Our guest today is Dr. Ely Ratner who served as assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs under the Biden administration. We will start our conversation talking through contemporary developments in U.S. security relationships in the Indo-Pacific. Be sure to stay tuned as we go through a range of other subjects, including the the new administration’s coming U.S. defense strategy, datapoints to watch in 2026, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

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GRADING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S EARLY INDO-PACIFIC DEFENSE APPROACH

ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the podcast, Ely, and I wanted to start with your take on where U.S. defense policy is under the second Trump administration. We just saw Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth out at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. And to be fair, if you look more at what he did rather than what he said, you could make the case for a lot of continuity with the building out of the security latticework that we saw under the Biden administration. But as one Southeast Asian official said to me, the key challenge seems to be to what extent is this new administration going to be able to build out the so-called lattice work even as it does seem like – from some of the headlines and some of the experiences of some of the countries in the region – the aperture of U.S. engagement seems to be narrowing or changing when it comes to other non-defense aspects of U.S. policy, whether it's through tariffs or U.S. assistance and focus and so on and so forth. So as a practitioner yourself and somebody who has thought about U.S. defense policy both in and out of government for a long time, how would you go about grading the new administration's approach with respect to defense policy in the Indo-Pacific?

Dr. Ely Ratner: Well, Prashanth, thanks for the opportunity to be here. It's great to talk with you today. I think your prompt laid down a number of the issues in early assessment, which is in terms of activities, in terms of messaging, I think we have seen a decent degree of continuity. Secretary Hegseth’s first trip out to the region to the Philippines and then Japan, both in terms of the types of deliverables that were announced as well as the messaging around U.S. commitment to the region, U.S. commitment to allies and partners that did represent a good amount of continuity.

Where we have seen some particularities related to the Trump administration, we have seen a much stronger push toward allies and partners to spend more on defense and to do more and contribute more. I think some of that had started under the Biden administration. And frankly, I think up to a point, that's actually quite a good direction to take our alliances and partnerships. So that has been much more forward as a central priority. And then, yes, of course, as you mentioned, the changing nature of U.S. foreign assistance in the region as well as the economics on tariffs have created, I think, political headwinds, diplomatic headwinds. And the question is to what degree are those going to interfere with the ability – both the political space and the ability – of countries in the region to continue forward on deepening defense and security partnerships.

So I think we are at a little bit of a inflection point here where – yes, you are seeing continuity; you're seeing good messaging – we also haven't necessarily seen the full fruition or development of a clear regional strategy from the new administration. There's a national defense strategy, which by all reporting is underway and may be released as early as the end of the summer, and that'll give a good indication on the defense front where the administration wants to head. And that appears to be quite focused on the on the China challenge, also focused on the U.S. homeland, and that has a certain degree of implications for how the administration approaches the region, how the administration approaches allies and partners from a defense perspective. But, obviously, as you said, it's a broader aperture of economic and diplomatic initiatives as well that affects all of that. So I think mostly continuity so far with some potential disjunctures based on some of the external factors.

“There's a national defense strategy, which by all reporting is underway and may be released as early as the end of the summer, and that'll give a good indication on the defense front where the administration wants to head.”

EVOLUTION OF LATTICEWORK AND REGIONAL SECURITY PARTNERSHIPS

ASEAN Wonk: Right. I wanted to ask a broader question about the security latticework or network of US alliances and partnerships. Because as you're aware, this is something that's been in process really since the end of the Cold War – this idea of transitioning from wheels to webs; hub and spokes to more networked forms of alliances and partnerships. I'm wondering for Southeast Asia where you see U.S. engagement having proceeded there? Because I do sense that even though there's a lot of focus in the headlines around the Philippines, for example, there was an effort by the Biden administration to really broaden out how to think about defense – not just integrated deterrence, but also looking at opportunities like East Timor for example, and Indonesia with Super Garuda exercises. Where do you see key partnerships and direction of travel regarding Southeast Asia’s place within the broader U.S. Indo-Pacific defense architecture in the past ten, fifteen years?

Dr. Ely Ratner: Yeah. It's a great question. Look, maybe I'll answer it in a couple different ways. I mean, in the first sense, I think what you're describing of an aspiration to try to mature the regional architecture beyond just the hub and spoke model or beyond just a set of U.S. bilateral alliances has been around as long as you and I have been in the business. You can go back ten, fifteen years, and there are think tanks writing about the Asia power web or this networking. But up until pretty recently, I think it had been mostly fits and starts and aspiration, maybe dialogue at best. I think what we saw during the Biden administration was a real transition from the latticework or the networking being theory or at best dialogue to moving toward no kidding activities that can have a real impact on operational cooperation, and, at the higher end, combat credible deterrence. So we saw that with AUKUS, obviously; in the “Squad” arrangement with the Philippines, Australia, and Japan; and the US, Japan, South Korea arrangement; to a degree, the Indo-Pacific Quad with India; and continued U.S. engagement with ASEAN, including plans for another U.S.-ASEAN exercise upcoming in the coming years.

You know, sometimes as new opportunities and institutions emerge, particularly in Southeast Asia, there is concern that it is crowding out attention toward ASEAN or somehow diminishing how we think about ASEAN centrality as the role of ASEAN as sort of the lone convener of the region together. I guess I understand those concerns, but we all consider these – both in the way we spoke about them, but in practice – as complementary and overlapping. That the idea was not that one institution would move in and push aside all the others, but that the combination of them – different partners addressing sort of fit for purpose, different issues – that that was the right way to think about the overall regional architecture, and I continue to believe that.

I have written a piece in Foreign Affairs arguing that when it comes to combat credible deterrence, it will be important to move beyond just some of the ad hoc arrangements into a more formal collective defense arrangement, starting with the United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines. That's really of the belief that, look, the latticework as it currently exists serves a lot of important functions. I think it strengthens the region. It's a good thing. It's the right thing to be doing. But in terms of real military cooperation – we can talk about sort of how it affects economics and diplomacy and foreign assistance and other issues – but when it comes to no kidding, militaries operating together in a way that strengthens deterrence, the ad hoc and informal nature of a number of these latticework institutions leaves them maybe where the whole isn't really more than the sum of the parts when it comes to command a