The “Indo-Pacific” is not a “Lattice Fence"
The “Indo-Pacific” is not a “Lattice Fence"
Team Biden's newest metaphor for “Indo-Pacific security" is misplaced. But is it because they don’t understand power relations, or because they do and want to mask what’s really going on?
Three recent news stories all converge in ways that are perhaps unobvious but still very consequential.
1. “Under Biden, US Reimagines Asian Alliances as ‘Lattice’ Fence”
The first piece talks about how Biden’s Asia hands have come up with a new metaphor for America’s role in the region. The classic hub-and-spoke metaphor—which whiffs of imperialism—endured even in the Obama and Trump eras.
But since the spokes (allies) are increasingly connected to each other, the Biden administration has floated a metaphor of US-Asia relations as constituting a “lattice fence.”
2. “A Biden Envoy to the Pacific Had Major Conflicts of Interest”
The second piece, which appeared in both Lever News and Jacobin Magazine, uncovered some deep conflicts of interest with some of the people managing the Biden administration’s policies in Asia and the Pacific.
It’s a must-read story about how Joe Yun, Biden’s envoy to the Compact negotiations with Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands was simultaneously a senior advisor to The Asia Group (a Kurt Campbell company), which, in turn, had defense contractor clients who directly benefited from the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific policies. A former employee of The Asia Group called the firm “innately corrupt.”
3. “Washington Nixes Guam and American Samoa’s Bid for PIF Membership”
The third piece reported the State Department’s decision to refuse Guam and American Samoa’s request for membership in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). Surprise, surprise, it was covered by pretty much no global media outlets—I mean, who wants to be confronted with proof of actually existing imperialism in the 21st century, amiright?
What’s Going On
These latter two pieces are describing the actual workings of America in the “Indo-Pacific” beyond just the military war-prepper stuff. It’s quotidian proof of hierarchical, exclusionary power relations—American primacy—and it has shades of corruption. And it bolsters America’s militarism. And yet, the metaphor of a “lattice fence”—from the first piece—does nothing to account for any of this.
Let me explain.