US ‘digging in’ to Asia but wants ‘partners not dependency’: Pentagon

Senior official Elbridge Colby tells Manila audience the US is committed to the Indo-Pacific but expects allies to invest in defence

The United States is not disengaging from Asia and is instead “digging in” to maintain a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, but wants its partners to shoulder more responsibility for their defence, a senior Pentagon official said on Monday.

Seeking to counter concerns about Washington’s reliability, Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, reiterated the US interest in the region as he called for greater burden-sharing and “partnership, not dependency”.

“America is definitely not disengaging from Asia,” Colby said in a speech at a think-tank event in Manila.

“We are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in, to ensure a favourable balance of power where it matters most.”

The Philippines, the United States’ oldest treaty ally in Asia, is the first stop on a Southeast Asian trip that also will take Colby to Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.

Colby said maintaining a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific required a “posture of deterrence by denial along the first island chain” and pointed to what he said was a growing US military commitment in the region.