US has no feasible plan to help ASEAN Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

The framework recently floated by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting in Cebu represents an attempt to further institutionalize US-ASEAN defense ties on top of existing bilateral and minilateral arrangements. 

Its stated priorities center on maritime domain awareness, interoperability and cooperation between US and Southeast Asian naval forces, under the guiding formula of being "strong, quiet and clear." 

However, the proposal remains at the level of an initiative. No detailed mechanism, formal document or budgetary commitment has been presented. Viewed against the backdrop of steadily expanding China-ASEAN cooperation across economic, investment, technological and people-to-people domains, the framework appears less a substantive innovation than a repackaging of long-standing US security priorities. It is an effort advanced primarily from the military-security side in response to closer China-ASEAN engagement.

This security-centric orientation is consistent with the broader pattern of US policy toward ASEAN, which has long been nested within the "Indo-Pacific Strategy." Washington's strategic objective is relatively clear: to constrain the growth of China's influence. Security cooperation through exercises, mechanisms and capacity-building programs has been the most visible and sustained element of engagement. Yet this emphasis has also positioned the US as a principal driver of regional militarization. 

In contrast, US cooperation with ASEAN in trade, investment and other non-security fields remains comparatively limited in both depth and breadth. Tariff frictions and related disputes periodically underscore the gaps. Even in the economic domain, a significant portion of US engagement has been motivated by the desire to offset Chinese economic influence rather than by a stand-alone development partnership. 

US policy toward ASEAN has tended to prioritize security while treating economics as secondary, and view the relationship largely through a geopolitical lens. Policy continuity has also varied with changes in administrations. Outside the security sphere, Washington has lacked sustained investments and stable instruments of engagement. Resource allocation and attention have been highly selective: Countries and issues judged useful for balancing China receive priority, while others receive less. The utilitarian character of this approach is pronounced.

ASEAN's response to Hegseth's proposal has been cautious. The meetings produced several initiatives - on youth exchanges, maritime security resilience, and responses to biological, chemical and nuclear threats - along with commemorative statements and joint declarations. None of these outcomes, however, directly endorsed or operationalized the new US defense framework. This reflects the prevailing preference among most ASEAN members and the organization as a whole for a pragmatic, consensus-oriented approach. 

Regardless of the initiatives advanced by external partners, ASEAN's red lines remain clear: Any cooperation must not undermine ASEAN unity or its central role in regional security affairs. 

The Philippines stands as a partial exception. Already deeply intertwined with the US in the military domain, Manila has found security cooperation both highly visible and domestically useful for certain political actors. Such cooperation often requires an identified external threat; the result has been a sustained effort by some quarters to amplify narratives of a "China threat," criticize China's South China Sea policies and facilitate the introduction of Cold War-style bloc confrontation into the region.

At a deeper level, the 2025 US National Security Strategy positions Southeast Asia as a functional geographic theater serving American core interests rather than as a region whose institutional centrality requires dedicated investment. The Trump administration places the Western Hemisphere at the top of its priority list, with Asia and the "Indo-Pacific" secondary. Southeast Asia receives only sparse mention, and ASEAN itself, as a substantial regional organization, is barely referenced, a notable departure from earlier "Indo-Pacific Strategy" documents that repeatedly affirmed ASEAN centrality. 

In this framing, ASEAN's strategic value lies primarily in securing key sea lanes, extending the geography of the First Island Chain's deterrence architecture and supporting US economic competition with China as well as military denial capabilities. 

The strategy further calls on regional allies and partners to increase defense spending, open facilities and invest in deterrence, stressing that US forces should not bear the denial burden along the First Island Chain alone. The overall approach is instrumental and transactional, centered on US economic interests, supply-chain security and burden-sharing by key allies, rather than on treating ASEAN as an independent priority deserving of sustained institutional investment. 

The transactional character also raises doubts among regional states about the durability of US commitments when priorities shift, which in turn undercuts the sustainability of security cooperation.

All in all, Hegseth's proposed framework is less a response to ASEAN's needs than a tactical patch for US strategic retrenchment amid its rivalry with China. The region needs cooperation that respects ASEAN centrality, not military entanglement. A transactional mind-set will keep yielding loud rhetoric and little substance.

The author is director of the Research Center for International and Regional Studies at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn