Bunn Nagara

Opinion | How can the US hope to lead the West when it can’t even see the wood for the trees?

Washington’s inability to develop a better narrative than ‘democracy vs authoritarianism’ speaks poorly of its attempt to represent the West

Meanwhile, US-led strategic thinkers are taking non-aligned Asian countries for allies, underestimating Moscow’s strength and failing to see that US policies have pushed Russia and China closer

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US President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on June 30. Photor: Bloomberg

Bunn Nagara

Published: 1:00am, 9 Jul 2023Updated: 6:27am, 9 Jul 2023

Seriously flawed yet widespread narratives are clouding US-led Western strategic thinking. In skewing facts, neglecting past experience and being unhinged from current realities, these stock narratives serve only to justify muscular posturing and rising military budgets.

Taiwan is taken for granted as a US ally against Beijing when Taipei’s indifference to mainland concerns rings true only for President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) is different, ready to acknowledge Taiwan’s vital economic linkage with the Chinese mainland.

The KMT portrays the election in January next year as a stark choice between peace (if it is elected) and war (if the DPP wins). Given that most Taiwanese are war-averse, the KMT’s prospects look brighter than the incumbent’s.

The Philippines and Vietnam are also presumed to be Western allies because of their differences with China in the South China Sea. Yet Manila and Hanoi are non-aligned, seek improved trade and broader relations with Beijing and are wary of being drawn into spiralling US-China tensions.

Meanwhile, assumptions of a blossoming US-Philippine military alliance revolve around Manila’s renewal and expansion of the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). But the military sites the US troops are allowed to use – unlike before 1991 – are very much under Philippine jurisdiction.

US-Vietnam relations are also flourishing a generation after Washington withdrew from its proxy wars in Indochina. Hanoi has since proven adept at soliciting no-strings foreign aid while proudly defending its national sovereignty and prerogatives. Nobody pretends a geopolitical alliance is brewing.