SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MATTIS

President Trump Follows Through with Summit Meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Telephone Call With China’s President
Xi Jinping

Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis
(USMC-RET), took on the role of reassurer-in-chief in his first high-level visit outside the United States. The Secretary’s four-day itinerary pointedly took him to South Korea and Japan, two critical regional allies of the United States whose national security depends heavily on mutual security treaty guarantees negotiated in the early days of the Cold War and sustained over more than six decades. Both countries see themselves as shielded under the “nuclear umbrella” repeatedly promised to them by the United States.

Trump Campaign Rhetoric Questioned Mutual Security and Trade Arrangements

These long-held promises were called into question by remarks President Trump made regarding the strength of long-term alliances and U.S. nuclear guarantees during his 2016 presidential campaign. The alliances with South Korea and Japan, including the basing of American forces on the ground in each country, Trump suggested, were unduly burdensome on the United States. More of the cost, he insisted should be borne by the host countries. He further speculated that perhaps these two nations should consider developing their own nuclear weapons rather than relying on American guarantees.

Given the rise of Chinese diplomatic, economic and military presence in the region as well as the destabilizing threats presented by the North Korean regime and its push to develop both nuclear weapons as well as medium to long range missile systems capable of delivering those weapons against South Korea and Japan, Trump’s campaign remarks were perceived as alarming in these countries, threatening to destabilize the regional balance of power and encouraging China’s aspirations to replace the United States as the dominant voice and critical balancer in
East Asia.

These security concerns were deepened when Trump made it clear that he believed multilateral trade deals such as NAFTA disadvantaged the United States by facilitating the movement of American industrial operations and jobs overseas. His deep concerns about unfair competition and the “bad” trade deals negotiated by previous American presidents, led Trump to question the usefulness of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that the Obama administration negotiated with several East Asian and Pacific countries, including not only Japan and South
Korea but also major American allies such as Australia
and New Zealand.

Following his Inauguration, President Trump moved quickly to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that had been signed in Auckland, New Zealand in 2016. The intent of TPP had been to establish an American-led trading bloc that would strengthen Asian and Pacific Rim economies and provide a counterweight to growing Chinese economic and diplomatic presence in the region. The decision to withdraw from TPP left many Asian leaders uncertain as to how to build a relationship with the new President of the United States and wondering aloud whether they should begin to devote more attention to building closer relationships with China.

Mattis Reaffirms United States Commitments in Northeast Asia

Into this maelstrom of uncertainty and deep concern that American security commitments and resolve in the region might be weakening as the result of a new burst of nationalism that promised always to put “America First,” stepped the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. What former President Obama’s national security team had referred to as a “pivot” toward Asia as American involvements in the Middle East and southwest Asia began to wind down is now referred to as an effort to “rebalance” security concerns in East Asia by bringing United States presence more energetically back into the region.

It was that renewed commitment that Secretary Mattis sought to underscore by his presence and his statements in South Korea and Japan. He made clear that, even in the face of the current political tumult in South Korea, the United States remains fully committed to their defense and to deterring the growing nuclear threat from the North Korean regime of Kim Jung Un.

“We stand with our peace-loving Republic of Korea ally to maintain stability on the peninsula and in the region,” Secretary Mattis assured South Korean Defense Minister Han Min Koo. “America’s commitments to defending our allies and to upholding our extended deterrence guarantees remain ironclad: any attack on the United States, or our allies, will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons [by North Korea] would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming.”

As proof of this reaffirmation, Secretary Mattis sought to recommit the United States and South Korea to the previously agreed upon deployment of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), a missile defense system, within the current year. “THAAD is for the defense of our ally’s people and of the American troops (28,500) committed to defend South Korea. Were it not for the provocative behavior of North Korea, Mattis insisted, “we would have no need for THAAD out here.”

Mattis was effectively trying to reinforce the South Korean commitment to THAAD in the face of its current political upheaval. Defense Department documentation suggests that a THAAD battery could be installed in less than a week once full South Korean consent is obtained. Though China has expressed strong objections to the THAAD emplacement, seeing THAAD’s powerful radar as capable of gathering intelligence about Chinese weapons systems, Mattis was insistent that THAAD was intended to send a strong signal to North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons systems program.

