Why Should We Care About a US-Japan-Australia-Philippines Defense Pact? | with Dr. Ely Ratner
54:33 Share

And welcome once again to Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific, brought to you by our producer, IEJ Media, and our sponsor, Bauer Group Asia. More about them in due course. I am Ray Powell. I'm the former military officer here in California. Over there in New York is Jim Caruso. He is the former diplomat. Jim, how are you? Well, we're getting some of the aftereffects of the fires in Canada.

And I know this wouldn't happen if they were 51st state. Of course. Well, so since we're talking about contentious issues regarding allies, we've decided to go ahead and invite on Dr. Eli Ratner. He is the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs under President Joe Biden. He previously served as the Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden.

He has been the executive vice president at the Center for New American Security. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. And coming to you from Stanford, I have lots to say about that.

and a BA from the Princeton University. More to the point and more immediately, he is the author of an essay in the July-August edition of Foreign Affairs, The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact, America Needs a New Asian Alliance to Counter China. All right, a provocative title, a provocative article. So Dr. Eli Ratner, why should we care? And I'm going to go there. Why should we care about an Asian NATO?

Well, first of all, guys, thanks for the invitation. Great to be here. Really looking forward to the conversation. I think the root of this argument starts with what we understand of China's ambitions in growing military power in the Indo-Pacific, where they have been undergoing rapid military modernization. They have ambitions to dominate the region in ways that would really undermine U.S. interests and, frankly, the interests of most countries globally.

in the region, in the world. And from my perspective, the dominant or one of the dominant questions in U.S. foreign policy today is how do we prevent that from happening? How do we maintain an open, a free, open Indo-Pacific in which the United States can engage in the kinds of commerce and technology and diplomacy that

so that we can be part of the 21st century. We have done that historically through a set of bilateral alliances. And the argument in the paper says we're at the point now where we need to start bringing those alliances together for military operational reasons to maintain deterrence in the face of China's growing threat. And it's something that's been discussed over the years. We tried this back in the 50s and 60s with CEDAW. It didn't work then.

Is the threat now just greater? So you think there's an impetus for countries to work with us now? Or what is different now than during the Cold War?

Well, a lot has changed. And you're right. This is not a brand new idea. It's something we have tried in the past. It's something folks have proposed. My argument is that now it is more essential for the reasons I just described, but also viable than ever before. And that's because of a few different trends. One, we are seeing much closer strategic alignment among entrepreneurs.

America's closest allies in the Indo-Pacific. My proposal is to include at the outset the Philippines, Australia, and Japan. So this is not a pan-regional organization that includes every organization, every country in the region. We can talk about that in more detail. But the point is, look, among these four countries, there is a level of alignment that will allow for a greater level of cooperation than we'd ever had before. One of the challenges historically has been

different geographies, different countries, disparate national security interests. Um, we have very close alignment now between these four countries. We've also seen, uh, over the last several years, and this is something that the Biden administration sought to build upon much greater intra Asian cooperation between our allies. So between Japan and Australia, analysts describe that as an Alliance like relationship, uh,

between Japan and the Philippines, Philippines and Australia. So countries are working with each other in ways that make the old model sometimes described as a hub and spoke with the United States, the middle and separate distinct bilateral relationships, that that doesn't make sense anymore, that it makes more sense to bring our partners together. And the last thing I'll say is that our –

Current system of alliances in the Indo-Pacific was built in the wake of World War II. It was at a time when the China threat was minimal, when our allies were some were war torn. Others were just beginning to modernize their militaries and were very focused just on their own defense. Now, these countries are some of the most advanced and sophisticated countries.

technological countries in the world. They have leading militaries. They can contribute a lot more and the threat's a lot greater. So it is time to bring together the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts from a defense perspective. And I'll just say, you know, we did some of this during the Biden administration, building what has been described as a more lattice-like architecture, bringing together allies and partners in new constellations. That was important work.

It was unprecedented. It was historic. But it's also incomplete and too ad hoc to develop the real kind of military cooperation that you need to provide combat credible deterrence into the long term.

All right. That's a good leaping off to... And actually, you didn't take the red meat I offered at the beginning, which was the Asian NATO piece. So I'm going to go back and refer to Prime Minister Ishiba from Japan, who back in September sort of invoked the term NATO in talking about the need for something like what you're talking about. And at the time, it was sort of received pretty lukewarmly and wasn't really followed up very much. But...

How would you compare this to NATO and kind of how it started and what it is today? And what makes it the same and what makes it different? Well, maybe just a word on Prime Minister Ishiba's comments, because I think those are indicative of the sentiment among myself and others that the threat, the challenge is growing and we need to think about doing things a little differently to ensure deterrence and maintain stability into the future. Yeah.

