This week, the new Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, Euan Graham, gave an assessment of US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s recent visit to Asia. The tour followed a particularly forceful speech the Secretary gave last week on the US pivot:
The logic of visiting Tokyo and Seoul ahead of other capitals in the region is straightforward. Between them, Japan and South Korea host over 80,000 US military personnel and the bulk of forward-deployed assets in the Western Pacific. They also bring more military capability to the table than other US allies in Asia. For these fundamental reasons, …read more