Defense Priorities has its Indo-Pacific priorities wrong

Defense Priorities, a Washington-based think tank, recently released a policy paper that couldn’t be more wrongheaded. Innocuously titled “A second island chain strategy for Asia,” it argues for a new Indo-Pacific strategy that “shifts U.S. military commitments and presence from the vulnerable ‘first island chain’ toward a more defensible ‘second island chain.’” What does that look like in reality? The United States would end its mutual defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia; adopt a declared nonintervention policy on Taiwan and pull its forces back to Guam, Palau and the Marshall Islands.