That term, Asian NATO, I think the way the prime minister was using it and sometimes NATO itself is different than the proposal that I have put on the table here, in part because Asian NATO is

has the connotation of a pan-regional organization like NATO itself, where it covers all the countries in the region. And I think that has been understandably one of the obstacles historically to something like this, to a collective defense arrangement in the Indo-Pacific, because, again, the geographies are vast, the orientations are different, and it would be very difficult to think about

collective defense organization that would truly have deterrent power that would include India and Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia and Australia and others. The views and the cultures and the militaries are just too disparate at this point. So rather than an Asian NATO, a pan-regional organization, what I have proposed is something more limited and

to the countries that, as I was describing earlier, I think are most strategically aligned that make this a more viable proposal and frankly are, from my perspective, some of the most important countries for deterrence in the Western Pacific. So I think from a military operational perspective, it makes sense. And from a national strategic orientation perspective, it makes sense. And not a pan-regional organization like NATO. Though one of the similarities is what I am talking about here is

collective defense arrangement, which is different than what exists today in a regional sense in the Indo-Pacific, where the only existing mutual obligation treaties in the Indo-Pacific are between the United States and its allies, arguably between

China and North Korea, but in practice, between the United States and its allies in a bilateral sense and nothing between the allies themselves. And so I think thinking about a more collective approach to deterrence is exactly what we need from a strategic perspective, but again, also from an operational perspective when we're thinking about

exercises and operations and command and control and force posture, all of cooperation in those domains would be made much easier by a more formalized arrangement. So would you foresee a NATO-type secretariat, some sort of joint command and that sort of structure?

Yeah, I think a headquarters with a command and control structure would be absolutely necessary. I think the exact formulation, would there be a secretary general or would it be a rotational figure from one of the militaries? We do this in different ways in our alliances in the Indo-Pacific already. But those are the types of issues that would have to be addressed. But yes, you would need some kind of headquarters in which you had

a unified command and control structure to try to get toward what I'm describing here. Again, there are different ways to do it.

Within the Indo-Pacific itself, in Korea, for instance, with South Korea, we have an integrated command that is very closely intertwined. With Australia and Japan and the Philippines, it's more of a combined effort where the militaries would be operating together and in a synchronized way, but in parallel. One could imagine either structure over time, but it wouldn't require a particular model. But yes, some kind of

So one of the criticisms that's come out about this idea is, you know, kind of comes back to the whether or not some countries, especially maybe Australia, which is much further away from kind of where the action is today, would be willing to sign up for something like this.

when for them the threat is not as imminent as it is for a country like the Philippines. So the question comes up, would Australia, for example, really be willing to go to war over a shoal in the South China Sea? How would you respond to that?

Well, I'd respond in a couple ways. I mean, first, Australia has had its own strategic awakening about the China threat. And if you look at the evolution of their defense strategies, the way they're approaching their military spending and their operations and their deployments, they have really changed their assessment from thinking about Australia as providing security elsewhere in the world, elsewhere in the region, to

to the Middle East, to Afghanistan, to now...

writing about a very explicit reassessment of the threat to Australia itself. So I don't think it is the case anymore that Australia feels like its geography affords it the ability to conceive of the China threat as something that is distant and not immediate to itself. And in fact, the PLA, as you may know, recently circumnavigated Australia, conducted live fire exercises that required closing of airspace around Australia.

It was very much a wake-up call about the proximity of the China threat. And their military defense spending and strategy has reflected thinking more seriously about the direct challenge from the PRC. So I think the alignment is, from a strategic perspective, is much closer. As I was describing, Australia's defense cooperation with the Philippines, with Japan, is

has just been hitting one high watermark after another in terms of unprecedented activity and cooperation, reciprocal deployments, exercises and whatnot. So that kind of intensification of cooperation is already growing. And look, in any circumstance like this, a national leader is going to have the option to say, you know,

We're not going for this, that these circumstances do not merit my military going to war over these issues. What I'm talking about here is creating the structure such that the foundations are set for collective military action if leaders decided to take it.

