The Pentagon finessed its pivot to Asia. Can it last during Trump?

MANILA, Philippines — In late July 2021, as Lloyd Austin arrived at Malacañan Palace, the grand presidential estate in the heart of Manila, his team feared a catastrophe.

America’s new defense secretary was here to see Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ combative president, famous for once swearing at Barack Obama. Duterte was threatening to end a deal that let the U.S. military access the country, a huge blow to the Pentagon’s effort to recompete with China.

“There was no sense that the secretary was walking into an engagement where there was hope,” said a member of his team, granted anonymity to describe the meeting.

Seated in a large hall that U.S. officials thought resembled a throne room, Duterte began with a lecture rattling off his many gripes about America: its fickleness, its ingratitude, its colonial history.

Austin listened. And when the time came to speak, he didn’t argue. The secretary thanked Duterte for what the Philippines did for America, and brought up his own father’s history fighting there during World War II. “I can’t imagine a world where the United States and the Philippines aren’t friends,” Austin said.

Duterte seemed surprised to avoid an argument, and pleased. The next day, he restored the agreement.

Over the next four years, Austin would make 11 more trips to the region, playing the Pentagon’s part in a competition with China that spanned the entire U.S. government. He would watch leaders change in all of America’s core allies in the Indo-Pacific and split his time supporting Ukraine and Israel. And the entire time, he would contend with a much more powerful and much more restive Chinese military.

In interviews with dozens of officials at the top of the U.S. government and its allies, it became clear this midsummer visit was the start of a much larger strategy to help America keep pace, one reliant on other countries also concerned about China’s rise. But that strategy was always meant to have two parts: countering China abroad while building American strength at home. Four years later, many of the Pentagon’s domestic goals — chief among them a fragile defense industry — remain unsolved.

The result is a steadier competition with China but one that leaves America unusually dependent on other countries. In Washington, Democrats and Republicans alike have supported the Pentagon’s recent work around Asia, but the return of Donald Trump, a president less personally committed to U.S. allies, will test its endurance.

“The common theme I hear with regard to China’s actions under Xi Jinping’s leadership is alarm,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, at an Armed Services Committee hearing in March 2021.

He could have been speaking for much of Washington. By early that year, members of the U.S. government were growing more alert to China’s rapid military buildup, the largest in peacetime since World War II. And they were worried.

Donald Trump’s administration had warned of the problem. Thirty years after the Cold War, it argued, America had picked the wrong enemies — too much Baghdad, not enough Beijing.

The incoming Biden team agreed.

Now in March 2021, America’s top military officer in the region appeared before Sullivan’s committee with a fresh piece of intelligence. Xi wanted his military strong enough to invade Taiwan, which China considers an illegal, breakaway part of its own territory, by as early as 2027.

“The threat is manifest during this decade,” said Adm. Phil Davidson, the retiring head of Indo-Pacific Command. “In fact, in the next six years.”

Austin’s team would later consider this comment a sideshow, though it didn’t dispute what Davidson said. Still, few moments better describe the early concern that America was losing ground.

“In my mind, 2021 seems to be the year that the Joint Staff and others really started to go, ‘Oh my God,’” said retired Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, then head of intelligence for INDOPACOM, referring to the nation’s board of top military officers.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at Philippine navy headquarters as part of his visit to Subic Bay, Philippines, July 2024. (DOD)

The concern wasn’t about Taiwan alone. Throughout that year, the Biden administration concluded that China was striving for much more: to push America from its leading place in the world, said Rush Doshi, a top China and Taiwan official on the National Security Council from 2021 to 2024. Beijing’s growing ambitions came from a sense that America was faltering amid the coronavirus pandemic, the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and, later, a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

From the White House, Doshi and his colleagues helped design a strategy across the government meant to help the U.S. compete. The plan was based on a frank assessment of the country’s relative power. China had spent the last 30 years designing a force that could exploit American weaknesses, a point Doshi had forcefully argued in his book , which became part of the government’s yearlong debate. Where the U.S. had large bases and aircraft carriers, China had scores of missiles, mines and submarines. Where America had advantages in precision, China had an edge in mass.

“The challenge was: ‘OK, what are the steps that you’re going to have to take to change that?’” said Ely Ratner, who helped shape the Pentagon’s role in this strategy as its head of policy for the Indo-Pacific.

The Biden team, which was made up largely of academics like Ratner, thought about this like a math problem. If China had solved many of the challenges America’s military once posed, they needed to change the equation.

Many of their priorities had been laid out in a separate report for Congress Ratner had published a year before. America needed to firm up its group of allies, spread its own forces more widely across the region, and develop new ways to fight, enabled in part by a more innovative and more reliable defense industry.

In its fifth-floor Pentagon corridor, the staff of Indo-Pacific Security Affairs — the office Ratner leads, directing policy for the region — hosts a regular happy hour. Employees unwind and share cocktails, some with themed names like “Whiskey on the ROCs,” a pun on Taiwan’s formal name, the Republic of China.

They call it the “Nine-Dash Lounge.”

The name is a nod to a U-shaped line China’s government claims as a map of its rightful territory. The graph juts off the coast and covers nearly all of the South China Sea, through which almost a third of the world’s maritime trade passes.

By the 2010s, it became clear these weren’t only claims. China had seized disputed reefs in the waterway, dredged up land and then used them to build military outposts. And by 2021 China was pressing further, surrounding more sites — all despite a 2016 ruling from the United Nations declaring the actions illegal.

The behavior infuriated countries in the region, one key reason Duterte listened when Austin visited in the summer. Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea had become a pattern seen elsewhere in border skirmishes with India and arbitrary tariffs on Australia.

“Were China not acting the way it does, then there would be less of an alliance to speak of” with the U.S., said Gilberto Teodoro, now the Philippines’ secretary of national defense. “There would be less of a need.”

For decades, America has maintained a set of one-on-one alliances with countries in the region, like friends at a party who know the host but not each other. Their militaries would struggle to work together if a war broke out, and because they could often rely on U.S. protection, many have spent relatively little on defense.

Washington now saw a chance to help change that. In a pattern that would repeat itself for the next four years, it began inviting its allies and partners — what the government calls friendly countries not bound by a treaty — to meet and plan together. Soon after Austin returned from Asia over the summer, the leaders of India, Japan, Australia and America, collectively known as “The Quad,” gathered for the first time.

“It was trying to network our alliances together so that the sum of them was more than the individual parts,” said Siddharth Mohandas, the Pentagon’s head of East Asia policy from 2021 to 2023.

These ad-hoc groupings would later widen and mature. Even historic rivals like Japan and South Korea now regularly meet alongside the U.S. And America’s most powerful allies in the region — Japan and Australia — are hosting more drills together and allow each other’s military to access their land.

“The only way that we are going to remain competitive with the Chinese is to bring our allies and partners into it,” said a former senior U.S. defense official.

In August 2021, around 50 officials from the U.S., Britain and Australia gathered in the Pentagon library for multiple days of meetings. Through masks and over cheap lunches, they discussed a proposal that, earlier that year, had been so secret that only several members of the U.S. government knew it existed.

The question was whether to share the technology that propelled nuclear submarines, something so sensitive the U.S. had only ever given it to Britain before.

By the summer meetings, the plan had advanced enough that the three governments wanted to announce something. But they didn’t know how far to go. As an idea, it made sense. Australia was one of America’s closest allies. Nuclear-powered submarines were one of America’s most powerful weapons. Providing them could help grow a clear U.S. advantage over China, but the U.S., and the Pentagon in particular, was wary of overpromising.

“A lot of folks didn’t want to commit us too early in case we couldn’t deliver,” said Doshi, who was heavily involved in the talks and later an 18-month review meant to address these concerns.

The negotiations eventually led to AUKUS , a deal named after the three countries involved, who pledged to share the submarines and develop advanced technology together.

“There were skeptics, certainly, within the [Defense] Department at first,” said the former defense official. The secretary, though, made clear that once the pact was announced there was no going back.

“We cannot fail. If we fail, China will win,” the official remembers Austin saying.

Through a spokesperson, the secretary declined an interview. His staff confirmed the descriptions of private conversations included in this story.

AUKUS marked a change in how Washington was approaching its allies in the region. It wasn’t enough to have other countries meeting more often together, or even for their militaries to train more often. The U.S. needed to share weapons that were once off limits — a pattern put on trial when Japan asked for Tomahawk cruise missiles before embarking on a massive defense expansion the next year.

A U.S. Marine Corps amphibious combat vehicle plashes off the amphibious dock landing ship Harpers Ferry during Exercise Balikatan 24 in Naval Detachment Oyster Bay, Philippines, on May 4, 2024. (Lance Cpl. Peyton Kahle/Marine Corps)

“They could have done what previous administrations have done, which is to say that we’re not going to stand in the way but we’re also not going to support you,” said Chris Johnstone, a former Pentagon and National Security Council official for East Asia, of the build-up.

Instead, Washington followed Tokyo. The U.S. agreed to sell the missiles and later to restructure its own forces in the country so that, for the first time, they could fight as true military partners.

“The Japan part of this is part of a larger story, but it’s one of the U.S. deciding we need more capable allies,” Johnstone said. “The United States can’t do it alone.”

In February 2023, Lloyd Austin was back in Manila, this time to meet with a new leader in Malacañan. The year before, Duterte had been replaced with Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of a former president once forced out during pro-democracy protests.

The key “deliverable,” as Washington calls the major announcements it makes on these trips, was a huge expansion in the sites America’s military could access — three in the north, facing Taiwan, and one on an island beside the South China Sea.

“It’s a really big deal,” Austin said at a press conference, announcing the agreement.

For decades, U.S. forces in the region have been packed into a few bases, mostly in Japan, South Korea and Guam. As Austin visited in 2023, that posture was quickly becoming obsolete. For one, these sites were still far from the two places most likely to lead to a conflict: Taiwan and the South China Sea. And China had also built weapons to counter them: hundreds of missiles that could reach American bases, a number that almost doubled from 2022 to 2023, according to Pentagon figures.

“I’m very confident that they can wipe out all the U.S. bases with one strike,” said Tom Shugart, a former Navy officer and Chinese military analyst, who has studied the vulnerability of American bases in the region.

To protect its forces, the U.S. would need to spread them farther apart. But to do that, other countries had to agree, which was no easy task when those same missiles might then target their land.

