Hello and welcome to DEEPER LOOK, I'm Del Irani.

It's great to have your company.

A high stakes geopolitical match is playing out between the United States and China

as they jostle for top position in the Indo Pacific region.

But many Indo Pacific nations don't necessarily assess the choice in dichotomous terms,

they refuse to take a side, opting instead for a multi alignment approach.

So, what exactly is the US's strategy in the Indo Pacific region?

And how does it plan to go about achieving these goals?

Well, joining me once again to talk more about this is former American diplomat Richard Haass.

He's the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of four presidential administrations.

RICHARD HAASS, great to have you back on the program.

Great to be here.

So, while the US has had a long history of involvement in the Indo Pacific,

the interest in the region has kind of waxed and waned over time,

how would you describe how invested the US is at present in the Indo Pacific region?

Heavily.

I think, if you look at the Cold War, this part of the world was one of the two principal venues.

Probably though, Europe took a little bit more of America's focus.

And then with the end of the Cold War, surprisingly, a lot of our attention turned to the greater Middle East,

the Gulf War, the Iraq War, Afghanistan, and so forth.

But I'd say roughly a decade or so ago,

the United States basically thought that Europe was pretty well settled.

Middle East, we had a got disillusioned with, that all of our investment didn't amount for much.

And the focus was increasingly turning to the Asia Pacific, as we used to call it, now the Indo Pacific.

The rise of China, more than anything else, driving this.

And you remember people talking about the pivot to Asia.

So, I think this has been in the works for some time.

What's odd now is that it's still happening.

But we obviously have to focus much more on Europe, given Russian aggression against Ukraine.

But I don't think that changes the fundamentals of what you're getting at.

Is when people look at the 21st century, and we're only 20% of the way through it.

When people look at it, they basically say much of the history is going to be written in what we now call the Indo Pacific.

That has to be the principal, not the soul, but the principal focus of the United States geographically.

What exactly are the US interests in the Indo Pacific region?

It's an important fundamental question.

One is that stability continues.

The Indo Pacific Region brings together most of the world's major powers,

most of the world's people, most of the world's economic wealth.

So, what we wanted to do above all, is stay stable.

Think about it.

When you look at history for the what - last 50-75 years, the Indo Pacific is unbelievable success story.

Unbelievable.

The idea that we've had this much economic dynamism, and for the most part, we haven't had conflict.

This is almost unprecedented in history.

We also have in many countries, the consolidation of democracy.

It's been a really extraordinary run.

And this part of why we want to continue it.

We want to continue it, we want to see it continue to be stable, prosperous,

obviously, we'd like it to become more open and democratic.

The big new change, more than anything else is China.

The emergence of Chinese power.

I'd say a secondary change is the emergence of North Korea, and its nuclear and missile forces.

So, the question is, given those two new challenges, can we maintain?

And the answer is yes, we just need to change also, the way we go about it.

What worked in the past won't necessarily work in the future.

One of the really kind of key alliances that's emerged in the Indo Pacific is the Quad,

the United States, Japan, India and Australia.

What's your take on the importance of the Quad in terms of how it's shaping regional dynamics and the role that the US is playing in it.

It's a grouping.

It's a regional grouping.

It's at most a partnership.

I would say, a limited partnership.

And part of the problem is the inequality of its members.

And by that, I mean, Australia and Japan, are close allies.

Really close.

India's not.

Let's get real about this.

And I think there's a lot of exaggeration out there, a lot of wishful thinking

about what India is able and willing to do as a strategic partner.

India is one of the two largest purchasers of Russian oil and gas.

India continues to depend on Russia for its arms.

So, India is not an ally of the United States.

I think there's been a modest improvement,

a gradual improvement in US-Indian strategic cooperation over the over the decades, over the last few decades.

But we ought to be realistic, and not exaggerate it.

What matters most is what Japan's capabilities are and what Japan is prepared to do with them.

Whether the vehicle is the Quad or bilateral relationship,

informal forms of coordination with the United States, say in Taiwan, that's what matters more.

