledging to continue his opposition to the proposed construction. Turnout was high, and so was Inamine's victory margin -- despite a promise from the conservative ruling party to provide an additional 50 billion yen to Nago if residents rejected the incumbent. Civic groups, meanwhile, continue to try to tie the project up in court.
Beyond shuffling Marines around the Pacific, what else does the pivot consist of? Not much. Four new Littoral Combat Ships are being sent to Singapore to beef up patrols in the region. A small-scale gesture to begin with, that experimental vessel, which has experienced serious cost overruns, is a clunker. The first ship to reach Singapore had to return to port after a mere eight hours on the water, the latest in a series of problems that have prompted a congressional inquiry into the program's viability.
The Pentagon has emphasized the importance of a planned readjustment of the balance of the U.S. fleet globally. Currently, the ratio of Pacific to non-Pacific ship deployments is 50-50. In the years to come, that may shift to 60-40 in favor of the Pacific. But ratios don't mean much if the overall size of the U.S. fleet goes south. The Navy recently submitted a plan to build up fleet size from its current 285 ships to 306 over the next 30 years. But that plan is based on the rosiest of imagined future budget allocations: one-third higher than those the service has received over recent decades. A more likely scenario, in an age of belt-tightening, is a reduction of the fleet to 250 ships or fewer as more are decommissioned than added yearly.
In air power, too, the pivot comes up short, given what the United States already deploys in the region. As the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Auslin testified before Congress this past summer, "The U.S. Air Force already rotates F-22s, B-52s, and B-2s throughout the region, primarily in Guam and Okinawa, and there are few more planes that can be sent on a regular basis."
It's true that Washington is pushing its new F-35 jet fighter -- Japan has already promised to buy 28 of them -- but pity our poor allies. The most expensive weapon system in history, the plane has 719 problems, according to a report by the Pentagon's own inspector general. That's a lot of problems for a weapons system that costs nearly $200 million a pop (almost $300 million in some versions).
Much of the Pentagon's future in Asia has been focused on "Air-Sea Battle," a joint Navy-Air Force integrated plan that made its debut in 2010 with the specific aim of denying adversaries (read: China) access to the seas and skies of the region. The Army, finding itself essentially left out, has put forward its own "Pacific Pathways" initiative, which aims to transform a largely land-based force into a maritime expeditionary force, potentially bringing it into direct competition with the Marines.
However, Washington's Pacific allies shouldn't expect much from it. The program is really no more than an effort to stanch the hemorrhaging of Army personnel, already slated for a 10% drop in strength over the next few years -- with signs of more shrinkage ahead. As political scientist Andrew Bacevich writes, "Pacific Pathways envisions relatively small elements milling about the Far East so that whatever happens, whether act of God or act of evil-doers, the service won't be left out."
While the pivot may not add up to much, one thing is certain: it will cost money, even with allied contributions factored in. For instance, the expansion of the Guam base is now priced at $8.6 billion (or more), with only about $3 billion of that picked up by Tokyo. The overall cost for the relocation of the Marines, the Pentagon estimates, is likely to be $12 billion. And even that is undoubtedly a lowball figure, according to the Government Accountability Office, which estimates the move to Guam alone at as much as double that sum. No surprise, then, that the Senate -- in a mood of unusual bipartisan agreement -- has balked at the price tag.
The simple truth is that the Pentagon is no longer going to have the same kind of loot to throw around as it did in the go-go days of the last decade. If merely moving forces around the Pacific costs so much, it's hardly likely that outlays for major new deployments will make it past Congress. And this doesn't even take into account the inevitable tax revolt of the Japanese, Korean, and Australian publics when the bills for their own "contributions" start coming in.
Why Asia, Why Now?
Even if the Pacific pivot is more smoke than firepower, the United States is hardly a paper tiger in Asia. It remains by far the most powerful military actor in the region. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, fighter jets, and nuclear subs all mean that the United States can throw its weight around when necessary.
But perception means a great deal in geopolitics and right now China is winning the perceptions game. Beijing is flush with money and has been using its considerable foreign exchange surpluses to win favor with countries in the region (even as it undercuts some of that good will with its territorial claims and military actions). In 2010, it teamed up with its Southeast Asian neighbors to form a free-trade zone large enough to compete favorably with Europe and North America.
Although China won't have power projection capabilities even remotely comparable to the United States in the foreseeable future, double digit military spending over the last decade has closed the gap with Japan and Korea. Tensions in the region have increased -- over disputed islands between Japan and China, around the potentially oil-rich South China Sea, and in airspace as well after China unilaterally established its own "air defense identification zone" in November that covers the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
China's muscle flexing is about the only thing that could turn the Pacific pivot into something real. Countries that were once ambivalent about the U.S. military presence -- such as Vietnam or the Philippines -- are eagerly putting out the welcome mat for American forces. Japan is using the "China threat" to further water down its "peace constitution" and ratchet up cooperation with the Pentagon. And the United States is eagerly stitching together its various bilateral relationships -- from India to Australia to Korea -- into a cloak of containment to stifle China's rise.
Even without much meat on its bones, the Pacific realignment "works" so far because so many disparate actors find it useful to believe in. For China, it provides a convenient rationale for buying or building new weapons systems to deny the United States complete control over air and sea. For U.S. allies, the pivot offers an additional insurance policy that requires them to pay premiums in the form of building up their own militaries. In the United States, hawks rejoice at a Rambo-like return to Asia, while doves bemoan the inherent militarism of the new policy. The Pentagon sees more basing options; arms manufacturers see more lucrative contracts; other U.S. corporations see greater access to overseas markets through the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
However, one major Asian reality has to be taken into account when considering Washington's increased focus on and interest in the Pacific: not since the end of World War II has the United States been able to impose its will on the region. It had to make do with a stalemate in the Korean War; it lost the Vietnam War; and it hasn't been able to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. It can't even stop allies Japan and South Korea from quarrelling over the ownership of a tiny outcropping of rocks that lies midway between the two countries. And the U.S. economic relationship with China -- a codependency grounded in overproduction and overconsumption -- is a brake on U.S. unilateralism in the region.
In an age of economic austerity and policy coordination with China, the Pacific pivot amounts to a complicated dance in which the United States steps backward as we propel our allies forward. It might seem a penny-wise way of sharing the security burden, but the realignment is still woefully expensive. And "Asianizing" the Pacific through arms exports and visiting forces agreements only helps to fuel what has emerged as the most significant arms race in the world today.
The lumbering aircraft carrier known as the United States should be executing a pivot that lives up to its name: a shift from the martial to the pacific. Instead, it's just roiling the waters and leaving instability in its wake.
