US REDISCOVERING ASIA?

RE-ORIENTING AMERICA

Richard N. Haass

The Straits Times, November 15, 2011

Some 40 years ago, when I entered Oxford University as a graduate student, I declared my interest in the Middle East. I was told that this part of the world came under the rubric of 'Oriental Studies,' and that I would be assigned an appropriate professor. But when I arrived for my first meeting at the professor's office, his bookshelves were lined with volumes bearing Chinese characters. He was a specialist in what was, at least for me at the time, the wrong Orient.

Something akin to this mistake has befallen American foreign policy. The United States has become preoccupied with the Middle East - in certain ways, the wrong Orient - and has not paid adequate attention to East Asia and the Pacific, where much of the twenty-first century's history will be written.

The good news is that this focus is shifting. Indeed, a quiet transformation is taking place in American foreign policy, one that is as significant as it is overdue. The US has rediscovered Asia.

'Rediscovered' is the operative word here. Asia was one of the two principal theaters of World War II, and again shared centrality with Europe during the Cold War. Indeed, the period's two greatest conflicts - the wars in Korea and Vietnam - were fought on the Asian mainland.

But, with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, Asia receded from American interest. In the first decade of the post-Cold War era, the US trained much of its attention on Europe. American policymakers focused primarily on enlarging Nato to encompass many of the former Warsaw Pact countries, and on contending with the post-Yugoslav wars.

The second phase of the post-Cold War era began with the 9/11 terror attacks. What followed was a decade of US focus on terrorism and the large-scale commitment of American military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. The two conflicts have claimed more than 6,000 American lives, cost more than US$1 trillion (S$1.3 trillion), and consumed countless hours for two presidents and their senior staff.

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