America Is In Asia, But Not Of Asia

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Ever since, the United States has been a military presence in Asia through subsequent kerfuffles like the Second Opium War, the Boxer Rebellion, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

As time goes on, it is becoming ever more apparent that the United States is in Asia, but it is not of Asia. Korea is divided. So is China. Vietnam, after much carnage, was abandoned. And Japan has been kneecapped into economic stagnation and bonsaied into cultural anomie.

And now, the United States has just picked an economic war with China, which it is highly likely to lose and lose spectacularly (see here ). The danger of America being in Asia but not of Asia is that it is playing on alien terrain, subject to information asymmetries, and prone to bad judgment.

There are so few Chinese Americans that they essentially have no political power. Because of that, the expertise of the Chinese Americans who do exist is distrusted and dismissed as Washington takes its cues from grifters (see here ) and China“experts” who“fell in love with Mandarin” at Princeton or the like.

In the counterfactual America of 100 million Asians, Chinese Americans would surely have amassed significant political power and Washington would be able to access real experts without political suspicion. America would trust Treasury Secretary Zhang to go up against China as much as it trusted Supreme Commander Eisenhower to take on Germany.

But alas, that is the counterfactual America. The factual America chose to fight China with the ignoramuses it trusts, not the experts it needs. This is what happens when America is in Asia but not of Asia. America started a fight as though it didn't know China is more than twice its size (see here ).

To be in Asia but not of Asia when China is the size it is and still growing means to not be in Asia for long. The US military presence in Asia is an alien distortion, imposing social, economic and civilizational costs on both sides of the Pacific.

The US is not particularly reliant on Asia economically (36% of imports and 24% of exports) and is minimally integrated culturally.

English is the lingua franca in Europe and far more Americans speak Spanish than all Asian languages combined. While English is commonly spoken in Asia, it is hardly universal – not even among the highly educated. Asia, as far as most Americans are concerned, is an exotic other and vice versa.

The costs of maintaining a forward US military presence in Asia are immense. Total spending on defense is likely over US$1 trillion (including intelligence agencies and DOE nuclear weapons, etc.), or approximately 3.4% of gross domestic product (GDP).

The tyranny of distance, on top of a massive industrial base, allows China to impose highly asymmetric costs on the US. Total spending on defense by China is likely around $300 billion, or about 1.6% of GDP.

Because GDP can be squirrely given how services are accounted for in China, a more revealing comparison may be with industrial output. China's defense spending is around 4% of its industrial output versus about 25% for the US.

One of the reasons the Soviet Union collapsed was that the US, given its technological superiority and the then USSR's vast vulnerable landmass, was able to impose asymmetric costs on the Soviet defense budget – the Ronald Reagan strategy.

Analysts have estimated that the Soviet Union was spending 12-20% of its GDP on defense in the 1980s trying to keep up with Reagan's Pentagon budget increases and whiz-bang Star Wars demonstrations. This time around, China is implementing the Reagan strategy with annual PLA budget increases and whiz-bang demonstrations of 6th-generation fighter planes (see here ).

Can Joe Six Pack American be blamed for asking what it is all for when he is living paycheck to paycheck? America is not, after all, an Asian nation – it fatefully, for better or for worse, decided not to be 143 years ago with the Chinese Exclusion Act and confirmed that decision in WWII with Japanese American internment camps . America is not full of Zhou Six Packs with deep historical ties to Asia.

Proponents of the pivot to Asia and/or China containment policy offer up a confused litany of reasons for America's military presence. The most visible spokesman for this position is Elbridge Colby, currently undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, who wrote the book“Strategy of Denial.”

The fear is that a hegemonic China in Asia would economically gate-keep the region from American commercial interests. Given President Donald Trump's attempt to extort the world with his“Liberation Day” tariffs, we must concede that a hegemon may indeed behave poorly for no good reason at all.

The issue we have with Colby is once again the issue of America being in Asia but not of Asia. How good of a handle does Colby have on the costs that his strategy of denial requires? America currently suffers from a whole panoply of domestic ailments, from inadequate healthcare to lousy education to decrepit infrastructure to homelessness. Does Colby fully understand what he wants to commit America to?

Does Colby understand that China's GDP is two to three times that of the US – something Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and team surely (dis)missed? Does Colby understand that there are 45 times as many highly capable (top 1.5%, US basis) math students in Chinese high schools as American high schools?

Does Colby understand that approximately 20-30% of Chinese high school students can score in the 99^th percentile on the math section of the SAT? 99^th percentile US math level is table stakes in China, nothing special, a mere B+ student in the Gaokao system.

Does Colby understand that China generates twice as much electricity, produces 13 times as much steel, 22 times as much cement, three times as many cars and has over 250 times the shipbuilding capacity as the US?

Colby's family history perfectly illustrates being in Asia but not of Asia. He is a scion of the CIA/Carlyle Group/Yale University with a deep family history in Asia. The first Elbridge Colby (great-grandfather) was an officer in the US Army stationed in Tianjin.

Grandfather William Colby was director of the CIA and did god knows what in Asia during the Vietnam War. Father Jonathan Colby is an executive at Carlyle who spent much of his career in Japan.