The careful touch required in these negotiations was on display during Austin’s trip to Manila that February. Other parts of the U.S. government — such as the State Department and National Security Council — would lay the groundwork, at times visiting themselves to negotiate in person. And when Austin would arrive he would use a gentle tone: addressing local concerns, often asking what he could do for his counterparts rather than the other way around.

“The important thing is that the Biden administration and Lloyd Austin have engaged on a basis of equality amongst partners, not [by] stating the relative disparity between power and size,” said Teodoro.

Over the course of 2023, the U.S. negotiated the use of military sites in the Philippines, northern Australia, Papua New Guinea and Japan, where it upgraded a much more powerful and mobile Marine regiment. It’s now discussing another access agreement with Fiji and Japan on its southwestern islands, critical territory in a conflict over Taiwan.

“We finished the promise of the Asia pivot. We really did move along the force structure to the Indo-Pacific in what was envisioned under [Barack Obama’s presidency],” said Ike Harris, a former Navy officer and China adviser in Ratner’s office.

V: Supply and Demand

Thousands of soldiers were pouring into the Philippines in April 2024 ahead of Balikatan, the country’s largest annual military drill. And like many of these exercises in recent years, this one has added more countries and grown far more complex.

But what became the story of the exercise that year wasn’t only what arrived in the Philippines. It’s also what the U.S. left behind. During the drill, it brought a new missile launcher known as Typhon, with a range of 300 miles. It’s the first deployment in what the U.S. hopes will be a series across the region. The next up is Japan, though Tokyo has yet to give its consent, a U.S. official said.

China noticed. Top officials in Beijing have likened the launcher’s deployment to the Cuban Missile Crisis, a claim American officials find rich given the number of similar missiles China has already.

One American missile system compared to hundreds of similar missiles in Chinese stocks — it’s the kind of gap leaving so many officials in Washington still fretting over its military balance. The administration entered office arguing America’s supply of key weapons, such as missiles, ships and drones, needed to expand. It has, but slowly.

In early 2023, a think tank report found that during a war with China the U.S. would likely expend all of its long-range missiles within a week. That wasn’t even a year into the war in Ukraine, much less the war in Gaza — both of which the U.S. has helped support and which have sapped American inventories.

Pentagon officials counter that they’ve spent tens of billions on the U.S. defense industry alone in their last four years in office and that Congress hasn’t passed its defense bills on time. They’ve signed longer-term contracts for six munitions important for a fight against China, and they’ve begun joint ventures with other countries to spread the load.

“We’ve been focused on growing production capacity and maximizing procurement of everything that you could imagine that would be relevant to an Indo-Pacific fight,” said Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, who listed out a host of long-range missiles.

Part of her answer to the problem has been to buy far more drones, the kind of more affordable weapon America could leverage against China’s advantage in numbers. In 2023, Hicks launched Replicator — an initiative named after a gun in Star Trek that can zap anything into existence. Its goal was to send thousands of these drones to American forces in the Pacific within two years, while also teaching the Pentagon to buy such equipment faster.

The program is moving on track, multiple officials said, and it represents the kind of creative approach the U.S. needs to restore a clear military edge.

Others, including some who served in the Biden administration, were far more critical. Replicator aims to deliver 2,500 to 3,000 such systems, over half of which would be a relatively short-range kamikaze drone called the Switchblade 600, according to a congressional aide. The program was never meant to be all the Pentagon was buying in this area, but those numbers would barely matter in Ukraine.

In comparison, over the last four years, China has added hundreds of nuclear warheads and missiles to its arsenal, and reached a shipbuilding industry that’s more than 200 times that of America’s. The U.S. supply of the exact same weapons has been hamstrung by runaway prices and long delays. Multiple other congressional aides referenced this split-screen while raising a familiar critique of the Biden Pentagon: It hasn’t budgeted enough money to buy weapons, build military infrastructure in the region or even train partners, especially Taiwan.

“The U.S. military industrial base, to quote that famous philosopher my father, is fercockt ,” said America’s ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, using a Yiddish word that sounds like what it means.

“We have allowed failure to be a business model, and we reward it,” Emanuel said.

Early in the summer of 2024, Austin walked outside his hotel, past the pool and into an ornate room often used as a wedding venue. He was in Singapore for Asia’s largest annual defense summit, and for the first time in almost 18 months, he would meet with a counterpart from China.

Adm. Dong Jun was the third person to hold his role in as many years, due to an anti-corruption purge throughout the Chinese military. This was the first — and only — time he and Austin would meet in person.

In the summer of 2022, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official in 30 years to visit Taiwan. China was furious, scrambling its military around the island and creating a new normal that continues today. Beijing later cut off all military talks with the U.S., most notably refusing a call from Austin when the military shot down a spy balloon that drifted across the country in 2023.

China's Defence Minister Dong Jun (C) walks out after a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, May 2024. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP via Getty Images)

Before a meeting between Xi and Biden in 2023, Chinese ships and jets had been buzzing dangerously close to American and allied forces — including a fighter that flew within 10 feet of a U.S. bomber.