So yeah, I take your point. No one wants to be locked into particular crises. But my assessment based on the way these countries are evolving their own national security strategies and the way they're cooperating more is that they see a lot of value. They see the threat and they see a lot of value in working with the United States and other powers. And to me, this is the best way to lock in deterrence. And just the last thing I'll say about this is it's

It's a good question, but the fact of the matter is that

Chinese aggression, whether it's against Taiwan or the Philippines, would have a profound effect. Even a major crisis would have a profound effect on the global economies of which no power in the Indo-Pacific, much less in the world, would be immune if it started shutting down supply chains and sea lines of communication. So Australia has a very vested interest in ensuring that

Chinese aggression remains deterred. And I think what we're what I'm arguing here is that investing in that now on the front end to prevent conflict is something we ought to be really focused on. And we're going to have to do it in a way that's different than before, given the changing nature of the China challenge.

Right. So we'll ask about the giant elephant in the room, which of course is everyone agrees in the region that China is a problem and a threat. We also agree that the U.S. is becoming less reliable and they point to attacks on NATO by President Trump and others and the uncertainty of U.S. policy going forward. So how do you address that issue of countries choose a program like you're talking about, which basically ties them more closely in with the U.S.?

Well, it's a good point. My response would be a couple. I mean, in the first instance, I would say what we have seen in Europe

with the Trump administration's rhetoric and policy toward NATO has not replicated itself in the Indo-Pacific, that on major alliance issues and defense and security issues, the Trump administration, both in rhetoric and in practice, has continued to message the importance of U.S. commitment and the importance of U.S. allies and partners. So if you look at Secretary Hegseth's trip, his first trip to the region, to Japan and the Philippines,

sent that message very strongly. And just this last weekend, he was out in Singapore for the Shangri-La dialogue and again delivered a message of this region is important to the United States and our allies and partners are central to that. Now, they're asking their U.S. allies and partners to do more in those relationships. I think that's a good thing. But what we have seen to date is

an expression of a desire for continuity in those alliances, if anything, to do more and go faster from the Trump administration. And partners in the Indo-Pacific have so far successfully managed to silo off some of the economic and diplomatic issues and move forward on the defense front. Now, that has limits, right?

And if these relationships, diplomatic or economic, are very severely damaged, then yes, the defense relationships will be undermined as well. But up until this point, the defense relationships have allowed to mature, I think, because in part, leaders on all sides recognize the nature of the China challenge and the power and the importance of work

working together. So it's an important question. It's a more difficult political environment than it would be in a different context, but I don't think that makes it impossible. Well, so building off of those last couple of questions, one of the things that the United States has a hard time doing, especially in this day and age, is coming up with 67 votes in the United States Senate and a new defense pact would require Senate ratification. It's been

43 years since the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which almost everyone in the national security and foreign policy and, you know, communities agree we should have signed long ago. And somehow we still can't get there today. And that seems to have very little downside.

So how in the world would we ever I mean, so we're asking these other countries to go ahead and sign up to this thing kind of without the real assurance that in the end, the United States would be able to get it over the line. Yeah, it's an important question. And there are historical precedents for the United States marshalling international and regional activity that its own domestic politics hinder. Yeah.

One thing I would say is I think that the particulars about the ways in which a organization or a mechanism like this are established, I don't know that there's necessarily a single pathway to do that. In fact, the fact that the United States already has

treaty alliances with the partners in question means that from a, uh, again, a mutual obligation perspective, the United States has already committed to defending Australia and the Philippines and Japan. Uh, in a sense, what is really new from that kind of national commitment perspective is the, the agreement of mutual obligation between the allies themselves. So I think that would be the principle, uh,

a change from a agreement perspective would be Australia and Japan and the Philippines saying, hey, we're willing to agree to some kind of mutual obligation with you as well. But I don't know that what we're talking about here would necessitate a treaty in the US Senate. And a lot of

The military cooperation work that I lay out in the essay that I wrote, a lot of that is already underway and is ongoing and is something that we would build upon and is not the kind of thing that requires necessarily 67 votes in the U.S. Senate, though, of course, you would want strong political support for something like this to make it enduring in the United States and to demonstrate U.S. commitment. So that would be an ideal scenario.

But I think getting the process going on developing the

military and operational foundations of something like this is something that we should get underway without having to stumble over some of those procedural questions right at the outset. But it's an important question, and it pertains also to what kind of processes you would need in Tokyo, Manila, and Canberra on these kinds of issues as well. Clearly, it's a big lift. No one thinks this is a small task, but again,

from my perspective, preventing Chinese aggression is the singular most important task in US foreign policy, and it's going to require big ideas. And maybe one of the advantages of this period of disruption we're in right now is that it gives people a chance to think about, okay, we had a international order that was familiar that seems to be evolving and under disruption right now. What is the future of

the affirmative agenda of the United States look like in Asia, in the world. And we ought to be looking at ambitious ideas that may take some political heavy lifting to get done for the future international order. So did you look at this idea while the Biden administration was in office? And if not, what's changed? And if so, what prevented you?

