Washington
\nThe United States is not disengaging from Asia and is instead \u201cdigging in\u201d to maintain \u200ba favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, but \u200cwants its partners to shoulder more responsibility for their defence, a senior Pentagon official said on Monday.
\nSeeking to counter concerns about Washington\u2019s reliability, Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, reiterated the US interest in the region as he called for greater burden-sharing and \u201cpartnership, not dependency\u201d.
\n\u201cAmerica is definitely not disengaging from Asia,\u201d Colby said in a speech in Manila. \u201cWe are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in to ensure a favourable balance of power where it matters most.\u201d
\nThe Philippines, the United States\u2019 oldest treaty ally in Asia, is the first stop on a Southeast Asian trip that also will take Colby to Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.
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\nColby said maintaining a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific required a \u201cposture of deterrence by denial along the First Island Chain\u201d and pointed to what he described as a growing US military commitment in the region.
\nThe First Island Chain refers to \u200ban area stretching \u200bfrom Japan down to Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo.
\nThe strategy could not rest on American forces alone, he said, \u200barguing that allies should invest more in their security.
\n\u201cWhen \u200bwe ask our allies and partners to step up, to invest more in their own defence, and to take responsibility for their own sovereign security, \u200bwe are not signalling abandonment,\u201d Colby said. \u201cWe \u200bare looking for partners, not protectorates.\u201d
\n\u201cWhen our partners are strong, deterrence is strong,\u201d he \u200badded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington The United States is not disengaging from Asia and is instead \u201cdigging in\u201d to maintain \u200ba favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, but \u200cwants its partners to shoulder more responsibility for their defence, a senior Pentagon official said on Monday. Seeking to counter concerns about Washington\u2019s reliability, Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defence for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n