Now in Singapore, Austin and Dong read their prepared statements, which on the Chinese side are highly scripted. Dong brought up a U.S. ship that transited the Taiwan Strait, patrols America conducts as a reminder that it may come to the island’s defense. He continued with a talking point: The U.S. was either insincere or “its front-line forces were out of control.”

Austin cut in. The comment suggested he couldn’t command his own forces.

“Are you insulting me — the leader of the most powerful military in the world?” Austin asked, per multiple people in the room.

“It was a lot of scrambling to get the meeting back on the rails,” said one U.S. official who was present. Dong’s staffers explained they didn’t mean any offense and soon returned to talking points.

And Austin, who was concerned that China’s aggressive behavior could spark an accidental war, confronted Dong about its intercepts of U.S. allies, especially Australia.

“You say you don’t want a war, but you’ve got to act like it,” Austin said.

Just weeks later, Chinese coast guard ships blocked a mission to resupply a Philippine outpost in the South China Sea, seizing vessels and cutting off a Filipino sailor’s thumb. The incident came close to what Marcos said in Singapore would be an act of war, potentially drawing the U.S. into a conflict.

In November, when Austin and Dong attended another conference in Laos, the Chinese admiral refused to meet.

Richard Marles, the deputy prime minister and defense minister of Australia, is an amateur historian — an admirer of Abraham Lincoln and a student of the U.S. Civil War. He speaks of the two countries’ alliance with similar gravitas. Australia and the U.S. bonded during World War II, he said, when Washington had to divide resources between the European and Pacific theaters.

“That underpins what has been a historic anxiety from the perspective of Australia: Are we getting enough U.S. attention?” Marles said in an interview.

In his opinion, over the last four years that focus has been “excellent.” But Marles, who has become a close friend of Austin’s, has seen it change before. And many of America’s allies in the region worry it won’t last.

Marles last saw the secretary at a meeting with their Japanese counterpart last November. Shortly before, Donald Trump had won reelection and nominated Pete Hegseth, a former Army officer and Fox News host, to replace Austin. Local reporters at almost every stop on the four-country trip asked how the U.S. could reassure its partners it was here to stay.

To this question, officials in the Pentagon and allied governments argue that America has no reason to change its policy, since both parties now urge tough measures on China. Others in the administration note how the first Trump term laid the groundwork for much of Biden’s China strategy.

“I’m optimistic it will endure since some of it builds on past Trump policy,” said Doshi, the National Security Council official. “That said, it could come crashing down if the incoming team takes aim at American allies in Asia.”

The main difference comes down to the leader in charge. In his first term, Trump argued U.S. partners were free-riding on its military bills and threatened to end its defense commitments. He’s now threatening massive tariffs on American allies and adversaries alike.

“Both sides are going to have to start from zero again,” said Chad Sbragia, a top China official in Trump’s Pentagon, of Washington and Beijing. “How do we reach a stable relationship?”

Last December, Austin stopped in Tokyo during his 13th and final trip to the Indo-Pacific. At one point, Japanese officials played him a slideshow with highlights from their alliance over the last four years. It showed Austin with his three previous counterparts, set to “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” the Aerosmith song from the 1998 movie Armageddon in which the U.S. destroys an asteroid threatening to end all human life.

Ratner, present for this last trip, argued that the administration had also accomplished its mission: recovering in a race America once appeared to be falling behind. Since Davidson warned of the chance of war by 2027, China’s economy and corruption problems have both worsened. The Pentagon now assesses Beijing may not meet its military goals by then.

This is little comfort to Ratner. Keeping America’s edge will take more attention and money, he said, increasing a pace this team helped reach.

“That’s the challenge for the next administration,” Ratner said.

Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

菲律宾马尼拉——2021 年 7 月下旬，当劳埃德·奥斯汀抵达位于马尼拉市中心的总统府马拉卡南宫时，他的团队担心会发生一场灾难。

美国新任国防部长此行是为了会见菲律宾总统罗德里戈·杜特尔特，这位作风强硬的总统曾因辱骂巴拉克·奥巴马而闻名。杜特尔特威胁要终止一项允许美军进入菲律宾的协议，这对五角大楼试图重新与中国展开竞争的努力来说无疑是沉重打击。

“丝毫感觉不到这位秘书是抱着希望去赴约的，”他的一位团队成员匿名描述了这次会面。

杜特尔特坐在一个美国官员认为像王座厅一样的大厅里，开始滔滔不绝地列举他对美国的诸多不满：美国的反复无常、美国的忘恩负义、美国的殖民历史。

奥斯汀认真聆听。轮到他发言时，他没有反驳。这位国务卿感谢杜特尔特总统菲律宾对美国的贡献，并提及他父亲二战期间在菲律宾参战的经历。“我无法想象一个美国和菲律宾不再是朋友的世界，”奥斯汀说道。

杜特尔特似乎对避免争论感到惊讶，也感到欣慰。第二天，他恢复了这项协议。

在接下来的四年里，奥斯汀又11次前往该地区，代表五角大楼参与了与中国的竞争，这场竞争波及了整个美国政府。他目睹了美国在印太地区所有核心盟友的领导人更迭，并将时间分配在支持乌克兰和以色列上。而在此期间，他始终要应对一支实力更强、也更不安分的中国军队。