Well, it's a good question. From my perspective, the period from 2021 to 2025 very much was a transition evolutionary phase in this regard because for...

you know, well over 10, 15 years, people have been talking about the desire to try to network together our alliances together. I myself have been in and out of think tanks, have seen multiple reports on this aspiration of binding U.S. allies together more than has been done historically. And there had been on the defense side,

Some fits and starts on that, but mostly just dialogue and political military discussions, nothing in the way of very real cooperation and activity. I think what we saw starting in 2021 and going forward was because of the changing threat environment, because of the Biden administration's approach to wanting to work with allies and seeing the potential value in this type of cooperation was that transition away from thinking about the region and

from a security perspective in purely bilateral terms and seeing new initiatives, whether it was the AUKUS initiative, whether it was revitalizing the Quad with India,

unprecedented defense cooperation in the U.S.-Japan-Korea constellation, work we did with Japan-Australia in the Philippines in a format that we called the squad. All of that started off in terms of an activity standpoint from really from dialogue to action over the last few years. That was a very significant turn in

in the regional security order. And I think it created opportunities for the types of arrangements that I'm talking about here. So I think it is more about timing and evolution and really understanding what's in the realm of the possible because we, as was true on a lot of issues, not just on this issue of mini lateral cooperation, but on questions of ally defense spending, on questions of

What kind of capabilities were allies going to be willing to invest in? What kind of activities were they willing to do with the United States? What I saw in the role I had at Pentagon was that day after day, month after month, engagement after engagement,

were willing to do things they had not been willing to do before. And the number of firsts and unprecedented and most that we would be able to riddle our fact sheets with when we did summits really reflected that, that there was a lot of very new things where often, whether it was with the Indians or the Australians or the Japanese or the Philippines, I would walk out of a meeting and our colleagues, we would say to each other,

One would never have imagined five years ago that that would be possible. So I think we are increasingly in a new area in terms of the nature of the China challenge and the way countries are responding to it. And what I see is the Biden period is one of transition and evolution from that more bilateral focus to opening up the potential for something like this.

So you mentioned the Philippines, and it seems that to many of us that the Philippines has kind of been ground zero for a lot of this evolution, especially beginning in early 2023 when the new Marcos administration began to assertively push back against China's aggression in the West Philippine Sea. So I guess one is I just like to get your perspective on the role of the Philippines in kind of galvanizing these countries to sort of come together and

And the second is, how much do you worry about the return of a more independent foreign policy, as the Duterte administration like to call it, a return of the Duterte family or at least Duterte forces to power in the Philippines in 2028?

Yeah, so two terrific questions. My personal perspective is that the Philippines are an essential ally for America's future in the Indo-Pacific from a defense and security perspective, but also from a diplomatic perspective. They are an essential piece of America's approach to the region, obviously an age old ally. And the work that we did to deepen the alliance on force posture and the

the modernization, uh, of the, uh, Philippines armed forces was some of the most important work from my perspective that we were able to accomplish, uh, during the administration. So absolutely essential. And as you said, they did provide a really important convening function. And that's in part because of the very visible, very assertive, uh, very illegal, uh,

military and government action by China's military and their Coast Guard and their maritime militia encroaching upon Philippine sovereignty on things that have already been ruled upon

by international law. So these are not even disputes per se. It's a dispute in China's mind, but in the international law, these things are settled. And yet we are still seeing this kind of intensive, coercive, malign behavior, and at times violent from China toward the Philippines. I think that was just very clear and provided a...

case in which U.S. allies and partners, frankly, from around the world could come together and express support for the Philippines and standing up for international law. And the Philippines has really strong relationships in the region. They've got a great relationship with Australia, a longstanding visiting forces agreement. They are on the cusp of finalizing a reciprocal access agreement with Japan that will allow Japan's

Japanese forces to more readily operate in the Philippines and vice versa. The Philippines has been the largest recipient of Japanese foreign military assistance in recent years. So it is in part the pressure that is under from China and also the degree to which they have very skillfully been developing their relationships with their partners that make them a really key player in

in this effort. On your question of domestic politics in the Philippines and how does that pertain to this, it's an important question. I think my position on it is that's all the more reason why we should work with urgency to try to deepen and strengthen the U.S.-Philippines alliance and the bonds between the Philippines and our other allies such that the role of this grouping

And the role of these relationships becomes even more deeply embedded in the Philippines' own conception of its security, such that when there are political changes, while there may be differences of approach and perspective and policy, they don't result in radical shifts. So if you look at our relationship with Australia or South Korea, where there are regular swings back and forth between progressive and conservative governments,

