AUKUS and America's 'Hammer Dilemma' in Asia

The militarized rivalry that the U.S. is offering isn’t appealing to most of the states in the region.

Australia has been at pains to reassure its neighbors in Southeast Asia that the Australia-U.K.-U.S. trilateral security partnership (AUKUS) is not a defense pact or alliance:

Australia on Monday sought to assuage regional anxieties over its plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines through a joint arrangement with Britain and the United States, with C…