在采访了数十位美国政府及其盟国的高级官员后，很明显，这次仲夏访问标志着一项更为宏大的战略的开端，旨在帮助美国跟上中国的步伐，而这项战略依赖于其他同样担忧中国崛起的国家。但这项战略始终包含两个部分：一方面在海外遏制中国，另一方面在国内增强美国实力。四年过去了，五角大楼的许多国内目标——其中最主要的是脆弱的国防工业——仍然悬而未决。

其结果是与中国的竞争更加激烈，但也使美国对其他国家的依赖程度异常高。在华盛顿，民主党人和共和党人都支持五角大楼近期在亚洲开展的工作，但随着唐纳德·特朗普这位对美国盟友缺乏个人忠诚的总统重返政坛，这些工作能否持续下去将面临考验。

“对于习近平领导下的中国所采取的行动，我听到的共同主题是担忧，”阿拉斯加州共和党参议员丹·沙利文在2021年3月举行的军事委员会听证会上说。

他的话或许代表了华盛顿许多人的心声。到那年年初，美国政府官员越来越警惕中国迅速的军事扩张，这是二战以来和平时期规模最大的军事扩张。他们感到担忧。

唐纳德·特朗普政府曾警告过这个问题。他们认为，冷战结束三十年后，美国选错了敌人——与巴格达的接触太多，而与北京的接触太少。

即将上任的拜登团队同意了。

2021年3月，美国在该地区的最高军事官员带着一份新的情报出现在苏利文委员会面前。习近平希望他的军队足够强大，最早在2027年就能入侵台湾——中国认为台湾是其领土上非法分裂出去的一部分。

“威胁在本十年内就会显现出来，”即将卸任的印太司令部司令菲尔·戴维森海军上将说，“事实上，未来六年内就会显现出来。”

奥斯汀的团队后来认为这番言论无关紧要，尽管他们并未否认戴维森的说法。然而，很少有比这更能体现当时美国队正处于劣势的担忧的时刻了。

“在我看来，2021 年似乎是联合参谋部和其他人真正开始惊呼‘我的天哪’的一年，”退役海军少将迈克·斯图德曼说道，他当时是印太司令部（美国最高军事官员委员会）的情报主管。

2024年7月，美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀在访问菲律宾苏比克湾期间，参观了菲律宾海军总部。（美国国防部）

担忧并非仅限于台湾。拜登政府在那一年得出结论，中国的目标远不止于此：它企图将美国从世界领导地位上拉下来。曾于2021年至2024年担任国家安全委员会中国和台湾事务高级官员的拉什·多希表示。北京日益增长的野心源于一种感觉，即美国在新冠疫情、1月6日国会大厦骚乱以及后来混乱的阿富汗撤军中步履蹒跚。

在白宫，多西和他的同事们协助制定了一项旨在帮助美国提升竞争力的政府战略。该计划基于对美国相对实力的坦诚评估。中国在过去30年里一直在打造一支能够利用美国弱点的力量，多西在他的书中对此进行了强有力的论证，而这本书也成为了美国政府长达一年辩论的一部分。美国拥有大型基地和航空母舰的地方，中国则拥有大量的导弹、水雷和潜艇。美国在精确度方面具有优势，而中国则在数量上占优。

“挑战在于：‘好吧，你需要采取哪些步骤来改变这种情况？’”伊莱·拉特纳说道，他曾担任五角大楼印太政策负责人，帮助塑造了五角大楼在该战略中的角色。

拜登团队主要由像拉特纳这样的学者组成，他们把这个问题看作一个数学题。如果中国已经解决了美国军方曾经面临的许多挑战，那么他们就需要改变这种局面。

他们的许多优先事项在拉特纳一年前提交给国会的另一份报告中已经阐述过。美国需要巩固其盟友关系，在该地区更广泛地部署兵力，并发展新的作战方式，而这在一定程度上要得益于更具创新性和可靠性的国防工业。

在五角大楼五楼的走廊里，印太安全事务办公室（拉特纳领导的办公室，负责该地区的政策制定）的员工们定期举办欢乐时光。员工们放松身心，品尝鸡尾酒，有些鸡尾酒的名字很有特色，比如“中华民国威士忌”（Whiskey on the ROCs），这是对台湾正式名称“中华民国”（Republic of China）的谐音。

他们称之为“九号休息室”。

这个名称源于中国政府声称代表其合法领土的U形线。这条线从海岸线延伸而出，几乎覆盖了整个南海，全球近三分之一的海上贸易都要经过这里。

到了2010年代，很明显，这些不仅仅是主权声索。中国已经占领了该水道中的争议礁石，疏浚了土地，并利用这些土地建造军事哨所。到2021年，中国变本加厉，包围了更多地点——尽管联合国在2016年已裁定这些行为非法。

这种行为激怒了该地区各国，这也是杜特尔特在奥斯汀夏季访问期间听取其意见的关键原因之一。北京在南海的咄咄逼人已成为一种模式，此前在与印度的边境冲突以及对澳大利亚征收任意关税等事件中也屡见不鲜。

“如果中国不采取现在这种行动，那么美中联盟就没什么意义了，”现任菲律宾国防部长吉尔伯托·特奥多罗说，“也就没那么必要了。”

