The Case for a Trans-Pacific Naval Partnership
Last week I wrote a piece arguing that a strong balancing coalition against China would be more likely to deter Chinese aggression than provoke it. In that article, I briefly mentioned that to avoid antagonizing Beijing, the U.S. and its allies could form a military coalition around the mission of upholding certain principles like freedom of navigation, rather than containing a certain state like China. Since this idea was only marginally related to the main thrust of that article, I only mentioned it in passing. However, I feel the point has enough merit to consider in greater detail. Building a military coalition or alliance around a principle like freedom of navigation would be sensible for the U.S. and its allies in a number of ways. First, support for principles like freedom of navigation and opposition to using naval force or coercion to settle territorial disputes is broadly popular in the region. Indeed, I cannot think of any state that would publicly e...