How, Richard Heydarian asks, can Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines fully count on Washington now that the Trump administration appears to have switched America's allegiance from Kyiv to Moscow.
There are concerns that Trump's roughshod approach to the Ukraine conflict may signal a more fundamentally "isolationist" strategic direction, whereby no allies, whether in Europe or Asia, can fully rely on Washington in the event of a major contingency. Both the Pentagon and Congress, for instance, are now dominated by "restrainers," who seem determined to keep America out of any major conflict overseas.
Against the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, Asian allies will naturally seek to enhance their own strategic autonomy. It's quite telling that even the Philippines is now openly discussing the merits of "multi-alignment" and is expected to host more than a dozen like-minded states to discuss growing cooperation with fellow middle powers from Europe and Asia.
U.S. allies in both Asia and Europe may now end up pursuing a "collective strategic bargaining" strategy, namely jointly checking Trump's excesses while zeroing in on threats from Russia and China. Heydarian argues that with Trump steadily eroding his country's long-held position as the "indispensable power," he may end up more with a legacy of "America Alone" than "Making America Great Again."
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