ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the responses and their likely trends. It discusses the limitations—geographic, fiscal, and political—on what the United States can and is likely to do in the future in terms of deployments, plans, and force postures in what was once termed by the US Pacific Command as the Indo-Asian-Pacific region and now is termed the Indo-Pacific. For the United States military, the Indo-Pacific region is a maritime theatre, so most of US operational-level adjustments have been in the maritime realm, but these military changes have been supported by activities of the joint force as well as supported by diplomatic and economic initiatives and policies. Horizontal proliferation to Iran has been handled largely through a mix of sanctions, interdiction and other counterproliferation efforts, and forward presence by US naval and air forces in close proximity to Iran. The US also remains concerned about vertical proliferation in both India and Pakistan, but it has approached that growth in nuclear arsenals differently.
