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asia policy
to Southeast Asia and engaged there because the challenge to peace in the
South China Sea is also a challenge to three key U.S. interests.
The first and foremost reason the United States will remain invested
in the peace and stability of Pacific Asia is economic. In 2014, U.S. exports
to Asia had a total value of $650.5 billion, while imports from Asia were
worth $1.06 trillion, accounting for a respective 27.7% and 37.2% of total
U.S. exports and imports. 1 Further, investment by American entrepreneurs
in Asian economies gives the United States a stake in the regular and
uninterrupted conduct of intrastate and intraregional trade and in
predictable and inclusive growth. A second national interest is the security
of allies and friends. The pursuit of peace beyond U.S. shores is, in turn,
the most effective guarantee that the continental homeland will never itself
become a battlefield.
Third, both of these core interests—prosperity and security—are
underpinned by the traditional rights of states to sail unimpeded on the
high seas and, without impairing the peace or security of coastal states,
travel through territorial waters without prior permission. From its earliest
days, the law of the sea has protected trading nations’ access to foreign
ports. In the modern global economy, all nations are traders and enjoy
in common the benefits of open access. Further, maritime power, which
is reliant on mobility at sea, plays a unique and irreplaceable role in U.S.
power-projection strategies, being both flexible and visible. U.S. fleets
make neighbors of our distant allies, assuring them of the United States’
commitment to their security. 2
The U.S. Freedom of Navigation Program was established in response
to the gradual erosion of traditional rights at sea. Rather than an attempt
by the United States to claim special privileges, it was created in reaction
to new claims to territorial zones that threatened to enclose the littoral
space within a jumble of overlapping jurisdictions. 3 Announced in 1979
by President Jimmy Carter and endorsed by President Ronald Reagan
in the 1983 U.S. Oceans Policy, the Freedom of Navigation Program has
provided the auspices for U.S. Navy vessels to sail and operate in waters
1 “International Data: Table 2.3. U.S. International Trade in Goods by Area and Country, Not
Seasonally Adjusted Detail,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce,
September 17, 2015; and “International Data: Table 2.3. U.S. Trade in Services, by Country or
Affiliation and by Type of Service,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce,
October 15, 2015. Both sets of data are available at http://www.bea.gov/itable.
2 Hedley Bull, “Sea Power and Political Influence,” Adelphi Papers 16, no. 122 (1976): 6.
3 Elliot L. Richardson, “Power, Mobility and the Law of the Sea,” Foreign Affairs 58, no. 4 (1980): 904.
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