The Quad itself is not going to be the centerpiece, but that's secondary.

The real question is what is Japan willing and able to do.

If Japan has capabilities, as it does.

If increasingly, it has political support for using them which is the case, we will find the groupings.

That's the least of my concerns.

That's why God invented diplomats.

We can find ways of organizing greater coordination, greater Japanese involvement.

The Quad will be one of the vehicles it just won't be the central one.

The US Defense Secretary recently visited India he met his counterpart.

They have talked about bolstering the US India Defense Partnership.

What's your take on that?

Look for Defense Partnership to have real meaning it has to be not just intimate.

It also has to be predictable.

We have to know that, in a crisis, when push comes to shove, we can depend on something.

With the United States and India, I simply don't think that's there.

We often have very differing views on how to deal say with a China or Russia.

Well, China and Russia are the two most important great powers or major powers who

[we] are likely to be adversaries with, and India is simply not there.

We're not on this....

We're not strategically of a similar mind.

My point here is not to be anti-Indian. I'm not.

I was a participant at times in growing the US-India relationship.

Going back to when I worked for George Bush, the father.

My point is simply that we should not think of India as a central protagonist

to the extent we seem to be in the security of this part of the world.

Countries like Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, entities like Taiwan, I believe, are far more significant.

Where I think India has a larger role to play is potentially, economically.

Indian growth is impressive, the potential for growth is even more impressive.

And we also ought not to underestimate some of the domestic challenges that India has.

Its path to a secular democracy, I think is less certain than it was, religious features are becoming more prominent.

The Hinduization of India is a challenge to its traditional posture of being secular.

You've got hundreds of millions of Muslims, I think, a this is bigger question than there was in the past, about their place in Indian society.

So almost all the tendencies in the strategic conversation,

are I think to confuse what we hope will be the case, with what is the case, or is even likely to be the case.

Another player, there is North Korea who have been, you know, quite clearly ramping up their nuclear programs and ambitions.

How should the US approach the situation now and help its allies because the allies are clearly worried about this?

The honest truth is we've tried various approaches to North Korea, and none is work.

Whenever... whether we try honey or vinegar with them, whether we tried diplomacy, sanctions, nothing works.

North Korea has clearly made a strategic decision, that its security, that its identity, that it's influence,

that its weight in the region in the world depend upon it having a large nuclear program,

and the ability to deliver them across the region and the world.

So, I think that's simply an unfortunate, dangerous reality.

So, the real question then is how do we deter that?

How do we defend against it, if need be, and so forth?

But the idea that love letters as Mr. Trump tried or anything else is going to get the North Koreans to essentially become

a different kind of regional or international player, I think is unfortunately not in the cards.

So, what can allies in the region do about threat from North Korea?

Well, again, I don't think we can eliminate the threat.

We can deter and we can defend it.

We can take steps to make sure that North Korea ...

Look, look at the peninsula.

We haven't had North Korean aggression now for nearly three quarters of a century.

So, we've succeeded there, pretty much.

We've not succeeded at stemming the growth of their nuclear missile.

China has been quite honestly a disappointment there.

China has a lot of leverage.

It chose not to, not to use.

So, the real thing now is how do we deter it?

How do we build the ability to defend against it?

What China doesn't want to see, and others may not want to see either, I would think,

is that the lead countries like South Korea or Japan decide

the only way they can deter North Korea is by building up their own independent nuclear forces.

We don't want to see that.

So, the best way we can prevent that, or discourage that, rather, is through the United States remaining strategically close.

We have to be seen as credible, capable, reliable by our friends in the region.

And that's up to us.

What about China investing all these billions of dollars in infrastructure projects across Asia.

What can the US and its allies in the region do to counter these developments and, you know, maintain their influence?

You're right, the Chinese have been investing not just in Asia, but all over the world.

And I don't think they're just looking for economic influence.

I think they're also looking for strategic influence, access, and so forth.

My guess is, to some extent, there'll be pushback against China.

