David Nakamura
By David Nakamura
President Barack Obama’s bid to focus US attention on Asia has failed to meet the lofty expectations he set three years ago in a grand pronouncement that the new emphasis would become a pillar of his foreign policy.
The result, as Obama prepares to travel to the region next week, has been a loss of confidence among some US allies about the administration’s commitment at a time of escalating regional tensions. Relations between Japan and South Korea are at a low point not seen since World War II, and China has provoked both with aggressive maritime actions despite a personal plea to Beijing from Vice-President Joe Biden in December.
“Relations have gone from being generally positive at the strategic level among the great powers to extremely difficult,” said Kurt Campbell, a former assistant secretary of state who helped conceive the Asia strategy. “It’s a much more challenging strategic landscape.”
In a glitzy rollout in the fall of 2011, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States would “pivot” away from long, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ramp up engagement to meet China’s rise.
Instead, over the past year, the administration has been drawn deeper into crises in traditional hot spots in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Congressional Democrats blocked Obama’s bid to speed up talks on a 12-nation Pacific free-trade pact at the core of a policy that aims to balance military realignment with economic initiatives.
And Obama canceled participation in two Asian summits because of the government shutdown last fall.
White House aides say they are confident that the president will re-energize his Asia strategy by visiting seven countries this year — Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines next week and China, Burma and Australia in the fall. Obama met with the leaders of the three East Asian nations on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in Europe last month.
“Showing up matters a lot in Asia. The good news is that it’s pretty easily fixable,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. “We have the benefit of knowing what success will look like — and if we achieve it, people will think it was worth it.”
Despite that optimism, there is a feeling outside the administration that the energy and enthusiasm that marked the launch of the policy has been lost with the departures early last year of Clinton and national security adviser Thomas Donilon. Their successors, John Kerry and Susan Rice, respectively, have been focused foremost on conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, a Middle East peace pact, and Iran’s nuclear program.
“For a lot of reasons, none egregiously negligent, it adds up to us not being there,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “Perceptions are everything, and now the whole idea of the rebalance is at risk.”
IANS
By David Nakamura
President Barack Obama’s bid to focus US attention on Asia has failed to meet the lofty expectations he set three years ago in a grand pronouncement that the new emphasis would become a pillar of his foreign policy.
The result, as Obama prepares to travel to the region next week, has been a loss of confidence among some US allies about the administration’s commitment at a time of escalating regional tensions. Relations between Japan and South Korea are at a low point not seen since World War II, and China has provoked both with aggressive maritime actions despite a personal plea to Beijing from Vice-President Joe Biden in December.
“Relations have gone from being generally positive at the strategic level among the great powers to extremely difficult,” said Kurt Campbell, a former assistant secretary of state who helped conceive the Asia strategy. “It’s a much more challenging strategic landscape.”
In a glitzy rollout in the fall of 2011, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States would “pivot” away from long, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ramp up engagement to meet China’s rise.
Instead, over the past year, the administration has been drawn deeper into crises in traditional hot spots in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Congressional Democrats blocked Obama’s bid to speed up talks on a 12-nation Pacific free-trade pact at the core of a policy that aims to balance military realignment with economic initiatives.
And Obama canceled participation in two Asian summits because of the government shutdown last fall.
White House aides say they are confident that the president will re-energize his Asia strategy by visiting seven countries this year — Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines next week and China, Burma and Australia in the fall. Obama met with the leaders of the three East Asian nations on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in Europe last month.
“Showing up matters a lot in Asia. The good news is that it’s pretty easily fixable,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. “We have the benefit of knowing what success will look like — and if we achieve it, people will think it was worth it.”
Despite that optimism, there is a feeling outside the administration that the energy and enthusiasm that marked the launch of the policy has been lost with the departures early last year of Clinton and national security adviser Thomas Donilon. Their successors, John Kerry and Susan Rice, respectively, have been focused foremost on conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, a Middle East peace pact, and Iran’s nuclear program.
“For a lot of reasons, none egregiously negligent, it adds up to us not being there,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “Perceptions are everything, and now the whole idea of the rebalance is at risk.”
IANS
