The wrong time
for a collective
defence pact in Asia
Trump’s unpredictability is already an obstacle. And diverse
interests make bilateral flexibility better than rigid military blocs.
Talk of coming together runs contrary to the practice of going it alone (Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images)
Published 29 May 2025
In a newly published Foreign Affairs essay, former Biden administration assistant secretary of Defence Ely Ratner has proposed an Asian collective defence pact between the United States, Japan, Philippines, and Australia. This is an idea that has emerged at precisely the wrong moment. It rests on dubious assumptions about both American reliability and regional dynamics.
Ratner positions China as the primary threat to regional stability, yet he is too optimistic in assessing policy continuity between the Biden and Trump administrations. In fact, the Trump administration’s approach is undermining American influence and credibility, making a deeper partnership with the United States less attractive. The administration has explicitly and consistently campaigned on the grievance that America has been exploited by international partners.
We don’t know yet what Trump’s Asia security policy will look like. What we do know is that the administration’s aggressive tariff regime represents a form of economic self-harm that diminishes American influence while increasing market volatility and consumer prices. Rather than strengthening America’s position, these policies provide China with opportunities to present itself as the more responsible international actor. Beijing has exploited this dynamic through Xi Jinping’s charm offensive across Southeast Asia, positioning China as a stable partner in contrast to an increasingly unpredictable United States. This messaging campaign undermines the foundation upon which Ratner’s defence pact proposal rests.
But it’s America’s challenges at home that Ratner seems to breeze past. Is a collective defence pact really likely to sell to the MAGA base? Given Trump’s documented scepticism toward multilateral defence commitments – most notably the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – the prospect of expanding American collective defence obligations seems politically untenable. Trump’s foreign policy team largely reflects the suspicions of their boss about the prospect of foreign entanglements.
While Asia may be a different scenario from Europe – and Ratner explicitly notes his idea does not require a “pan-regional security organisation such as NATO” – officials previously considered hawkish on China, such as Mike Waltz and Alex Wong, have been marginalised. Policy coherence isn’t a hallmark of the administration. Trump’s mercurial leadership style, combined with his more transactional approach to international relations, makes the sustained commitment required for effective alliance management questionable.
Ratner’s idea for a collective defence pact also neglects both historical precedent and current realities. The failure of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and eventual dissolution in the 1970s demonstrates the challenges of implementing multilateral security arrangements in Asia. More fundamentally, the success of existing Asian security architecture has rested on its bilateral flexibility, allowing individual nations to balance competing interests and maintain strategic autonomy. The San Francisco Treaty system succeeded because it accommodates diverse national priorities while providing security guarantees.
Southeast Asian nations, already concerned about great power competition, are unlikely to view favourably the formation of an explicitly anti-China military bloc.
Few states in the region are willing to explicitly counter China. A more rigid collective defence structure could eliminate the benefits of the bilateral alliance system, potentially forcing allies into positions that may conflict with their broader strategic and regional interests.
There are also important considerations about how a collective defence pact might affect Taiwan policy. Ratner demonstrates that Japan and Philippines are already aware that a Taiwan contingency would involve them. But what about the United States? While Biden offered four explicit defence commitments regarding Taiwan, Trump – a “Taiwan critic” – has returned the US policy to one of ambiguity. This moves in the opposite direction to the Biden administration’s rhetoric. Forcing allies into premature clarity through a collective defence pact could paradoxically increase rather than decrease regional tensions. For Australia, geographic distance from key East Asian flashpoints makes unconditional defence commitments particularly problematic.
The proposal fails to account for the calculations facing allies. For example, Ratner focuses on Australia’s deepening defence relationship with the United States but neglects the recent “stabilisation” of relations with China under the Albanese government. This government just experienced a thumping election win based on its pragmatic approach to governing, including in foreign policy.
Broader regional perspectives are similarly ignored. Southeast Asian nations, already concerned about great power competition, are unlikely to view favourably the formation of an explicitly anti-China military bloc.
Rather than reinforcing dependence on an increasingly unreliable United States, regional partners should focus on arrangements that provide strategic alternatives. It seems as if many of the proposals for deepening cooperation could continue without a US-led collective defence pact. Existing quasi-alliance structures such as Reciprocal Access Agreements offer promising models for deepening cooperation while maintaining flexibility. These arrangements can strengthen regional capacity to manage security challenges independently of broader great power dynamics. In the context of Trump’s United States, these arrangements between Asian allies should be used to hedge against rather than reinforce reliance on the US.
Ratner’s proposal is a logical next stage of Biden’s “integrated deterrence” idea, built on “like-mindedness”, the idea that some states share similar strategic interests, values and objectives. In practice, it has been a superficial descriptor to group countries that fear China’s rise and are willing to work together to counter it. The problem has been, and remains, that there are few countries that are truly “like-minded” in Asia on the question of China. Even committed US allies are not always on the same page – just look at South Korea.
In Australia, we need to avoid wishful thinking about the US, and avoid assuming a level of commitment, reliability and continuity that the current evidence does not support. This means pursuing approaches that enhance rather than compromise our strategic autonomy. In an era of increasing great power competition and US unpredictability, flexibility rather than rigid commitment offers the best path forward.