Foreign Affairs Experts: US Must Bolster Frontline Allies

The United States needs to do a better job of supporting the countries most threatened by the aggression of China, Russia, and Iran, two foreign policy experts write in The Wall Street Journal.

They are A. Wess Mitchell, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, and Jakub Grygiel, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Countries as disparate as Poland, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an arms buildup, they note.

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"In an arc that stretches from Eastern Europe to the Persian Gulf to East Asia, vulnerable states on the outer periphery of U.S. power are re-examining their strategic menus in the face of rising or revisionist powers, most notably China, Russia and Iran," Mitchell and Grygiel state.

These vulnerable nations feel compelled to act as a result of U.S. inaction, they say.

"The frenzy of activity ... shows that all is not well in these regional ecosystems. America's frontline allies are less confident of U.S. strength and fidelity," the duo writes.

"This is partly a result of recent U.S. policy, which has often seemed to downgrade alliances in favor of accommodation with large, authoritarian powers," they say. They are also worried about U.S. defense spending cuts and the shrinking U.S. Navy, Mitchell and Grygiel write.