As the war in Ukraine continues, calls for the United States to withdraw from this " It is interesting, however, that in Asia itself such criticism is heard less and less.. Washington's foremost allies in the region understand that what is happening in Ukraine will not remain within the region - it will either strengthen or weaken the larger global order on which Asian countries also depend.. This opinion is expressed in an article by Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands, co-author of the book " Next, direct text.

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This became clear last month when I traveled to Seoul for the Asia Leadership Conference.. At an event nominally focused on Asia, the question of the situation in Ukraine was central.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol opened the conference by saying that the world " became a successful precedent. The other headliner was Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, a choice that speaks volumes about the significance of the war in the Asian security debate..

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When I visited Tokyo a few months ago, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Council made it clear that the Japanese government was very concerned about Putin's war.. Japan has even given up what was once its foreign policy guiding principle of not messing with China and Russia at the same time to join the coalition that imposed sanctions on Putin..

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Even in Taiwan, which faces an existential threat from China, few officials are calling on Washington to liberate Ukraine.. " “The success of Ukraine is the success of Taiwan”.

Cynics might think this is a case of US allies telling their superpower defenders what they want, not what they need to hear.. But East Asian democracy is not geopolitical simpletons.. The reason why Putin's intervention so cheered them up is because it reminded them of some elementary strategic truths..

First, the war in Ukraine is a test of whether nuclear weapons can be used for conventional aggression.. Russia uses nuclear threats to keep the West from intervening directly while it ravages Ukraine and tries to steal its territory. If it succeeds, the precedent would be dire for South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, all of which face revisionist-minded nuclear adversaries..

Secondly, history testifies to a certain indivisibility of global security.. It is unlikely that peace will survive in one key region of Eurasia if it collapses in others.

During the 1930s, Hitler's exploits in Europe accelerated Japanese aggression in Asia: the " In 1950, the US intervened in South Korea to prevent the Soviet Union from experiencing the fragile free world community in Western Europe..

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Russia's triumph in Ukraine today would have global implications. This signals that the autocratic Entente, led by Beijing and Moscow, is growing, while the Western coalition, led by Washington, is tottering.. This would create an atmosphere of danger in Europe, absorbing US attention and resources for many years, possibly decades.. None of these developments will improve the prospects for peace and stability in Asia, and the leaders of the region know this.. "

Third, deterrence is more than a balance of military power. So whether China will use force in the western Pacific will largely depend on the assessments of the capabilities of its enemies.. Here, critics of U.S. policy are right that neither Washington nor its allies are preparing fast enough — although the war in Ukraine could help them by focusing on supply chain flaws, inadequate ammunition stockpiles, and other military shortcomings..

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But deterrence also depends on how the attacker assesses the intentions of his rivals and whether he believes that the international community has a desire to punish the most brutal forms of aggression.. Countries have few better ways to make these judgments than by extrapolating from recent experience.. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are keeping a close eye on who will outlive whom in Ukraine, because they understand that China and North Korea are also watching..

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These questions concern the latter: the war in Ukraine is the register of the resilience of a world in which East Asian democracies have flourished.. So-called realists in the West may scoff at the very idea of \u200b\u200ban international order.. However, officials in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan are realizing how dependent their countries are on a world where territorial capture is not encouraged, brute force is not the only thing that matters, and vulnerable democracies are not left to be victimized by tyrants in the neighborhood.. They understand that a world in which these rules are relaxed is a world in which their own safety, perhaps their own survival, will be at greater risk..

Perhaps the democratic world could not mention the damage from the Ukrainian defeat. But America's friends in East Asia, who have everything at stake, don't count on it..

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