Explaining US strategic partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region: origins, developments and prospects.

• Author: Parameswaran, Prashanth
• Position: Essay

Since the end of the rigid bipolar structure of the Cold War, there has been a growing focus on looser alignments between countries in addition to traditional alliances. (1) One of these forms of alignments which has proliferated in the Asia-Pacific region is the strategic partnership: a loose, structured and multifaceted framework of cooperation between two parties. (2) While strategic partnerships were initially employed by major Asian powers such as China and Japan, as well as by emerging powers like India and Indonesia, recently, the United States, the primary alliance builder since the end of the Second World War, has begun to use them more frequently, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. (3) Yet while there has been some discussion and debate about the value of these partnerships with specific states, the existing literature does not include a comprehensive study about why US strategic partnerships have arisen and how Washington conceptualizes them. (4)

This article attempts to fill this gap by exploring the emergence of strategic partnerships as a new form of alignment in US strategic thinking in the Asia Pacific under the Barack Obama administration. (5) Drawing on the existing literature on alignment, government documents, as well as conversations with policymakers, it argues that Washington is pursuing strategic partnerships as part of a deliberate effort to both enlist target countries to share the burden in addressing common challenges and to institutionalize and structure its relationships with Asia-Pacific countries. It constructs a three-part framework to understand the origins, development, and evaluation of US strategic partnerships and then applies it to analyse two US partnerships in Southeast Asia: Indonesia and Vietnam.

The article is divided into six parts. The first two sections introduce the topic and define strategic partnerships relative to traditional alliances. The third section explores the reasons why Washington is using these partnerships more widely in the Obama administration. The fourth and fifth sections develop a framework to explain the origins, development and evaluation of US strategic partnerships and then apply it to the two case studies. A sixth and final section offers some brief conclusions.

Defining Strategic Partnerships

Despite the proliferation of strategic partnerships, there have only been a few comprehensive attempts to define them. I draw on but modify Thomas Wilkins' conception of a strategic partnership and define it as a loose but structured framework of collaboration between parties to address common challenges and to seize opportunities in several areas. (6) I address four key components of the definition in greater detail below, explaining both their traits as well as how they differ from traditional alliances.

Before delving into the specifics, however, a brief word on terminology is necessary. Countries have used a variety of terms for the partnerships they sign with states, including "strategic partnerships", "comprehensive partnerships" and "comprehensive strategic partnerships". Some, like Vietnam, have even developed and publicly articulated the differences between these different designations, which are due to a range of factors including the history of individual relationships and assessments about the current state of cooperation. (7) While recognizing that these nuances exist, this section explores the definitional features of these partnerships more generally and hence uses the term "strategic partnerships" as an umbrella term. The next section also elaborates on how these different designations are viewed from a US policy perspective.

First, strategic partnerships are a loose form of alignment, entailing a much lower level and less binding commitment relative to tighter ones like alliances. This flexible, non-binding nature of strategic partnerships is arguably their main attraction. As John Ciorciari argues, in a post-Cold War world, most developing countries prefer this kind of "limited alignment" because it allows them to reap the rewards, such as economic or security assistance, without the attendant risks such as the loss of autonomy. (8) For example, while the Sino-Russian strategic partnership of 1996 --the first strategic partnership to receive significant attention--was based on a common belief in multipolarity in a US-dominated post-Cold War world, Russian vice foreign minister Aleksandr Losyukov was careful to clarify that Russia and China "reserve the right to act freely". (9)

Second, strategic partnerships are a structured framework of collaboration between parties. What makes strategic partnerships markedly different from normal diplomatic exchanges, according to Vidya Nadkarni, is "the structure of sustained and regularized interactions underpinned by multiple webs of institutionalization at the intergovernmental level that they encompass". (10) The exact nature of this structure may vary, but the outlines of it are usually embedded in the joint statements which identify areas of cooperation, the main agencies involved and the mechanisms created to advance collaboration. For instance, the US-India strategic partnership is structured under the overarching framework of the US-India Strategic Dialogue, the capstone annual dialogue between the two countries which gives both sides a chance to review cooperation under five "pillars" of focus and more than 20 working groups connecting various agencies. (11)

Third, the main purpose of strategic partnerships is to both address common challenges and seize joint opportunities, rather than countering a particular country or group. In traditional Realist thought, the main function of alliances is to balance the growth of another state's power or to respond to the threat emanating from it. (12) Alliances are thus, as George Liska famously said, "against, and only derivatively for, someone or something". (13) Strategic partnerships, by contrast, are primarily instruments for countries to pursue opportunities for selective engagement with as many partners as possible without alienating others. Consequently, strategic partnerships can be understood as primarily "goal-driven" rather than "threat-driven" arrangements. (14) This feature is especially appealing for some emerging powers because they are able to sign partnerships with both China and the United States without alienating the other. For instance, all three of the United States' newer comprehensive partners in Southeast Asia--Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia--are also simultaneously comprehensive strategic partners with China. (15)

Fourth, and lastly, strategic partnerships are multidimensional, involving collaboration in several areas. This is in stark contrast to alliances, which have traditionally been defined as agreements focused mainly on military or security cooperation. (16) For instance, when the Philippines and Japan declared their strategic partnership in 2011, the joint statement focused on bilateral cooperation in three main areas--economic, political-security issues and people-to-people ties--along with regional and international issues such as regional economic cooperation and UN peacekeeping. (17) This comprehensive focus--both in terms of the various functional areas of cooperation as well as addressing the bilateral, regional and global levels--is typical of strategic partnerships more generally.

The Origins of US Strategic Partnerships in the Obama Administration

Over the last five years, in the Asia-Pacific region alone the Obama administration has institutionalized existing strategic partnerships with India and Singapore and inked new partnerships with Indonesia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Malaysia. This section argues that the growing use of strategic partnerships in the Asia Pacific is a deliberate move by US policymakers to both enlist important target countries to share the burden in addressing regional and global challenges as well as to institutionalize and structure Washington's Asia-Pacific relationships.

Before elaborating on the main point of this section, it is important to say a few words about the terminology that has been employed for these US partnerships. Technically speaking, the Obama administration has used the term "strategic partnership" for India, Singapore and New Zealand and "comprehensive partnership" for Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia. Conversations with US policymakers who have dealt with these partnerships, however, revealed that the designation of "comprehensive partnership", rather than "strategic partnership", reflected the preferences of these individual countries as these relationships are negotiated, rather than a different designation that Washington chose to consciously adopt on its part. A target country's preference for a "comprehensive partnership" rather than a "strategic partnership" could arise due to a variety of reasons, including the history of the country's relationship with the United States as well as assessments of the current state of bilateral cooperation relative to other nations. (18) For example, in the case of the United States and Vietnam, Carlyle Thayer has argued that Hanoi may have eventually preferred a "comprehensive partnership" to a "strategic partnership" for several reasons including differences with Washington over its human rights record and opposition from conservative elements who continue to view the United States with suspicion partly due to the legacy of the Vietnam War. (19) Since this article approaches the topic from a US policy perspective, however, and US officials themselves tend to use these terms interchangeably for analytical purposes, the term "strategic partnerships" will be adopted as a convenient umbrella term in this paper despite an appreciation for the nuances already elaborated.

Alliance theorists have long recognized the importance of burden sharing. (20) A similar logic can be said to govern looser...