The difference Asian Multipolarity makes

By Kerry Lynn Nankivell

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Canadian Forces, the Department of National Defence or the Canadian Government.

The Asian landscape is not unfamiliar, especially to analysts of security issues. For more than a decade, Asia-watchers have noted the shift eastward of the world’s strategic centre of gravity. This shift was heralded by the amazing rise of China whose economic, military and diplomatic weight was gaining momentum. It portended profound permanent changes to the international scene.

As a result, geo-strategic analysts seemed to fall rather comfortably and perhaps too quickly, into a familiar mindset of bipolarity, pitting a rising China against the status quo power of the United States. Analysts and scholars alike made a cliché of the defining assertion that the 21^st century would be the emergence of a new and challenging rival to Washington.

Beijing’s transformation was so astonishing that meanwhile, developments in India, Thailand, Japan and even Russia from 1995 to 2005 proceeded apace but were not fully integrated into the image of tomorrow’s Asia. This omission and the consideration of a regional structure of tomorrow’s Asia will be considered here.

Tomorrow’s Asia will likely have more multipolar than unipolar features. The result will be a continent of several ambitious, but wary competitors, and not a stable antagonism between two poles, only. What difference will multipolarity make for powers lying offshore and around the Pacific Rim that want to engage and shape the continent?

Asian Wallflowers

The surreal explosion of China onto the international scene has made wallflowers of the very impressive indicators of the germination of major powers elsewhere on the continent. It is in economic terms that this appears most starkly. China’s unbelievable double-digit growth sustained for 15 years, has overshadowed the achievements and potential re-emergence of its neighbors. For instance, the mantra “India Shining” aptly describes the country, which has averaged six per cent growth over the last three years, much higher than the average among G8 countries.

At the same time, Japan, still the world’s second largest economy seems finally on track to emerge from a long recession, posting growth in most quarters throughout 2004 and 2005. Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, sub-regional countries are quickly recovering from the 1997 Financial Crisis that was the worst meltdown in history.

Through increased regional trade and by exporting to a growing China, Thailand and Malaysia in particular have accomplished impressive recoveries. The regional economic outlook is rounded out by robust post-9/11 figures out of the fully developed economies that anchor the region: Singapore, Australia and South Korea.

However, Asian nations are not only rising economically, the region’s economic boom is like a midwife to the political and military rise of several states in the transformation of capability, doctrine and strategic aims. Japan, Russia, China, Australia and India, concurrent with junior players Malaysia and Thailand, are increasing in military power and their publics are responding by demonstrating ever-more insistent forms of national pride and sense of purpose.

This has not escaped Australia on the exposed south flank of the Pacific Rim. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is embarking on its biggest weapons buying spree since World War II, spending $52 billion on new planes, ships and tanks. This massive expenditure will make Australia's navy, army and air force among the most powerful and high-tech militaries in the region well into the 21st century. The Special Advisor to Canada’s Maritime Forces Pacific [1] said: “Australia lives in a tough and problematic neighborhood, but it is more than that. They have full, bi-partisan political support for the Australian Defence Force and a much more muscular and informed public debate on defence issues than we do in Canada. It is perhaps no surprise that General Cosgrove, the veteran of East Timor, was the third most popular figure in Australia when he was the Chief of the Defence Staff.”

Nothing New

The changes to the Asian landscape are nothing new to the seasoned Asia-watcher; in fact, they have been long underway and much debated. Nonetheless, considering the strategic future of Asia, analysts often seem to miss the forest for the trees. Few questions have been asked about the implications of this concurrent growth relative to the continent as a whole. What are the contours, shapes and vectors of the Asian forest into the next century?

For example, taken on its own, China’s meteoric rise in economic, political and military terms seems almost boundless and its achievement of parity to the United States a certainty. But when we take note of economic changes in neighbouring India (that may limit China’s entry into the service sector industries), as well as naval changes there and in Japan, South Korea and Australia, (which will put pressure on China’s attempts to expand its sphere of influence away from its shores) we realize that there will surely be obstacles on China’s road to parity with the U.S.A.