Arriving in Japan for meetings with defense officials and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Secretary Mattis pointedly underscored the commitment of the United States to the “Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between Japan and the United States (1960). “I want there to be no misunderstanding during the transition in Washington,” Mattis assured the Prime Minister, “that we stand firmly, 100 percent, shoulder to shoulder with you and the Japanese people.”

He reiterated in the strongest possible terms Article V of that treaty: “Each party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.”

“Due to some of the provocations out of North Korea and other challenges that we jointly face,” said Mattis, “I want to make certain that Article V of our mutual defense treaty is understood to be as real to us today as it was a year ago, five years ago, and as it will be a year and ten years from now.” Beyond this forceful reiteration of treaty obligations, however, in private conversations with Prime Minister Abe and Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, Secretary Mattis made clear that the U.S. defense commitment extends to all the territories under Japanese control, including those islands disputed by China.

The Thucydides Trap

At issue in Northeast Asia is not simply the security and territorial integrity of individual countries. Instead, what is at stake is the regional balance of power as a rogue regime in North Korea seeks to offset the economic weakness of its authoritarian regime by acquiring nuclear weapons as a “quick fix,” the threat of which might buy a measure of protection to sustain its insular ways. Both the promise of a THAAD deployment in South Korea and the recent successful test of an Aegis missile interceptor by the United States and Japan are intended as none too subtle warnings to Pyongyang.

More destabilizing still are the rapid economic growth and the dramatically increased military capabilities of China, a regime that harbors memories of past glories, dutifully remembers past slights, and nurtures aspirations of territorial dominance. Beijing aspires to define East Asia as a Chinese sphere of influence and makes sweeping claims to sovereignty over the South and East China Seas enlarging small islets claimed by other countries in the region in order to begin building forward bases and challenging freedom of navigation by militarizing areas astride critical shipping routes.

The so-called “Thucydides Trap” recalls growing conflict between ancient Sparta and the rising power of Athens, a conflict that resulted in a devastating war. Thucydides, the Greek historian who chronicled the conflict between Sparta and Athens saw that the root cause of the conflict was difficult to resolve tensions between a rising power that challenges a long-time ruling power. The same analytical framework can be used to understand World War I as a conflict between the established power of Britain and the rising power of industrial Germany. The “trap” is that such competition between states leads, more often than not,
to conflict.

And so the question: Can the United States and China avoid major conflict in East Asia? Can the two great regional powers work their way toward a modus vivendi that will protect the sovereignty of major states like Japan and South Korea and allow functional cooperation between the two great powers? The process will not be smooth as demonstrated by President Trump’s attempts to reinvigorate U.S. ties with Taiwan and call into question the fragile balance of the “One China” policy so carefully nuanced by Henry Kissinger in the Shanghai Communiqué (1972).

Trump Reboots East Asia Policy – Strengthens Alliances and Opens Dialogue with China

The Mattis trip to South Korea and Japan was one piece of this complex and highly sensitive puzzle, a puzzle that was scrambled by President Trump’s rhetorical efforts to rethink the long-established alliance relationships the United States has maintained in the region. The Secretary’s task in South Korea and Japan was not just to reassure allies, though that was a critical mission in itself. At its heart, the goal of the Mattis mission was to take a moment fraught with danger and turn it into a moment of opportunity.

President Trump moved swiftly to act on the opportunities the Mattis trip opened. By reaffirming the commitment of the United States to South Korea and Japan, Mattis – acting in the name of the Trump administration – made it clear that the United States intended to remain a major player in East Asia. This course correction allowed Trump a plausible way to open conversation with China’s Xi Jinping, at the cost of having to accept the notion that a “One China” policy is the price of admission to a less confrontational relationship
with China.

Prime Minister Abe of Japan became Trump’s second official state visitor, and Trump was able to underscore presidential support for the promises Secretary Mattis made in Seoul and Tokyo. The renewed relationship between Japan and the Trump administration earned Prime Minister Abe a weekend golf date and mini-summit at what is becoming Trump’s substitute for the Camp David presidential retreat, his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.

The critical question is whether President Trump and his fragmented diplomacy can be successful at constructively aligning valuable alliances and regional balances of power.