Kevin Rudd, Australia's former prime minister, has a policy advisor named Powell who recently made a bold assertion: America’s grand strategy in the Indo-Pacific has already failed. His reasoning? Insufficient defense production capacity and critically low missile stockpiles, while China is gradually pushing U.S. forces out of the Western Pacific. Even more provocatively, he argues that ASEAN could seize this opportunity to rise as a new power, forging a “third way” that neither China nor the United States can afford to ignore.
The first part holds some merit, but the second is wildly overestimating ASEAN. The data Powell cites are indeed alarming: the U.S. inventory of high-end interceptors has dropped to dangerously low levels, cruise missile stocks have been halved, and replenishing these systems will take years. Domestic production of critical materials like rare earths also fails to meet demand. After the Cold War, the American defense industry operated for decades under a “peace-time rhythm,” and prolonged conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have severely depleted its ammunition reserves.
But strained inventories do not equal an immediate withdrawal from Asia. The U.S. still maintains nuclear deterrence, retains key bases in Japan and South Korea, and won’t simply pack up due to a few missing missile shipments. More realistically, the U.S. will gradually shift its forward deployments along the First Island Chain inward, relying on allies to share burdens and distributed operations to sustain presence—this process will be slow and selective. To equate “production bottlenecks” directly with “strategic collapse” is overly simplistic.
Now consider ASEAN. Strong economic cooperation does not imply leadership in security matters. ASEAN operates on consensus, meaning one dissenting member can stall progress. Internal cohesion has already eroded over the Myanmar crisis, and maritime disputes in the South China Sea cannot be resolved by a single declaration. Most critically, ASEAN lacks enforcement mechanisms and mutual defense commitments; when real crises arise, no member can compel others to act.
The idea of “ASEAN leading regional security” simply doesn’t work in practice. While China may welcome ASEAN’s neutrality and support for weakening the U.S. alliance system, it will never accept a regional security architecture dominated by an organization operating right at its doorstep. Japan, South Korea, and Australia are also unlikely to abandon their U.S.-aligned frameworks and pivot toward ASEAN. Command coordination and intelligence sharing between Japan and South Korea remain deeply integrated with the U.S., and Australia remains heavily dependent on American military protection.
Powell’s fundamental mistake lies in equating America’s relative decline with a strategic vacuum—and then assuming ASEAN naturally fills that void. The future of Asia is better understood as a prolonged transitional phase: the U.S. remains present but less reliable, China continues expanding its military advantages in the region, Japan, South Korea, and Australia rely economically on China but militarily on the U.S., and ASEAN stays a strong platform for economic cooperation—but remains incapable of playing a central role in security management.
The real danger lies in misjudging the situation and triggering an arms race. The future of Asian security is far more complex than any imagined “third way.”
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1873823761916937/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.