by WorldTribune Staff, April 13, 2025 Real World News

A prompt end to the war in Ukraine will allow the U.S. to shift its focus to the all-important Indo-Pacific, an analysis said.

“The importance of Northeast Asia cannot be overstated,” Dane Chamorro and Col. Grant Newsham wrote for Forbes on April 10.

“The collective GDP of the three major free nations is 50% more than Russia and Ukraine combined. From a technology perspective, if the West is to compete successfully with China on anything from ‘chips to ships’ (to borrow the Samsung tagline), not to mention in the new energy/EV space, it needs Northeast Asian states ‘firing on all cylinders.’ ”

In other words, the analysis continued, “if the region plunges into conflict or ceases to function, the impact on the U.S. and the rest of the world is massive.”

In addition to Ukraine, Gaza and Greenland have dominated the policy-media cycle.

Meanwhile, aside from Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s visit to the White House, not a great deal of attention seems to have been overtly placed on Northeast Asia, particularly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, Chamorro and Newsham contend.

“This is despite the fact that the region is arguably one of the world’s most important crisis zones, includes two formal U.S. treaty allies (and one ‘near ally’) and several hubs of key future technologies,” the analysis said. “The three countries are also a major source of direct investment into the U.S. – Japan is the #1 foreign investor in the U.S. while South Korea represented 14% of the overall total and Taiwan’s TSMC is making the biggest single investment ever in the history of the United States.”

It is critical for the U.S. to stay fully engaged as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are facing their own domestic political crises.

“With ruling parties confronting parliaments that are controlled by the opposition, they are poorly prepared to respond to any new U.S. initiatives related to trade, regional security, or defense spending,” the analysis said.

• Japan is going through another period of lackluster leadership under Prime Minister Ishiba’s minority LDP government while the economy is essentially flat.

• South Korea’s political predicament is well known. The Korean polity is deeply divided and the leftist opposition Democratic Party (DP) just might win an election following the impeachment of conservative President Yoon Suk-Yeol. A DP government would likely mean a much less friendly strategic trilateral relationship with both Japan and the U.S.

• Taiwan’s President William Lai Ching-de faces a legislature controlled by the now openly (historical irony notwithstanding) pro-China Kuomintang party, which has attempted numerous times to undermine the island’s institutions by making them more China ‘friendly’ including significant cuts to the island’s defense spending.

Economic disruption is just one problem.

“This is a dangerous part of the world where weakness – real or perceived – can incentivize the likes of China, Russia or North Korea into a dangerous game of brinksmanship,” the analysis said. “In fact as the only place on the planet where all three share a border, arguably it already is.”

Northeast Asia, the analysis continued, “is also the one place on the planet where the U.S. military can be defeated if the People’s Republic of China chooses its time and place correctly.”

President Donald Trump met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House in February. / Video Image

Distractions from focusing on the Indo-Pacific is nothing new for the United States.

“There’s long been a magnetic draw to Europe, the Middle East, and now Latin America and the Arctic,” the analysis said. “These are all important in their own right – but absorb precious money, resources, and attention. Northeast Asia (and the rest of Asia) gets plenty of talk, but in the end, somehow it always gets shortchanged.”

The so-called “Asia pivot” during the Obama era was noting by “smoke and mirrors. U.S. military power in the Pacific didn’t increase in any noticeable way – and did not deter the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s transformation into a powerful force able to throw its weight around the region (for starters),” the analysis said. “In fact, ‘deescalate’ was the Obama Administration’s default policy choice for China.”

President Donald Trump’s first administration “was the first to really view the PRC as an enemy, not just a competitor. It made some good progress but really only had two or three years to focus before losing office,” the analysis said.

Then came the Biden Administration, which “appeased Beijing far more often than not, and talked of something called ‘integrated deterrence,’ ” the analysis said. “That’s shorthand for expecting allies to make up the difference for an inadequate U.S. military presence and limited political attention. Unfortunately, the allies were not, and are not, up to the task.”

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  Analysts: U.S. cannot afford to continue deemphasizing Northeast Asia, WorldTribune.com

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