Center for a New American Security

A new web of power relations is emerging in Asia today. As China grows in economic and military strength and as the United States is perceived to be in relative decline, the region’s countries are increasingly bolstering ties with one another. This pattern of power relations is ushering in a new era with profound implications for America’s engagement with the region.

The “hub and spoke” model of alliances between the United States and Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines is being eclipsed by a broader, more complicated and more diffuse web of relationships in which Asian countries are the primary drivers. As India and other centers of power also emerge, the region itself is transforming from an Asian-Pacific to an Indo-Pacific region.

This developing web should inform a new American grand strategy, one that increasingly leverages relationships with like-minded countries to share the burden with the United States of managing China’s rise, thus preserving a balance of power in the region. Through a year-long project of working groups, interviews and regional travel, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) aims to illuminate the precise contours of this emerging power web and the ramifications for the United States. The result will be a study that carefully sketches out alternative feasible pathways for the region between now and 2025, offering concrete policy options for U.S. decision makers and drawing out the implications of those options for Asian countries themselves.