"There's increasingly this new form of defensive policy taking place in Asia, which doesn't really rest in mutual defense treaties but rests in deepening defense partnerships through extensive bilateral exercises, through arms transfers, which are a sign of the strategic weight of an emerging relationship, and other means that countries are pursuing to diversify" their defense networks, Lemahieu said.
A kind of external balancing, in which smaller players band together, is starting to emerge.
"It's developing, and it's unproven," Lemahieu said. "So there's a degree of depth there, but it could be stronger."
Based on regional non-allied partners, another subcategory in the defense-networks measure, Singapore is far ahead, with a score of 100. The US, with a score of 73.9, ranks fourth, behind Australia, with 90.4, and Malaysia, at 83.2.
"Smaller countries, like Singapore, they do very well at this," Lemahieu told Business Insider. "They have to. They're small. They're vulnerable. They need to be investing in their defense networks."
"But even traditional allies of the United States, like Australia, have started hedging against the prospect of a possible US retrenchment from the region," he added. "It's a reality in the mind of a lot of allies, who traditionally have formed part of this hub-and-spoke system surrounded by the United States — i.e. their relationship with other US allies has been really precipitated through Washington, DC."
Australia and Japan are deepening their defense ties, and New Delhi, even with its growing ties to the US, is increasingly working with its neighbors, including its first-ever naval exercises with Vietnam and closer cooperation with Indonesia, which may let India use the deep-sea port of Sabang, at the western edge of the strategically valuable Malacca Strait.
"So in that way you see that the countries are pursuing different routes by which they wish to hedge China's rise," Lemahieu said.
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