Despite that, because of the importance of the alliance and the deepening that we have done together, there are boundaries within which those political winds swing. And I think what we ought to aim for is such that the U.S.-Philippines alliance is so important to the region and to the Philippines that the domestic politics don't become a spoiler to the future of cooperation. But obviously, it's...

something we have to keep our eye on. Now, speaking of domestic politics, let's go south to Australia. So Secretary Hague sets discussion with Defense Minister Marles where he asked for a 3.5% of GDP spend on defense, up from about 2.03 right now. That's pretty significant. Marles said we can talk about it. Prime Minister Albanese, he said no, which clearly wasn't ideal. So I guess, and...

you could argue as we had in our podcast previously, how much of the effect the anti-Trump sentiment among the Australian populace had on the outcome of the vote. So I would say Australia might be a big lift in this regard because of these factors. So I'd like your comment on that, but also how would you generally characterize Secretary Hicks' Shangri-La speech and interactions there? Do you think it's helpful what he did towards your vision?

Well, you asked a series of really good questions there. My understanding talking to Australian officials is that, yes, what you described as the Trump factor was at play in the Australian election, but it was not decisive in the way that we've seen in other elections, that it was in their politics, but not necessarily the critical factor. I think as it relates to the question of the Trump administration's approach to

And how to be effective and successful in that regard. It's a good question. And look, I think the Trump administration is doing the right thing in terms of pressing U.S. allies around the world, but on the area of the world that I work on, on the Indo-Pacific, I think it is appropriate for the United States to be...

working with allies to do more. And I don't just say spend more, because I do think we need to broaden the aperture a little bit when we think about defense and security and the contributions of allies and partners, not to just be laser focused on

defense spending as the singular measure of whether they're contributing because there's a lot more that allies can bring to bear in terms of access, basing, and oversight, overflight in terms of their own roles and missions and particular operations, in terms of the types of exercises and capabilities that they're willing to invest in and bring to bear. So we ought to think of a more holistic conception of alliance contribution than just domestic defense spending. But that said,

So I agree with the Trump administration that more reciprocity and more contribution from allies is important. And that's where countries can do it. And that's from, again, a strategic perspective. That doesn't mean the U.S. does less. But from a strategic perspective, we need...

more contributions from allies to reinforce deterrence going forward. So I think from a strategic perspective, it's important. And obviously, from a domestic political perspective in the United States, my read of the polling of the American people is that this is not just a Trump thing, that the American people support alliances in principle, but they also, when asked, do want to see allies and partners carrying their fair share. And it's not

the 1990s anymore when the United States was the dominant hegemon and it was just fine. The threat level was low and it was just fine for the United States to be the world's policeman. We're not in that international context anymore. And so part of, I think the future is going to be us allies and partners being asked to play a larger role. And the question is how do we get there? And that's where this is tough. It's political. It's,

And so doing it with just a bludgeon is not going to be as effective. And I think you're likely to get the response you got from Prime Minister Albanese in other places as well. And so we have to think about what does the U.S. policy look like? What does the U.S. strategy look like that creates political space in our allied capitals such that they can get out there and politically defend a position of deepening a relationship with the United States? And that's why

As we are pushing allies to do more, we have to think about what are they getting out of these relationships? How is it deepening their security? And then, of course, you need it's trite to say it's a Washington ism, but that you need a whole government approach where you're combining trade and economics and technology and foreign assistance in a way where countries thrive.

number one, see the United States as a leader and also see U.S. presence as benefiting. So I think to get leaders to take big steps with the United States to do more, we're going to need an approach that gives them that political space. And if it's just a matter of

lecturing them and coercing them, I think we're going to be less effective. And then the economics and the tariffs make that political environment even more difficult. So that is part of the challenge within Asia defense policy is how to continue to advance these defense relationships when there are domestic political sensitivities, whether they're related to China or economics or otherwise. That's part of the art. So we need that. As it relates to

Hegs' speech in Singapore, the speech really had different elements to it. There was an opening of the speech that would be very familiar of...

