Europe should lead at home and leave Indo-Pacific to the U.S.

Focus on domestic security a better way to help Asian allies

Blake Herzinger

June 15, 2022 17:00 JST

20220614 Lloyd Austin Shangri-La Dialogue.jpg

Lloyd Austin, second left, and other defense ministers gather during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 11: Delegates were uncommonly frank in their willingness to call out Russian aggression. © AP

Blake Herzinger is a nonresident WSD-Handa fellow at Pacific Forum, a nonprofit, foreign policy research institute based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

While Russia's invasion of Ukraine is shaking western European defense budgets out of their decadeslong doldrums, Vladimir Putin's aggression near NATO's front line is going to set back European security engagement in the Indo-Pacific. That might be for the best.