The fact that the Chinese have often broken brought in their own workers,

the fact that in many cases, countries have become financially dependent on China, being forced to give up access to bases.

A little bit of resentment is going to limit, I would argue, the reach of China.

But also, we've got to compete.

It's very hard to win a what I guess you would say, a football or rugby match if you're not on the field.

And in many cases, we're not on the field.

We don't have much of a trade policy anymore, which is, which is unfortunate.

We need to have more of a development policy.

Our approach has been more narrowly military, not as diplomatic as I'd like it to be.

But more than anything, we're missing out on the economics, the trade, the investment, the aid.

And that's crazy.

When you think about it, that ought to be our comparative advantage, given the nature of our economies.

But we ourselves have become anti trade in the United States, in many cases, much more protectionist.

And that's unfortunate.

That that is we are denying ourselves one of our great strategic advantages.

There seems to be, you know, a difference of opinion, in that the US would expect Asian countries to pick a side.

You know, you're either with China or you're with us.

Whereas a lot of Asian countries prefer a multi alignment approach.

How, How does the US navigate this sort of difference of opinion?

You're right.

We ourselves have not been consistent on it.

My view is, we should go with us.

We, if we insist on forcing others to choose, we may not like their choices.

Yeah.

And a lot of them would say, hey, we don't have the luxury of choosing.

We live in this neighborhood, China's big.

-Exactly.
-We have to take it into account.

I mean, take a country like South Korea.

Strategically, it's very wary of, obviously North Korea, very wary of China.

On the other hand, China's probably its largest trading partner, and it has to be mindful, it has.

So, there's an inevitable balance.

And we just have to accept that.

And I think we have to be more discerning or discriminating in what we insist on.

In one area I would push back on is we have to make sure

that when other countries have all sorts of extensive relations economically with China.

That one, they're not passing on certain types of technology.

And two, they ought not to be so dependent, that if there ever were to be a crisis over Taiwan, or something else,

that it would give the mainland, that it would give China the ability to leverage them.

We don't want to see economic dependencies be used against us or our friends.

And that's a conversation, I actually would argue we need to have more of United States,

Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, and so forth,

because so many of these countries have become so extraordinarily dependent on access to the Chinese market.

That actually, it may give China more leverage than is wise.

How do you envision the United States's long term engagement in this region,

and in terms of shaping the future of this critical region?

I think there's probably two or three big questions.

One is whether economically, we have a consensus at home that would allow us to be as involved as we should be.

I don't see it, I'm sorry to say.

So, that that worries me a lot.

We still haven't figured out yet a formula for managing US-China relations in the 21st century.

So that remains to be seen.

What may be the biggest issues, is one we haven't talked about, is domestic America.

Whether we have the stability here at home, that we have the bandwidth to focus on this part of the world.

And American democracy is facing what's arguably the second greatest crisis in our history

since the mid 19th century, when we had a civil war.

And I think that the biggest threat to our ability to play a large, effective role in the world are our divisions here at home.

And I worry that our domestic political divisions can seep into our foreign policy.

You know, when people ask me, what keeps me up at night now.

I don't say China, I don't say North Korea, I say it's us.

And that is why increasingly my own work, my most recent book, is a book called,

"The Bill of Obligations", it's a book about American democracy.

I worry that the what's made...

what's given us the luxury of focusing on the world, what's given us the resources has been the dominance of order here at home,

a society that was has been incredibly productive and open.

And so, the reason so many people want to come here,

and I worry that we are in some ways putting that in jeopardy by our political divisions by our polarization.

We have got to sort that out.

But again, that's on us.

Great conversation once again with you, Richard Haass.

Thank you so much for joining us again on the program.

My pleasure.

It's clear the Indo-Pacific region has become a hotbed for international politics and posturing,

led by the world's most powerful nations, the US and China.

How this all plays out will undoubtedly shape major strategic alliances and geopolitics

between Asian and western nations for many years to come.

I'm Del Irani, thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time on DEEPER LOOK.