sort of his more internal domestic political, uh, orientation. Um, there was this section on, uh, uh, China and, and concerns about the urgency of the threat of China. There was this, uh, urging the allies to do more again in principle. I think that is absolutely the right thing to do. And it's just a question of what the right approach is. And then the back third of the speech, interestingly, um,

a strategy with a set of priorities and a set of activities that were quite similar, if not in most instances, a carbon copy of continuity from the Biden administration. So there was the categorization, look, we're trying to advance force posture. We're trying to strengthen the capabilities of our partners. We're trying to build stronger defense industrial bases, even from a

perspective of categorization very familiar. So from a policy perspective, I think there was a lot of continuity. And then when it came to the meetings, I would just note that Secretary Hegseth did repeatedly emphasize the importance of U.S. commitment to allies and partners. And he met with the constellation of countries that I described in my article of Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. He met with the defense minister's

from those four countries and opened his comments with, uh, very strong statements about, uh, how this grouping was the closest set of allies and was the most essential for, I think in his words, uh, manifesting deterrence or something along those lines. So, um, we'll have to see. I think the, the, the question will be going forward, um,

Does the Trump administration continue to demonstrate that commitment to Asian allies that's different from what we've seen toward NATO? I think the answer to that so far has been yes. But then to what degree do the tariffs and some of the economic and political issues get in the way of advancing bigger and better and stronger defense initiatives? That's certainly what I'll be looking for.

Try to see if we can squeeze in a couple more questions here because there are a couple things I'd really like to get to. One is a huge emphasis in your article and also in this conversation has been this notion of deterrence.

And as you're well aware, you know, from traveling around in this region, the terms deterrence and provocation seem like two sides of the same coin, depending on whom you're talking to and what our adversaries are saying. So how would you, you know, when you think about how other countries say, you know, the ASEAN countries and others might respond or react to this, and of course, how China itself would react,

would almost certainly accuse us of provoking them. How do you weigh that when you're considering these deterrent measures and how do you talk to other countries about it? Yeah, it's again a very sophisticated question. Well, I'm a really sophisticated guy. You're asking the right question, but you're asking the question that is at the heart of strategy issues in the Indo-Pacific about how do we deal with, how do we bring the region along effectively

with a more competitive approach toward China that is going to make them feel uncomfortable politically and, and from a security perspective, uh, to a region that has been for, for a long time governed on consensus and has thrived on economic development and really hasn't had to consider the realities of, of conflict. Um,

My response to your question, if someone were to say, look, what you're proposing is going to raise tensions because China is not going to like it and they're going to react to it. I guess I would say a couple of things. I think the first most important response is what's the alternative? Right. What's your plan, Stan, for maintaining deterrence in the Indo-Pacific? Because if it's

bury our heads in the sand and hope that the China threat goes away or hope that a strategy and approach and ambition that they have outlined is somehow not actually what they're planning to do. I think we'd be fooling ourselves. So the, those who say, look,

You know, whether you guys talk to a lot of people about these issues, whether it's on technology or diplomacy or economics, the folks who say, look, this orientation around competition, it's really disruptive. Can we just get back to the heyday of, you know, the 1990s? I think what we've seen is in the absence of competition and in the absence of the United States marshalling resources and focus and energy,

to try to prevent China from being revisionist. They have only pushed down the accelerator on their ambition. So to me,

not being serious about deterrence, not taking additional measures to try to integrate our alliances more closely together would almost assuredly lead to down the road, a very destabilizing environment, either a major crisis or a conflict that would have devastating consequences throughout the world. And people would turn and they say, why didn't we do anything about that when we had the time? Wasn't it, you know, wasn't it crystal clear?

China was aiming to do. And wasn't it crystal clear how disruptive that would be to the global economy? Why didn't we do anything about that when we had the chance? Well, we have the chance right now. And yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable. There are going to be tensions. China will respond in terms of taking military measures, in terms of coercive economic and political measures against any country that seeks to deepen its partnership with

with the United States, but that is precisely because these kinds of arrangements will potentially blunt their revisionist ambitions. Uh, and if they can effectively coerce and bribe and influence countries not to work with the United States, then it's going to pave the way, uh, toward, uh, the kind of China led order that they have designs for. So, uh, yes, it's going to raise tensions and, but that is the part of the, uh,

costs that will come along with doing what we need to do to maintain ultimately in the long run stability, which will benefit the region broadly. That is my argument. That's based on

everything I have read and the experience that I've had working on these issues, but it is not to say that it would not come with tensions. And yes, there are countries in Southeast Asia who would much prefer that the United States just stayed quiet and can't we all just get along here? I just don't think that's realistic given PRC ambition. All right, Jim, the exit question is yours. Okay. Well, you put your finger on

Southeast Asian countries not liking this. ASEAN centrality would be under threat, at least according to ASEAN. So there'd be a lot of outcry about that. But more interesting is what India would do. How do you see them going? Well, and on the ASEAN centrality question, just my quick response to that would be, as was the case during the Biden administration, I think with this type of proposal as well,

I would still conceive of it in the context of complementary and overlapping institutions. ASEAN is not a defense and security, collective security arrangement anyway. And doing something like this would not prevent ASEAN centrality as the principal convener in the region, nor would it prevent the United States from moving forward with trilateral cooperation with South Korea or the Quad, Mexico.

mechanism with India. So these things... They didn't like Quad either, remember? Yeah, but these things can coexist in practice if the United States shows up, as the Biden administration did to major ASEAN events and engage that institution and treated it with the respect and engagement that it deserves. So I think you can do both.

