Waste Not, Want Not: The Need for US Soft Power in the Indo-Pacific

China’s recent live-fire naval exercises in the Tasman Sea have alerted Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island states of Beijing’s growing military power and its ability to deploy military force outside of the South China Sea. This projection of hard power has been augmented by a series of China-Pacific Island pacts that caught Australian and New Zealand policymakers off balance.

At the same time, the new Trump administration in the United States has embarked on a chaotic and seemingly contradictory foreign policy that impacts regional policymakers’ perceptions of the reliability of U.S. security assurances and arrangements. The administration’s policy has involved tariffs that undermine international trade rules, sequestration of foreign aid, and the promotion of neoconservative nationalist parties in other countries, coupled with the usual Trump bombast.