TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Biden widens web of US alliances faced with China, Russia, Trump
Since Biden took office in 2021, NATO has expanded and mostly closed ranks over Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- and, in clear if unstated responses to an assertive China, the United States forged a new three-way defense pact with Australia and Britain and ramped up work through the four-way Quad involving Australia, India and Japan.
Change Size
(Left-right) South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio arrive for a joint news conference following three-way talks at Camp David on August 18, 2023 in Camp David, Maryland. (AFP/Chip Somodevilla)
W
ith a historic three-way summit with Japan and South Korea, President Joe Biden has further deepened the web of US partnerships in a determined signal to adversaries despite question marks on the political climate at home.
Since Biden took office in 2021, NATO has expanded and mostly closed ranks over Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- and, in clear if unstated responses to an assertive China, the United States forged a new three-way defense pact with Australia and Britain and ramped up work through the four-way Quad involving Australia, India and Japan.
The United States already has security alliances with Japan and South Korea, together the bases for some 84,500 troops, but will now also plan three-way, multi-year military exercises across all domains along with real-time information-sharing and a crisis hotline.
Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that alliances were "baked" into the mindset of Biden, who was a senator at the end of the Cold War.
Partnerships can increase other countries' faith in the direction of the United States, Alterman added.
"This administration believes deeply in the centrality -- not the importance, the centrality -- of partnerships," he said.
"The challenge is, all of our partners remember the previous administration, they look at the polling numbers, and they have absolutely no confidence in where the US is going to be in two years' time, five years' time or 10 years' time," he said.
