As Obama begins an East Asian tour, Keating asks whether the much-touted “pivot to Asia” is a real thing:
[T]here doesn’t seem to be much evidence that the administration is spending more of its energy on Asia, or less of it on the Middle East, than it did previously. As Gideon Rachman argues, the fact that the pivot hasn’t been much in evidence doesn’t mean that the idea wasn’t a sound one. The Pacific is an area of growing strategic and economic importance and the U.S. position still carries a significant amount of weight there.
But the fact is that more attention tends to be paid to the places where things are blowing up on a regular basis. Thankfully, despite tensions running high on the Korean peninsula and the East China Sea, Asia is not yet that place. But it means that the region is often going to be pushed to the back-burner when more obvious crises present themselves
Dan Blumenthal thinks the pivot was a bad idea from the get-go:
Yes, Asia is of emerging consequence in world affairs. All post-Cold War presidents have recognized this. And China has had the potential to pose the greatest challenge to the United States since it became the prime actor in world affairs. Without a doubt, Asia needs more U.S. attention and resources. But the United States is a global superpower with vital interests in several interlinked regions. There can be no Asia policy without a global strategy.
For example, Japan gets most of its energy from the Middle East, where Washington has played a stabilizing role. And what about India? How will Delhi play the role Washington imagines for it in Asia if the United States mishandles Afghanistan? Furthermore, all Asian powers watch Washington’s handling of the other revisionist states — Russia and Iran — for clues about its fortitude in Asia. U.S. grand strategy must account for these facts.
The editors at Bloomberg take a more nuanced line, saying the idea was good but the implementation was fumbled:
The notion of prioritizing Asia should hardly be controversial. The region, as one of the pivot’s original architects noted recently, exerts an “inescapable gravitational pull.” It is home to half the world’s population, and before the middle of this century it should account for half the world’s economic output. Already the U.S. exports 50 percent more to Asia than to Europe. The U.S. and almost every country in Asia share an overwhelming interest in ensuring a free flow of goods, information and ideas to and from the region.
But it’s obvious now that all the trumpet-blaring back in 2011 about a coming Asian Century raised expectations too high and too fast. China naturally assumed the pivot was designed to thwart its rise and grew emboldened when budget cuts slowed the movement of U.S. military assets to the region. Japan, the Philippines and other countries that had assumed the same thing now fret about U.S. staying power. From Myanmar to Vietnam, small nations lament that they haven’t received the kind of attention and money once showered on the likes of Djibouti or Tajikistan. Clearly, the White House overpromised and underdelivered.
But Michael Mazza wonders whether Obama can still pull it off:
The president will not save his pivot by racking up frequent flyer miles. “Showing up” is important, but not nearly as important as what the president has in hand upon his arrival. Assuming that “success” is defined as preservation of the peace in Asia and the establishment of relative stability, the president’s presence in the region will certainly be insufficient to achieve it.
The president has a long to-do list. He needs to reassure allies that the United States will live up to its security obligations in Asia. He likewise needs to assure them that he will not fiddle while the rest of the world burns. He needs to convince capitals across Asia that “21stcentury” America can play hardball with the world’s “20th century” powers—and play to win. He needs to demonstrate that he has a strategy for winning the peace in Asia, that the pivot is more than a slogan. This is a tall order.
The Dish 