Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. xv, 330 pp. (Illustrations.) US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-691-14453-5.
Victor Cha’s Powerplay looks into the origins of the American “hub-and-spokes” alliance system in Asia. It builds on his earlier exposition of the “powerplay” strategy, outlined in an article in International Security (2009/10), to explain why the United States opted for bilateral alliances in Asia over the multilateral model applied to Western Europe through NATO. He argues that during the period in which alliances with Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan were formed (early 1950s to early 1960s), Washington sought maximum control over its new Asian allies based upon the enormous asymmetry of power in America’s favour. His emphasis is on how this specifically bilateral format provided for excellent leverage over potentially rogue allies, led at the time by Chiang Kai Shek, Syngman Rhee, and Yoshida Shigeru. Paradoxically, Cha argues that by doubling down or “hugging” its troublesome allies close, Washington was able to restrain them from sparking major region-wide conflicts in Asia that the US was unprepared for, given its strategic inclination toward the central front in Europe. The book spans eight chapters, including one outlining the powerplay thesis, another on the origins of the hub-and-spokes system, followed by the three case studies—Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan—and generously including counterarguments to the main thesis. It draws upon an extensive bibliography (in which all the leading lights of American IR are dutifully name-checked), and an array of US official/archival sources that lend excellent detail to the analysis.
As usual, Cha undoubtedly delivers a work of accomplished scholarship. While the book is very interesting in parts and definitely a worthy addition to the literature (especially the theoretical discussion of alliance pathologies), this reader does have a number of reservations regarding the powerplay thesis itself. First, the notion that alliances can function as pacta de contrahendo’ , or pacts of restraint, is not new (pace Paul Schroeder, cited by Cha). Thus, the argument’s premise is less revelatory than advertised. Second, since the powerplay thesis is predicated upon this assumption, it suggests that American statecraft was carefully aimed at the creation of a system of separate bilateral alliances in order to purposely achieve such a result. Instead, American policy makers ended up making a virtue of a necessity when their efforts to encourage a multilateral collective security arrangement came to naught due to the various internecine squabbles between the putative member states in Asia. The proposed Western Pacific Collective Security initiative and Pacific Ocean Pact, which failed, as well as ANZUS and SEATO (which was to be joined to an East Asian collective defence system), demonstrate the obvious American proclivity for multilateral security arrangements, wherever feasible. While Cha does touch on these efforts, some sleight of hand is at work in presenting selective quotations/evidence in favour of the powerplay thesis whilst downplaying or omitting contrary proof. The counterarguments section, rather than disarming critique, actually undermines the argument, especially if the reader independently searches some of the source material to find unequivocally contrary statements of national policy such as “the United States should encourage and where desirable participate in collective security arrangements in the Pacific area” (NSC 125/2, August 7, 1952, FRUS 1952-54, Vol. 14 China and Japan, Part II, Washington, DC: The US Government Printing Office, 1985, 1305). Even once the US settled for bilateral agreements—with the ROK, for example—the mutual defense treaty stated that this was “pending the development of a more comprehensive and effective system of regional security in the Pacific area” (see “The Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America” October 1, 1953, effective November 1954). For this reason the book functions much better as a descriptive analysis of how the US was forced to give up on security multilateralism in East Asia and settle for bilateral arrangements as an alternative. Consequentially, the benefit of this bilateral alternative was found to be a greater measure of American control over these Asian states through dealing with them individually, rather than collectively, as originally envisaged. Thirdly, it is conventional practice to include three cases, but one wonders if the powerplay thesis might have been extended to Thailand, the Philippines, or South Vietnam, for example, which may have revealed some interesting insights, as well as strengthened the powerplay thesis. Finally, for all of the supposed foresight that went into the separation of the spokes, it is notable that the United States is now tenaciously seeking to “network” these together into a tacit multilateral front to buttress its position vis-à-vis a rising China (as part of its “rebalance” policy). The Trilateral Strategic Dialogue between the US, Japan, and Australia is a case in point. China is also advancing its own multilateral architecture, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, among others. The trend in the region therefore appears to be moving beyond bilateralism, even as these American legacy-alliances endure.
The author is an establishment figure in the DC beltway and so there is little that is controversial about this book—it could be read as an ex post facto justification of the alliance architecture the US created in the postwar period. The implication that the extant alliances represent a “public good” in the contemporary era assuredly follows. To be fair, Cha does include some thorny problems and awkward critiques associated with these security pacts, but does not go as far as reflecting that Washington, by establishing these alliances at the outset, intervened to prevent the “natural” security equilibrium at that time, which has bequeathed the region with the legacies of a divided China, a divided Korean Peninsula, and an “abnormal” Japan. These are three of the most salient security problems and potential causes of conflict in the Asia Pacific today. Likewise, those with an eye to democratization and human rights might look askance at the bargain the US struck to perpetuate rather unsavoury regimes through the arming and enriching of brutal military dictatorships in Taiwan and (subsequently) Korea, in addition to effectively exculpating Japan from a conclusive reckoning with its wartime victims in Asia. For all the alleged political virtues of the powerplay alliances, such opportunity costs must be acknowledged and those of alternate scenarios for Asia—without US alliance intervention—envisaged. To address these important questions the reader must search elsewhere.
Thomas S. Wilkins
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
pp. 537-539