几十年来，美国一直与该地区各国维持着一系列一对一的联盟关系，就像参加聚会的朋友彼此认识主人却互不相识一样。一旦爆发战争，这些国家的军队很难协同作战，而且由于它们通常可以依靠美国的保护，许多国家在国防上的投入相对较少。

华盛顿看到了改变现状的机会。在接下来的四年里，美国开始采取类似的策略，邀请其盟友和伙伴——美国政府称之为不受条约约束的友好国家——举行会晤并共同制定计划。奥斯汀夏季从亚洲返回后不久，印度、日本、澳大利亚和美国的领导人，即所谓的“四方安全对话”（Quad）的领导人，举行了首次会晤。

“我们试图将我们的联盟连接起来，使它们的总和大于各个部分的总和，”2021 年至 2023 年担任五角大楼东亚政策负责人的西达尔特·莫汉达斯说道。

这些临时组建的联盟后来不断扩大和发展。就连日本和韩国这样的历史宿敌，现在也经常与美国并肩会晤。而美国在该地区最强大的盟友——日本和澳大利亚——也越来越多地联合举行军事演习，并允许对方军队使用彼此的领土。

一位美国前高级国防官员表示：“我们要想继续与中国保持竞争力，唯一的办法就是让我们的盟友和伙伴参与进来。”

2021年8月，来自美国、英国和澳大利亚的约50名官员齐聚五角大楼图书馆，进行了为期数天的会议。他们戴着口罩，一边享用着廉价午餐，一边讨论着一项提案。这项提案在当年早些时候曾高度机密，以至于只有美国政府的少数成员知道它的存在。

问题在于是否要分享驱动核潜艇的技术，这项技术非常敏感，美国此前只将其提供给了英国。

到了夏季会议时，这项计划已经取得了足够的进展，三国政府都想宣布一些消息。但他们不知道该如何把握时机。从理念上看，这合情合理。澳大利亚是美国最亲密的盟友之一。核动力潜艇是美国最强大的武器之一。向澳大利亚提供核动力潜艇有助于美国在对华竞争中建立明显的优势，但美国，尤其是五角大楼，对过度承诺持谨慎态度。

“很多人不想过早地让我们做出承诺，以免我们无法兑现承诺，”多希说道。他曾深度参与谈判，后来又参与了一项为期 18 个月的审查，旨在解决这些担忧。

谈判最终促成了 AUKUS 协议的达成，该协议以参与的三个国家命名，承诺共享潜艇并共同开发先进技术。

这位前国防官员表示：“国防部内部起初确实有人持怀疑态度。” 但部长明确表示，一旦协议宣布，就没有回头路了。

“我们不能失败。如果我们失败了，中国就会赢，”这位官员回忆起奥斯汀说过的话。

这位部长通过发言人拒绝了采访。他的工作人员证实了报道中对私人谈话的描述。

“奥库斯”行动标志着华盛顿对待该地区盟友的方式发生了转变。仅仅让其他国家更频繁地举行会晤，甚至增加军队训练频率都远远不够。美国需要分享一些曾经被视为禁忌的武器——日本在次年启动大规模国防扩张之前就曾要求美国提供“战斧”巡航导弹，这一做法正是对这种模式的一次考验。

2024年5月4日，在菲律宾牡蛎湾海军基地举行的“肩并肩24”联合军演中，一辆美国海军陆战队两栖作战车辆从两栖船坞登陆舰“哈珀斯费里”号上驶下。（下士佩顿·卡勒/海军陆战队）

“他们本可以像前几届政府那样，说我们不会阻挠，但我们也不会支持你们，”前五角大楼和国家安全委员会东亚事务官员克里斯·约翰斯通在谈到此次军事集结时说道。

相反，华盛顿效仿了东京的做法。美国同意出售导弹，并随后重组其在日部队，以便首次能够真正作为军事伙伴与日方并肩作战。

约翰斯通说：“日本事件只是更大故事的一部分，但它也反映了美国意识到我们需要更强大的盟友。美国无法独自完成这项任务。”

2023年2月，劳埃德·奥斯汀重返马尼拉，这次是为了在马拉卡南宫会见一位新领导人。此前一年，杜特尔特被费迪南德·马科斯二世取代，后者是曾在民主抗议活动中被迫下台的前总统之子。

华盛顿称之为在这些访问中做出重大宣布的关键“成果”是大幅扩大了美国军方可使用的地点——三个位于北部，面向台湾，一个位于南海附近的岛屿上。

“这可是件大事，”奥斯汀在宣布该协议的新闻发布会上说道。

几十年来，美国在该地区的兵力一直集中在少数几个基地，主要位于日本、韩国和关岛。奥斯汀在2023年访问该地区时，这种部署方式正迅速过时。首先，这些基地距离最有可能引发冲突的两个地点——台湾和南海——仍然很远。其次，中国也研制出了相应的武器来应对这些基地：数百枚能够打击美国基地的导弹，根据五角大楼的数据，这一数字在2022年至2023年间几乎翻了一番。

