THE US AS A PACIFIC POWER

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY TURNS TOWARD ASIA

The Washington Post, November 16, 2011

The theme of President Obama’s eight-day tour of Asia is what the administration describes as a foreign policy “pivot” from the messy and costly wars of Iraq and Afghanistan to a new era of engagement with the booming economies of the Far East . “The United States is, and always will be, a Pacific power,” Mr. Obama said as he opened a news conference Monday in Hawaii. The region, he added, “is absolutely vital not only for our economy but also for our national security.”

The president is right, of course, and his vision is, in many ways, a beguiling one. Many Asian countries are eager for greater economic, political and military engagement with the United States because of their wariness of China. Eight signed up over the weekend for the administration’s new Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade plan; Australia announced its agreement to a permanent U.S. military presence. Not that war is on the horizon: Though China’s growing military power must be watched, there are no ugly land battles to fight in Asia, and the threat of terrorism is small.

Yet it was telling that the first question Mr. Obama fielded after summing up the 21-nation summit he hosted was not about the trade deal or the summit or even China. It was about Iran’s nuclear program, which is threatening to trigger yet another war in the Middle East. The message to the president was unintentional but fitting: “Pivoting” to Asia won’t make the threats to U.S. security in the Near East — or the urgency of addressing them — go away.

Mr. Obama is not the first U.S. president who hoped to focus on Asia: Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton tried pivoting, too. But Mr. Obama has more opportunities to carry out his plan, in part because growing Chinese power has made even those countries that once kept their distance from Washington, such as Vietnam, eager for closer ties. The administration appears to have a robust and multifaceted strategy, which includes a somewhat tougher approach to Beijing. “When it comes to their economic practices there are a range of things [the Chinese] have done that disadvantage not just the United States but a whole host of their trading partners and countries in the region,” Mr. Obama said at his news conference. “The United States and other countries, I think understandably, feel that enough is enough.”

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