Middle East conflicts will impact security in Asia
Washington’s involvement in wars in the Middle East will intensify anti-US sentiment in Southeast Asia and divert US bandwidth and military resources from the Indo-Pacific.
The violent conflicts in the Middle East, ignited by the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel in October 2023, have had worldwide repercussions. There will be an impact on Asia: sentiment in Muslim-majority countries towards the US will continue to sour, and Washington’s continued involvement in the Middle Eastern theatre will divert military forces from the Indo-Pacific region.
Anti-Israel and anti-US sentiments in Southeast Asia
In Southeast Asia, the conflicts have led to expressions of strong pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel sentiments among Muslim communities. The conflicts have challenged social cohesion in countries with significant Muslim minorities. They have also caused political leaders in Muslim-majority countries to carefully calibrate their public stances on the Middle East conflicts between domestic political imperatives and the need for a foreign policy that best serves their national interests.
The conflicts have also soured attitudes towards the US among Southeast Asian Muslims who see Washington as the enabler of Israeli actions in Gaza and Lebanon. This shift in attitudes is reflected mainly in responses to a question in the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s 2024 State of Southeast Asia Survey, which showed that 50.5% of Southeast Asian elites favoured alignment with China over the US if they were forced to choose. This marked a shift from 2023 when 60.1% favoured the US. A rise in anti-US sentiment in the Muslim-majority states of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei probably explains this abrupt shift.
But this headline-grabbing change in attitudes towards China and the US could fuel perceptions that China is “winning” in Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia’s shifting position on the global stage
The responses do not fully capture Southeast Asian attitudes towards the US and China — other survey findings reveal a more complex picture with widespread distrust of China. But this headline-grabbing change in attitudes towards China and the US could fuel perceptions that China is “winning” in Southeast Asia. It could negatively affect perceptions of Southeast Asia within the US Congress and media, strengthening Washington’s tendencies to selectively engage more with like-minded Southeast Asian countries.
The Middle East wars also affect the Asia-Pacific power balance. The deployment of significant American military power to the Middle East could strain US capabilities in Asia at a time of tensions in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea and the Korean peninsula. Since the Obama Administration, the US has wanted to reduce military involvement in the Middle East and elsewhere to focus on the Indo-Pacific.
Reasons for US involvement in the Middle East
But this has been easier said than done. Although the US is now self-sufficient in oil, it still has important allies and interests in the Middle East that cannot be abandoned. Foremost among them is its security commitment to Israel and, close behind, Saudi Arabia. With rising armed conflict in the Middle East, the US has to be prepared to deploy additional military power to the region whenever there is a critical need for it.
A comprehensive Middle East settlement (based on a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) that could allow the US to shift its attention to the Indo-Pacific is nowhere in sight. To ensure its security, Israel wants to permanently cripple terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah to neutralise Iran’s hybrid war strategy.
The danger of a wider war, and with it, an upsurge in anti-US sentiments, will remain if Israel and Iran continue with their tit-for-tat reprisals.
Hamas and Hezbollah, however, cannot be destroyed merely by aerial bombing and assassination of their top leadership — they will produce new leaders and continue to fight a guerrilla war, drawing from youthful populations embittered by the death and destruction unleashed by Israel. Guerilla armies are extremely difficult to defeat, as the Americans learned in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The danger of a wider war, and with it, an upsurge in anti-US sentiments, will remain if Israel and Iran continue with their tit-for-tat reprisals. Incoming US President Donald Trump is strongly pro-Israel. Although he abhors US involvement in foreign wars, he may give Israel a free hand to fight its enemies, including waging a quick destructive war against Iran on the assumption that it would pave the way for the revival of the Abraham Accords between Israel and countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. Consequently, there would be no early end in sight to anti-US sentiments over Middle Eastern issues in Southeast Asia and to the diversion of US military power to the Middle East.
A lesser but still important reason for the US involvement in the Middle East is the desire to contain the threat of violence from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and similar transnational Islamic terrorist movements. This explains the continuing deployment of US troops in Iraq and Syria.
The US also wants to maintain energy security for its allies and the broader world economy, and it would not want Iran, China and/or Russia to control the Middle East’s oil export supply. For the aforesaid reasons, the continued US involvement in the Middle East conflicts will not improve its standing in Southeast Asian countries with Muslim-majority populations.
But today, the US is simultaneously entangled in crises in the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific and Europe, raising doubts about the adequacy of its current war-fighting capacity.
Is the US spreading itself too thinly?
This US “strategic overstretch” needs to be seen in the context of current US budgetary priorities. Today, its defence spending is about 3% of GDP, down from 5-6% towards the end of the Cold War. Raising it to nearly 5% will be politically and financially unsustainable. The 2018 Defense Strategy changed the US strategic planning from fighting and winning two simultaneous major regional wars to a more modest capacity to fight and win two regional wars sequentially, not simultaneously.
But today, the US is simultaneously entangled in crises in the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific and Europe, raising doubts about the adequacy of its current war-fighting capacity. In particular, the US will find it demanding to deal with rising tensions in the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait simultaneously.
While China’s military power cannot match the US today, its forces focus almost exclusively on fighting and winning around its Asian peripheries. Given its proximity to Southeast Asia, this military power will always be around. In contrast, American forces and security obligations are dispersed worldwide. US commitments and robust forward-deployed military power in the Western Pacific cannot be taken for granted.
This article was first published in Fulcrum, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s blogsite.
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