So on the India question, India is not desirous, as far as I understand, of being part of a collective defense pact in the Indo-Pacific. So, of course, the door would be open for them. But I don't think they would view this as something that they were left out of. My hope is they would view it as something that would be stabilizing India.

in the Western Pacific as they were dealing with their own threat from China on their border and in the Indian Ocean. And the United States would continue working with India. That's one of our most important and frankly, fastest growing defense relationships in the world. And something like this certainly wouldn't slow that down. And any instances in which India wanted to cooperate with

in an informal capacity in some of these mini lateral arrangements, they would always be welcome. So I think it would be

additive to the U.S.-India defense relationship. And if it did, in fact, contribute to stability in the Western Pacific and bring more allied deterrence power vis-a-vis the threat from China, then I think India would welcome that. But that would have to be consistent with continued U.S. engagement and deepening with India on a bilateral basis. Trey Lockerbie

All right. Well, Eli Ratner, if people want to keep track of your work, where are the best places for them to follow you? Well, I am now a principal at the Marathon Initiative, a think tank focused on preparing the United States for long-term great power competition. So I will be publishing from there and

active around Washington and on social media and otherwise. So I look forward to staying engaged and continuing to debate these important issues. And just want to say thanks a lot for a really terrific conversation. All right. Well, that's the article is The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact. It is in the July-August edition of Foreign Affairs and, of course, up on their website. I urge all of our listeners to go out and read it, engage with it, engage with Eli, engage with us. Thanks very much. All right. Thanks so much, guys.

Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific is sponsored by Bauer Group Asia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific. Bauer Group applies unmatched expertise and experience to help clients navigate the world's most complex and dynamic markets. Jim Caruso, of course, is a senior advisor with Bauer Group, and their website is BauerGroupAsia.com. Jim, I feel like this is the article we've been waiting for somebody to write.

Well, it all gets back to the main discussion, which is how do you deter China? And I guess the hope is that having at least a few countries more closely, I guess it's coordinated, integrated. I don't know how you describe it at the end of the day because it's not NATO, as Eli said. It's something else. And these are countries which already have aligned structures with the U.S. and often defense agreements with each other. So I guess my question to you, military boy –

is how much does it add to effective deterrence? What is China going to look like and say, oh, that's more dangerous for us? Yeah, I mean, so I do think there is important deterrent value in formalizing something, right? So basically saying that there is a collective defense pact between these four countries is different than saying,

the latticework, as he called it, and as the Biden administration called it, the fact that the spokes around the hub of U.S. alliances begin to build relationships with one another. So reciprocal access agreements are great. Cooperation is great. But that's different from Japan saying they will defend the Philippines or Australia saying they will defend Japan. So that is a different step. And that's what a collective defense pact

would do, right? Now, you know, of course, it does make you wonder when he says things like, well, in the end, these things, you know, each country can make its own decision. Well, that's true. I mean, that's true with every country

defense pact, even if it is a treaty. There's nobody who's going to go put somebody in jail because they didn't come to another country's defense, even though they had a treaty. But the political consequences of abrogating a defense pact are enormous because every other country in the world with which you have a defense pact now has to wonder what your word is worth.

And it'd be really interesting for the Koreans to vote for or approve an agreement that says we will fight for the Senkaku Islands to remain Japanese. Well, I think that's part of why he didn't bring the Koreans into this one yet. But he said they were the logical next group. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure we'll be talking about the recent Korean elections in short order because that'll have a bearing on this as well.

But Jim, I think we ought to move along and talk a little bit about a note that I got from a friend of mine after a recent discussion with Jim Garrity about the origins of COVID-19. It was a note critical of our episode, and I think it was an important point that we should talk about. So here were my friend's words. He said, I was very disappointed with the evidence that Jim Garrity presented, and

the evidence-free conclusion that COVID-19 came from a lab leak.

I don't know the right answer to the question, but to assert it as an established fact and insinuating that the WHO and U.S. intelligence was covering it up seems irresponsible. Neither you nor your co-host, that's you, Jim, challenged him about the actual scientific evidence behind his claim and seemed to accept his conclusions at face value. If he has actual evidence apart from isn't this suspicious coincidences, I'd love to have heard it.