Chinese planners approach the region’s multipolarity through modernization rather than planning for a single adversary, or single conflict. Recent Chinese military disclosures seem less concerned with identifying potential future enemies (besides the United States and Russia) than in detailing how China’s military modernization plans will bridge the “era gap” in emerging weaponry. Modernization though is not simply aimed at reaching parity with powers across the Pacific, but also aimed at establishing China’s regional position as a first-among-equals amid a variety of already-powerful Asian militaries.[2]

Most importantly for Asia-watchers located abroad, Asian multipolarity will also necessarily complicate approaches to the region. While a bipolar system such as a Cold War Europe, offered a comparatively simplistic balancing calculus, navigating relations across a multipolar region requires substantially more nuance and panache. A multipolar system defies the logic of ‘with us or against us’ just as it defies any attempt to keep states ‘down’ or ‘in’ or ‘out’. Instead, a multipolar Asia will be prone to unstable relationships and periods of shifting allegiances without bedrock alliances as competing powers, wary of one another, guard their sovereignty and act supremely in their national interest.

This will necessarily have important lessons for those approaching the region. For instance, if the coming years are to be characterized by a bi-polar confrontation between Beijing and Washington, then Washington’s recent deals with New Delhi might be understood as a clever manoeuvre intended to balance China’s growing military might. If, however, Asia is likely characterized by multipolarity rather than bipolarity, the move is a curious legitimization of India’s rogue nuclear weapons program. As an aspiring regional power, India will not allow itself to be bound by this favour to aligning itself with Washington; more likely, it will reap rewards while maximizing its national power.

Nations on the Pacific Rim will be inexorably drawn into this geo-strategic vortex and will need to deploy all of their strategic savvy for successful navigation. The most prudent path remains unclear and hotly contested. Some argue that the most prudent path in this uncertain environment is to guard against all contingencies, perhaps through the development of an overarching defensive system like Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). It is not at all clear whether such an approach would mitigate threat, or inflame an already-competitive environment.

Canada’s decision last year not to support BMD does not yet seem to have closed the debate, both technical and philosophical. Controversy persists, in part, because Canada’s decision is at odds with the view of the United States, which maintains that the deployment of effective missile defences is an essential element of the broader defence of North America as a whole. Furthermore, missile defence systems are also endorsed by policy makers in Tokyo, Taipei, New Delhi and Canberra, all of whom plan to install or have stated their support in principle for a missile defence system in their home region. All of these states contend that the BMD system is a purely defensive capability designed to meet the uncertainty of the new century.

In North America, Washington has steamed ahead without Ottawa. The US Quadrennial Defense Review released in early February describes missile defense alongside ‘steady-state’ operations including “North American air defense, including air sovereignty operations”.[3] It is described as part of a “tailored defense” designed for a world populated with a diversity of threats and opportunities. Canada has never been asked to participate directly in BMD – no Canadian radar station, nor Canadian territory on which to station interceptors. Nonetheless, Ottawa opted for non-participation in 2004. The cost of this position has been accepting a place on the sidelines of an important facet of strategic planning with respect to the North American continent. Whether this will remain Canada’s position, or whether Ottawa will devise some other strategy with which to approach the Asia of the 21^st century remains to be seen.

Understanding Multipolarity

A multipolar Asia will not provide us with the same kind of certainty in the next century that a bipolar Europe offered in the preceding one. There are a range of policy approaches that may help nations on this side of the Pacific Rim better succeed in reaping the benefits of Asian dynamism while staving off threats associated with instability. Determining which policy approaches will be the most successful in the Canadian case will be no easy task and will require that we understand issues in this new context. Understanding the implications of unstable multipolarity in Asia is all the more complex because it hasn’t been an important structural feature of the international system for almost a full century. The last time policymakers on this side of the Pacific contended with a regional multipolar system was in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. European powers struggled to keep peace amongst each other.

This regional system was found particularly unappealing by US policymakers of the period, as it highlighted all the characteristics antithetical to the US national spirit: greed, self-interest, amorality, duplicity, elitism and, ultimately, betrayal. The reaction of the US Congress was a growing aloofness from European affairs.

Today, as the global hegemonic and leading power in Asia, Washington will not likely have the luxury of opting for retreat to the high ground. Canada will be similarly affected by Asia, as a nation on the Pacific Rim and boasting impressive Pacific-oriented economic growth and interests. No doubt, the successful strategy to approaching the region in the coming decades will require skill and nuance, but first it will require recognition of the difference that multipolarity makes.

Ms Kerry Lynn Nankivell is an analyst with the Office of the Special Advisor (Policy), Maritime Forces Pacific Headquarters, Esquimalt, BC.

1 Dr. Jim Boutilier, MARPAC HQ

2 Mary C. FitzGerald, Hudson Institute in Armed Forces Journal, Nov. 2005

3 Quadrennial Defense Review, US Department of Defense, 2006. p.37.

4 David J. Trachtenberg, Armed Forces Journal, Jan.2006

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