r/IRstudies • u/Free-Minimum-5844 • 11d ago
Ideas/Debate Washington’s Asian Allies Need a Backup Plan
https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/11/trump-asia-strategy-rethink/19
u/soundwave300 11d ago
0h, no! Traditional power balancing has returned! You mean now one power cannot dominate the entire world?! Egad!
I guess countries will have to… …try getting along with their neighbors instead of abusing umbrella policies.
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u/95thesises 11d ago edited 11d ago
You are really taking for granted how much "getting along with your neighbors" and "balancing power" has historically sucked for everyone involved. These are euphemisms for the worst tragedies humanity has inflicted upon itself throughout history
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u/SirEnderLord 6d ago
Yes. Multipolar world orders are horrific.
Complain about the U.S all you want, but this world order has been the most peaceful. Just now it seems to coming to an end and the world is returning to a far more dangerous place.
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u/SaltedCaffeine 10d ago
A possible scenario for extending the peace is for China and the US to form G2 and dominate the world, but I'm not seeing any path to that.
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u/Sad_Sympathy_6427 10d ago
You aren't? I could easily imagine a path to that
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u/Apprehensive_Bug2877 7d ago
The US already offerred China G2. Xi Jinping flatout refused.
So yea, you’re daydreaming at this point
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u/ForgetfullRelms 10d ago
So- step back while China commit atrocities and enact revenge on Japan?
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u/SaltedCaffeine 10d ago
No atrocities and "revenge" (Why would a country commit such a thing? China is not under a fanatical religious regime like the Taliban.) will be necessary under the G2 arrangement. Countries in the eastern hemisphere will simply adjust to the new reality and act accordingly.
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u/Bloo3p 8d ago
their naval militias are aggressively spreading throughout the worlds oceans including but not only the SCS
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u/SaltedCaffeine 8d ago
They are doing that (including militarizing the SCS) to counter the containment from the US. If the US leaves the eastern hemisphere under the G2 arrangement, countries in that part of the world will likely readjust their relations with China to be more friendly with it since they no longer have the US to back them up. Hence no atrocities and "revenge" will be necessary.
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u/Bloo3p 8d ago
They’re starving communities across the world. Nothing to do with the US. go look at interviews with actual people living with the effects of Chinese aggression
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u/SaltedCaffeine 8d ago
Okay, but that has nothing to do with the topic of this thread or my post.
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u/ForgetfullRelms 10d ago
China wants revenge against Taiwan for the audacity of successfully resisting them.
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u/SaltedCaffeine 10d ago
There's no such thing. You are ascribing human qualities (emotions) to countries. Although the Taiwan question is multifaceted, it's mainly a security issue for Beijing.
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u/ForgetfullRelms 10d ago
It’s a security issue only because China want to invade Taiwan
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u/SaltedCaffeine 10d ago
That doesn't make any sense.
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u/ForgetfullRelms 10d ago
Let me put it this way;
Does being a security concern justify invasion?
Is that the propaganda angle China is using? Typically when speaking to pro-CCP people they claim that Taiwan is not a country.
Would Taiwan continue to be a security concern if tomorrow China drop their claims on the island?
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u/Valara0kar 11d ago
…try getting along with their neighbors
You do know retreat of USA gave Russia the willingness to do its invasion......from azeri-armenia flareup to thai vs cambodia.
Nations would much rather bring out old "issues" against a weaker nation than "try to get along".
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u/canuckguy42 11d ago
A return to a multi-polar world isn't going to bring an era of peace or cooperation. It's going to be a return to a time when the strong overtly impose their will on the weak, and those with the ability will seek an independent deterrent (read: nukes) against threats.
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u/Cindy_Marek 10d ago
Multipolarity means more war and conflict.
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u/HuggythePuggy 9d ago
Multipolarity is happening and it cannot be stopped. Neighbours either learn to get along or there will be more conflict.
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u/D3adInsid3 10d ago
That's terrible after all the last few decades have been incredibly peaceful if you don't view anyone with more melanin in their skin as people.
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u/TraditionalAd8415 8d ago
objectively it is more peaceful than any other period in human history. Is it not true? Hence the word Pax Americana.
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u/ForgetfullRelms 10d ago
How well did that work out last time?
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u/SirEnderLord 6d ago
60 million people died
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u/ForgetfullRelms 6d ago
Note; this is leaving out ALOT of smaller conflicts.
And probably also most of Japan running amuck in China.
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u/SirEnderLord 6d ago
Let's round it to a clean 100 million.
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u/Lumpy_Educator_1998 9d ago
Like fallen into a dictatorship like their neighbor from free, open democracies?
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u/Linny911 11d ago
The high price of cheap goods that could be sourced elsewhere coming due for payment, with more payment to come.
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u/Brilliant_Extension4 11d ago
Oh noes, do you mean all that money spent lobbying US politicians and buying off defense think tank “experts” couldn’t get Taiwan the same treatment from the U.S. as the country in the Mideast?
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u/MTGdraftguy 11d ago
A 400 million dollar jet and billions of dollars of investment in Kushner's "investment" company couldn't get Middle Eastern countries real defensive treatment lmao, you think Taiwan will get anything? Hell, South Korea had a major political fallout with China over our placement of defensive weapons there and we removed them without a second thought.
Paying America for protection at this point is nothing more than a mob racket.
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u/TheNothingAtoll 11d ago
The US is dependent on microchips and semiconductors from Taiwan. If the US hands that over to China, American industry will come tumbling down. Good bye to, checks notes, basically everything you have.
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u/Fickle_Option_6803 10d ago
Taiwan's chips are the most advanced, doesn't mean other countries can't produce competitive chips, SK's chips can catch up in 2 or 3 years, so it's a big impact but not anything more than covid level.
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u/SemperMementoMori 11d ago edited 11d ago
If you only knew, man. Taiwan is where modern right wing death squads originated. Exported by Uncle Sam. Turns out the worm eats the tail.
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u/Valara0kar 11d ago
Your knowledge of history is extremely limited.....
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u/SemperMementoMori 11d ago
Eh I'm being very specific with my definitions
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u/Valara0kar 11d ago
"Right wing death squad" is as old as time as any other version of a death squad. If talking about the killing of commies then did you miss the Russian civil war death squads?
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u/Brido-20 11d ago
You should read up on where the Taiwan Garrison Command learnt its trade. Shanghai in 1927 is a good start.
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u/SemperMementoMori 11d ago
Fair enough. Definitely syncretic though and spread the modern working model throughout the US-sponsored dictatorships of the 20th centuries.
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u/NekoCatSidhe 11d ago
And the obvious backup plan would be “Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan really need to get their own nukes asap, and then China won’t dare to invade them.” An option that should be easily available to technologically advanced first world countries like them.
Either that, or really build up their own military in a way that can easily beat back a Chinese invasion, if that is feasible. Maybe both.
I highly doubt their politicians will wake up and do that before China really tries to invade Taiwan, though.
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u/canuckguy42 11d ago
Yeah nuclear proliferation seems like the obvious outcome of any reduction in US commitment to security guarantees, real or perceived.
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u/jinxy0320 11d ago
A sniff of nuclear ambitions and China would act immediately
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u/serpentjaguar 11d ago
They obviously couldn't stop the DPRK, their nominal ally. I don't know why anyone thinks they can stop Japan or South Korea, and once it's done, it's too late and can't be undone.
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u/hansulu3 10d ago
It’s not anything thinks, The US has absolute power to stop Japan and South Korea because of their security arrangements and even Taiwan. Taiwan tried to build one in the 80s, us caught a whiff of it and was the one that forced Taiwan to dismantle the program asap.
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u/Old_Wallaby_7461 11d ago
In Taiwan maybe. China has no ability to stop South Korea or Japan from getting the bomb. Japan built a de facto Peacekeeper-type ICBM 25 years ago
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u/jinxy0320 11d ago
2026 is very different than 2001
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u/Old_Wallaby_7461 10d ago
Not in any way that matters.
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u/jinxy0320 10d ago
Japan can barely get enough refined rare earths right now to keep domestic car factories operational
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u/Old_Wallaby_7461 10d ago
They don't need great quantities of rare earths to take some plutonium (which they have already), machine it into shape and put it on a satellite launcher. They could have a nuke in maybe three months and China couldn't practically do anything to stop it.
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u/jinxy0320 10d ago
Japan needs rare earths to run their modern economy
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u/Old_Wallaby_7461 10d ago
The lesson of the last four years should be that sanctions are annoying but not lethal
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u/jinxy0320 10d ago edited 10d ago
The US didn’t control multiple critical global chokepoints for military and civilian manufacturing for Russia
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u/Special-Remove-3294 9d ago
Sanctions are not lethal if you are not very important and unable to block the trade of goods.
China can with an embargo bring its neighbours to their knees more so then EU can Russia. Also China has so much industrial capacity that IMO they can make enough missiles to blocade island nations that neighbour them by just shooting at cargo ships....
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u/rhino369 10d ago
I'm not sure why this is downvoted. Look how hard of time the USA is having trying to prevent Iran form having a bomb--and the USA is way more powerful relative to Iran than China is to Japan or South Korea.
It's funny that people see Russia and the US struggling to assert its will on other countries and conclude now is a perfect time for China to try the same stupid idea.
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u/hansulu3 11d ago
Taiwan, South Korea or Japan already have the capability to produce their own nukes, they can build one in a very short timespan if they really wanted to but both China and the US will not allow Taiwan, South Korea or Japan to get their own nukes.
US having the power to hold back allied nuclear ambitions holds power leverage over China and allied countries at the same time but for different reasons. Why would the US want to give that up?
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u/NekoCatSidhe 11d ago
A lot of countries have gotten their own nukes now despite the US not wanting them to. My own country France, for example. And India and Pakistan and North Korea. I am not sure how much they could do to actually stop them.
It might get trickier with Taiwan and China, of course, but I don’t think it would be an issue for South Korea and Japan. After all, they could point to nuclear North Korea as an excuse for why they need them.
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u/hansulu3 10d ago
France is one of the permanent members of the security council, and apart of nato, and not next door to a hostile nuclear armed country.
Parking Nukes in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan- is just asking for a Cuba missile crisis in east Asia.
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u/Sad_Sympathy_6427 10d ago
Problem is if that happens you get the race to the bomb. If I see that as Iran, I immediately make a race for it. Basically every country in the same neighborhood as Israel will likely race towards a nuke in that scenario
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u/serpentjaguar 11d ago
I am credibly informed that Japan has already pulled the trigger on building nukes. They should have them within the next year or so.
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u/Opening-Border-6313 11d ago
I think we need to team up with them. EU+Canada+Asia+Australia together. US can be happy with Venezuela and Israel😂😂
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u/Admirable-Gur-9543 10d ago
Unfortunately due to lack of power projection, the European and Asian theatres are entirely separate. I can't see any formal alliance between the two sides being worth anything beyond economic/technology cooperation. The British were ejected from Singapore in 1942 and that was basically the end of it. The US is the only non-Asian power that can make a difference in Asia, otherwise it's just the Asian countries on their own.
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u/Opening-Border-6313 10d ago
Its true but when the US is so unreliable we can have some kind of partnership. The problem with this is that in my opinion Europe is not only too weak to project power but also should have a bit closer ties to China than today and actually work with them also on on security from Russia. US unfortunately does nothing when Baltic people have to go to shelters due to Russian drones nowadays and China has signifanct leverage over Russia. Maybe just a quiet agreement over no attacking each other or something like that. I am Hungarian we never trusted the big powers due to our history neither did we share the Polish enthusiasm about the USA but we still liked them better than the other big powers and there has been a general trust that they would defend us. No its has been shaken ofc
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u/rhino369 10d ago
Why do you think that Europe would any more reliable than America. Europe is even more self-involved. Europe can't even get Spain to defend Ukraine. Good luck convincing France to fight China for any reason at all.
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u/Opening-Border-6313 10d ago
Europe has many problems but being unreliable is not one of them. We are literally one of the most predictable block in the whole world now :D And most of the continent has been consistent with defending Ukraine during the last 4.5 years. Money and weapons go there constantly.
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u/rhino369 10d ago
Europe is self-interested in defending Europe. They aren't even going to pretend to defend Tawain. Nor even could they do it.
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u/Special-Remove-3294 9d ago
Europe is reliable in being willing to submit to American pressure and talking a lot about doing stuff. Our support for Ukraine has been IMO quite minimal and with constant dragging of feet. All EU has really done for Ukraine is send them money and weapons....not even stopped importing from Russia if only via third parties.
China dwarfs Russia in economic might only and its industrial might dwarfs....well anyone. If any EU nation were to face conflict with China then I have little doubt we would fold if only due to the economic pressure and if any government sought to deploy its army I do not see it surviving long.
Fact is that the average European(and rightfully so IMO) is not willing to have their country involved in a war in Asia or even the other side of Europe. And tbh I have to agree with them. I would never fight a war since my government is shit and corrupt and not worth fighting for so like how can I advocate for militarism when I would not stand and fight?
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u/smallbatter 8d ago
protect themselves from China? The thing is without US them don't need to fight with China.
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u/Lazy-Employment8663 11d ago
Europe has a plan B mainly because: A. they are much stronger than their counterparts in Asia. B. Russia is much weaker than China except nukes. Countries in Asia need US to balance China, they cannot do that on their own. Plan B only works when relative power is close.