“我非常有信心，他们只需一次打击就能摧毁所有美国基地，”曾研究过该地区美国基地脆弱性的前海军军官、中国军事分析家汤姆·舒加特说道。

为了保护自身兵力，美国需要将部队分散部署。但要做到这一点，其他国家必须同意，而这并非易事，因为这些导弹很可能瞄准它们的领土。

这些谈判所需的谨慎技巧在奥斯汀二月份访问马尼拉期间展现得淋漓尽致。美国政府其他部门——例如国务院和国家安全委员会——会提前做好准备工作，有时甚至会亲自前往马尼拉进行谈判。而奥斯汀抵达后，总是以温和的语气回应当地的关切，并且常常主动询问对方需要他做些什么，而不是反过来。

特奥多罗说：“重要的是，拜登政府和劳埃德·奥斯汀是在合作伙伴之间平等的基础上进行合作的，而不是通过强调双方实力和规模的相对差距。”

2023年，美国就菲律宾、澳大利亚北部、巴布亚新几内亚和日本的军事设施使用权进行了谈判，并在日本升级了一支实力更强、机动性更高的海军陆战队团。目前，美国正与斐济和日本就其西南岛屿的军事设施使用权进行磋商，这些岛屿在台湾冲突中占据关键地位。

“我们完成了亚洲再平衡的承诺。我们确实按照奥巴马总统任期内设想的那样，将兵力结构向印太地区推进了，”前海军军官、拉特纳办公室中国顾问艾克·哈里斯说。

第五章：供给与需求

2024年4月，数千名士兵涌入菲律宾，参加该国规模最大的年度联合军事演习“肩并肩”（Balikatan）。与近年来许多此类演习一样，此次演习也增加了更多参演国家，规模也更加庞大。

但那一年演习的焦点不仅在于运抵菲律宾的装备，还在于美国留下的东西。演习期间，美国部署了一种名为“台风”（Typhon）的新型导弹发射器，射程达300英里。这是美国希望在整个地区进行一系列部署的开端。一位美国官员表示，下一个目标是日本，但东京方面尚未同意。

中国注意到了这一点。北京高层官员将此次发射装置的部署比作古巴导弹危机，但考虑到中国已经拥有大量类似导弹，美国官员对此说法嗤之以鼻。

美国仅有一套导弹系统，而中国却拥有数百套同类导弹——这种巨大的差距令华盛顿的许多官员至今仍对美国的军事平衡忧心忡忡。本届政府上任之初就强调，美国需要扩充其关键武器的供应，例如导弹、舰艇和无人机。虽然扩充了，但速度缓慢。

2023年初，一份智库报告指出，如果与中国发生战争，美国很可能在一周内耗尽所有远程导弹。而当时乌克兰战争甚至还不到一年，更不用说加沙战争了——这两场战争美国都曾参与支持，并且都消耗了美国的导弹库存。

五角大楼官员反驳说，在过去四年的任期内，他们仅在美国国防工业上就投入了数百亿美元，而国会却未能及时通过国防法案。他们已经签署了六种对对抗中国至关重要的弹药的长期合同，并开始与其他国家开展合资项目以分担负担。

“我们一直致力于提高生产能力，并最大限度地采购所有你能想象到的与印太战争相关的装备，”国防部副部长凯瑟琳·希克斯说道，她列举了一系列远程导弹。

她解决这一问题的部分方案是采购更多无人机，这种价格相对低廉的武器可以帮助美国对抗中国在数量上的优势。2023年，希克斯启动了“复制者”（Replicator）计划——该计划的名字来源于《星际迷航》中一种可以凭空创造任何事物的武器。其目标是在两年内向驻太平洋美军部署数千架此类无人机，同时指导五角大楼更快地采购此类装备。

多位官员表示，该计划进展顺利，它代表了美国恢复明显军事优势所需的创新方法。

包括一些曾在拜登政府任职的人士在内的其他人则持更为严厉的批评态度。据一位国会助理透露，复制者公司计划交付2500至3000套此类系统，其中超过一半将是名为“弹簧刀600”（Switchblade 600）的短程自杀式无人机。该项目原本并非五角大楼在该领域采购的全部，但在乌克兰，这些数字几乎无关紧要。

相比之下，过去四年里，中国在其武库中新增了数百枚核弹头和导弹，造船业规模也超过了美国的200倍。而美国供应同类武器却因价格飙升和交货延误而举步维艰。多位国会助理在提及这一鲜明对比时，也对拜登政府的五角大楼提出了一个老生常谈的批评：五角大楼的预算不足以购买武器、在该地区建设军事基础设施，甚至连训练合作伙伴（尤其是台湾）都做不到。

“用我父亲那位著名哲学家的话来说，美国的军事工业基地是‘fercockt’，”美国驻日本大使拉姆·伊曼纽尔说道，他使用的意第绪语单词发音与它的意思很相符。

“我们已经允许失败成为一种商业模式，而且我们还奖励它，”伊曼纽尔说。

2024年夏初，奥斯汀走出酒店，穿过泳池，走进一间装饰华丽的房间，这间房间通常用作婚礼场地。他当时在新加坡参加亚洲规模最大的年度防务峰会，并将近18个月来首次与中国同行会面。