This is not the fact-oriented discussion I've come to expect from your podcast. Jim Garrity, how do you respond, sir? Jim Garrity? Oh, Jim Garrity, how do you... Jim Garrity, I'm sorry, he can't hear me. Jim Caruso, how do you respond? Well, if I were Jim Garrity, I would say something snarky. About the Jets? Well, you don't have to say anything snarky about the Jets. They bring it on themselves. Look, he never said he had scientific evidence. He said...

almost Sherlock Holmes style, when you look at all the evidence and the coincidences, he felt there was only one conclusion. And he didn't say that it was leaked on purpose, that they were trying to make a bioweapon. He just says, when you have these series of events, this is the conclusion he drew. And in our after action discussion after Jim, I said,

Well, we'll never really know. You took issue with me, Raymond. I did. But in any case, I still stand by it. We will never know. But it's awful hard to argue with Jim's conclusion that it sure is suspicious. So your friend makes a good point. Maybe you should have asked him, where is your scientific evidence? No. But we all agree there is none because China won't cooperate to provide any. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. I think the good point that my friend makes is we probably should have spent more time asking Jim to sort of draw out the circumstantial evidence that he has and then sort of come to grips with the fact that it is, in fact, in the end, a circumstantial case.

And then to your point, and to your point of scientific evidence, and by the way, I had a discussion afterwards with my friend, and we sort of came to agree that part of the problem here is we can't

It's one of the, we can't really get to scientific evidence because China won't open up the evidence, right? We, nobody has access to it except for Beijing. I mean, they're talking about a lot of the most important data about this virus and the origins of COVID-19 are inaccessible to anyone outside of the great firewall. Yeah. Jim, Jim said that when WHO official went there, they were,

basically stiff-armed and told, no, you can't see the documents we want to see. Yeah. So, I mean, I think I do, so again, I do grant my friend a very good point. And I think had I had the interview to do over again, I probably would have spent a little less time on pop culture references from the 80s and 90s, and maybe a little more time trying to

pull out some of that at least circumstantial evidence and the question of, you know, what about this question of the scientific evidence? One thing that we did agree on in the end, and my friend's words were that he agreed that China's behavior in this entire thing has been unconscionable. And I think we're all in agreement there. Well, right. There's no doubt this was a disaster of the century, of several centuries. Economic, social, economic,

health disaster. And yet we still know what happened because China's not cooperating. So that's a pretty serious problem. Well, all right, Jim Caruso, not Jim Garrity, but Jim Caruso, we do thank you. And we thank our producer Ian Ellis Jones and IEJ Media, which produces our podcast. We want to encourage all of our listeners to check out Ian Ellis Jones, who even this past week has been

Some of his military and geopolitical graphics have been featured in news in Asia, most recently the Manila Times. You can follow him at Ian Ellis Jones on X.

If you like this episode, you really do need to subscribe and follow. Jim, I was listening to another podcast and was encouraged to do the same thing for them because it helps the, quote, algo. So the algo, by which I assume they mean algorithm, is that thing that encourages other people to follow us. So if you subscribe and follow us, then other people will follow.

then you will help the algo and other people will follow us. So of course we have selfish reasons for asking you to do that, but we also think it'll be helpful to you because then it will suggest this in your feed as well.

If you're watching us on YouTube, we thank you. We're at, we're at youtube.com at IP podcast. If you're listening to us on your audio podcast, we thank you as well. Please give us those five star reviews and glowing remarks. Uh, you can of course follow us on social media. We are on X, we are on LinkedIn, we are on blue sky. Um,

And you can email us at, excuse me, indopacificpodcast at gmail.com. That's indopacificpodcast at gmail.com. Just want to call out a couple of our recent guests.

Podcast one is why should we care about China's gray zone campaign in the Pacific Islands with Cleo Pascal? I want to note that one because it has just been killing it on the audio side. There have been it raced past a number of our other episodes very, very quickly. So people love them. Some Cleo Pascal, Jim, and they're very interested in China's gray zone campaign in the Pacific Islands.

And of course, if you're just interested in America's Pacific allies, you can go all the way back to episode eight, where we talked to retired Admiral Harry Harris, who used to be the commander of Indo-Pacific Command and the ambassador to South Korea. Why should we care about America's Indo-Pacific allies? That was episode eight. Finally, we want to thank our sponsor, Bauer Group Asia. Go visit them at bauergroupasia.com. For Ian and Jim, I'm Ray. For this time, we'll see you next time on Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific.