Trump's Middle East moves raise questions over Indo-Pacific focus

Japan Times

5 hours ago

For more than a decade, the U.S. has dangled the prospect of a dramatic policy shift to Asia, only to fall short of this promise — and President Donald Trump's administration may not be an exception to what is now becoming more of a rule than an aberration.
Trump's decision to unleash the awesome power of the U.S. military on three key Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend, followed by Trump's surprise announcement days later of a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, has raised the stakes for Asian nations, which are watching with great interest how the Middle East conflict unfolds.
A drawn-out conflict could once again see the United States ensnared in the region. But the nature of the U.S. strikes — which observers have framed as ' perhaps the most consequential decision of Trump's second-term presidency ' — could mean even a quick de-escalation of hostilities will have lasting ramifications that will impact Asia.
In general, the U.S. military strikes on Iran 'are a bad sign for maintaining Washington's focus on the Indo-Pacific as the 'priority theater' into the future,' said Derek Grossman, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California (USC).
For now, much hinges on whether Trump's Monday announcement of a ceasefire holds — and more importantly, whether this can be translated into something more durable.
'The degree to which Iran takes the U.S. away from a focus on the Indo-Pacific depends very much on how entangled the U.S. becomes and for how long,' said David Wroe, a resident senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
Rocket trails line the sky late after Iran struck Israel with barrages of missiles in this image taken from Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on June 13. |
AFP-JIJI
While some observers have warned of the U.S. becoming once again mired in another open-ended Middle East conflict, Wroe said a key difference with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is that there is little chance the U.S. would send troops into Iran.
'If the U.S. can contain Iranian retaliation ... then it can resume its focus on the Indo-Pacific,' he said. 'But it will require some very deft diplomacy with a desperate Iranian regime to limit the fallout to a brief round of exchanges, which is a big ask.'
Tokyo unnerved
While the Japanese government has welcomed the ceasefire proposal and appeared to show some support for the U.S. strikes, saying that it 'understands' the need to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the conflict has unnerved Tokyo.
'Japan believes that it is of the utmost importance to de-escalate the situation as soon as possible,' the government's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, told a regular news conference Tuesday. 'We are deeply concerned about a cycle of retaliation and continue to strongly hope that dialogue will resume.'
The conflict has already played at least some part in Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's abrupt decision Monday to cancel his trip to a key NATO leaders' summit this week . It also comes as Japan is preoccupied with stalled negotiations over Trump's tariffs and growing unease about calls from Washington for Tokyo to plow more cash into its defense .
'Japan and other allies will no doubt be nervous about the U.S. becoming again embroiled in the Middle East,' said Wroe. 'But ... the fact that he has shown he is prepared to use American military power judiciously to resolve a global danger should give them some encouragement.'
Going forward, the devil will be in the details as more information about both the ceasefire and an assessment of the U.S. attack on the Iranian nuclear sites emerge.
For Tokyo, an 'optimistic scenario' might be that the American airstrikes successfully disabled or delayed Iran's nuclear development and that any retaliation by Tehran remains limited, allowing peace talks to start, said Masashi Murano, a Japan expert at the Hudson Institute think tank.
'If that happens, the attack would send a deterrent signal to other countries that the second Trump administration is not reluctant to take military action, while also making it easier to shift the strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific region by avoiding further entanglement in the Middle East,' according to Murano.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Monday. |
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A 'pessimistic' scenario, however, would see the airstrikes failing to effectively halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, potentially requiring further U.S. attacks and prompting reprisals from Tehran, as a spiraling or drawn-out conflict confounds Washington.
'As a result, just as past administrations have repeatedly attempted and failed to do, the 'pivot' to the Indo-Pacific will be delayed once again, potentially increasing the likelihood of opportunistic aggression in the region or undermining the U.S. military's capabilities to respond effectively if such aggression occurs,' Murano said.
Chinese opportunism?
A looming concern of Japan and other U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific is the potential for China to take advantage of any shift in American focus.
The Foreign Ministry in Beijing has strongly condemned the U.S. bombings, saying that the actions 'seriously violate the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter and international law, and have exacerbated tensions in the Middle East.'
But the concerns America's Asian partners have of Chinese opportunism amid the crisis — including any move against democratic Taiwan — may be unfounded.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has vowed to unify the self-ruled island with the mainland, by force if necessary. In recent years, China's increasingly powerful military has ramped up activities around Taiwan, including in waters and airspace near Japan.
Taiwanese military reservists participate in an urban combat training exercise at the Taipei Tennis Center in Taipei's Neihu district on June 11. |
AFP-JIJI
'It's one thing to carry out airstrikes against a nation that has already been significantly degraded by a neighbor — in this case Israel — but it's another to commit to fighting a war with China,' ASPI's Wroe said. 'At best, this has a mild deterrent effect against any move by Beijing against Taiwan.'
Still, Trump delivered another, more implicit message in his decision to strike the Iranian nuclear sites, according to former Trump administration official Fred Fleitz.
'The strikes are going to show American strength,' Fleitz, who is currently an expert with the America First Policy Institute think tank, told The Japan Times during a visit to Tokyo on Monday. 'When other states look at this, they're going to see a president who's decisive, who stands by what he says and is prepared to use military force when necessary.'
The ASPI's Wroe, meanwhile, said Beijing would be expected to view the moves 'as an indication that Trump will use force when he sees a reasonable calculation that the rewards outweigh the risks.'
'They'll be watching closely the mettle he shows in the coming days and weeks,' he added.
For now, the United States' partners in Asia will have to wait and see how Trump's peace entreaties play out. Will the U.S. fixation on the Middle East continue? That remains an open question.
'The reality is that ... the U.S. has become increasingly preoccupied with events in the Middle East,' said USC's Grossman. 'Washington now runs the risk of once again getting bogged down in this region, at the expense of the Indo-Pacific.'