由于中国军方开展反腐运动，董军上将是近三年来担任此职的第三人。这也是他和奥斯汀唯一一次见面。

2022年夏天，美国众议院议长南希·佩洛西成为30年来访问台湾的最高级别美国官员。中国对此感到愤怒，迅速在台湾周围部署军队，并形成了一种新的常态，这种常态一直延续至今。北京随后切断了与美国的所有军事对话，最引人注目的是，2023年美国军方击落一个飘过台湾上空的间谍气球后，北京拒绝了奥斯汀方面打来的电话。

2024年5月，中国国防部长董军（中）在新加坡香格里拉对话峰会期间与美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀会晤后离开。（Nhac Nguyen/AFP via Getty Images）

在习近平和拜登 2023 年会晤之前，中国舰船和战机曾多次危险地靠近美国及其盟军——其中一架战斗机甚至飞到了距离美国轰炸机不到 10 英尺的地方。

在新加坡，奥斯汀和董宣读了事先准备好的声明，中方的声明都是经过精心准备的。董提到一艘美国军舰穿越台湾海峡，并称美国在台湾海峡的巡逻是为了提醒世人，美国可能会出手保卫台湾。他接着指出：美国要么缺乏诚意，要么“其前线部队已经失控”。

奥斯汀插话道。这番话暗示他无法指挥自己的部队。

“你是在侮辱我吗？我可是世界上最强大军队的领导人啊！”奥斯汀问道，房间里好几个人都这样问。

一位在场的美国官员表示：“为了让会议重回正轨，我们费了不少周折。”董建华的幕僚解释说他们并无冒犯之意，并很快回到了讨论的主题上。

奥斯汀担心中国的咄咄逼人行为可能会引发意外战争，于是就中国截获美国盟友（尤其是澳大利亚）的情报一事质问了董。

“你说你不想打仗，但你的行动却要像不想打仗一样，”奥斯汀说。

仅仅几周后，中国海警船就拦截了菲律宾在南海的一个前哨基地的补给任务，扣押了船只并砍断了一名菲律宾水手的拇指。这一事件几乎达到了马科斯在新加坡所说的“战争行为”的程度，有可能将美国卷入冲突。

11 月，奥斯汀和董在老挝参加另一次会议时，中国海军上将拒绝会面。

澳大利亚副总理兼国防部长理查德·马尔斯是一位业余历史学家，他崇拜亚伯拉罕·林肯，并研究过美国内战。他以同样的严肃态度谈论澳美两国的联盟关系。他说，二战期间，华盛顿不得不将资源分配到欧洲和太平洋战场，澳美两国因此结成了紧密的联盟。

“这凸显了澳大利亚长期以来的焦虑：我们是否得到了美国足够的关注？”马尔斯在一次采访中说道。

在他看来，过去四年里，这种关注点一直“非常出色”。但马尔斯与奥斯汀已成为挚友，他曾目睹过这种情况的改变。而美国在该地区的许多盟友也担心这种局面无法持续。

马尔斯上次见到这位国务卿是在去年11月与日本同行会晤时。此前不久，唐纳德·特朗普赢得连任，并提名曾任陆军军官、现为福克斯新闻主持人的皮特·赫格塞斯接替奥斯汀。在这次四国之行的几乎每一站，当地记者都询问美国如何才能让其伙伴国相信，美国会继续留任。

对此，五角大楼官员和盟国政府官员辩称，美国没有理由改变其政策，因为两党现在都敦促对华采取强硬措施。而政府内部其他人士则指出，特朗普第一任期为拜登的对华战略奠定了基础。

“我乐观地认为它会持续下去，因为其中一些内容建立在特朗普过去的政策之上，”国家安全委员会官员多希说。“话虽如此，如果新团队将矛头指向美国在亚洲的盟友，它也可能崩溃。”

主要区别在于执政者。特朗普在其第一任期内，指责美国盟友搭美国军费的便车，并威胁要终止美国的国防承诺。如今，他却威胁要对美国的盟友和对手都征收巨额关税。

“双方都必须从零开始，”特朗普政府五角大楼负责中国事务的高级官员查德·斯布拉吉亚在谈到华盛顿和北京时说。“我们如何才能建立稳定的关系？”

去年12月，奥斯汀在第十三次也是最后一次访问印太地区期间，到访了东京。期间，日本官员向他播放了一段幻灯片，回顾了过去四年中日美同盟的精彩瞬间。幻灯片中，奥斯汀与他之前的三位同行合影，配乐是1998年电影《世界末日》（Armageddon）的主题曲《我不想错过任何事》（I Don't Want to Miss a Thing），这首歌出自美国乐队Aerosmith。在电影中，美国摧毁了一颗威胁人类生存的小行星。

拉特纳陪同此次访问，他认为本届政府也完成了其使命：在一度美国似乎落后的竞争中实现了复苏。自从戴维森警告2027年可能爆发战争以来，中国的经济和腐败问题都进一步恶化。五角大楼现在评估认为，北京届时可能无法实现其军事目标。

这对拉特纳来说并无多少安慰。他表示，要保持美国队的优势，需要投入更多的精力和资金，加快这支球队帮助达到的步伐。

“这是下一届政府面临的挑战，”拉特纳说。

诺亚·罗伯逊是《防务新闻》的五角大楼记者。他此前曾为《基督教科学箴言报》报道国家安全新闻。他拥有弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡威廉与玛丽学院的英语和政治学学士学位。