By Graham Webster
The Obama White House is realistically out of time to articulate a newly integrated vision for the Asia-Pacific region.
As U.S. President Barack Obama enters his last year in office, it is increasingly clear that the so-called rebalance to the Asia-Pacific will be his administration’s major mark on U.S. policy toward the region. Four years after the rebalance was announced, however, a Congressionally mandated report found that there remains “consistent confusion about the rebalance strategy and concern about its implementation.”
The report, released this month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and commissioned by the Department of Defense, found that the confusion was not limited to Asia-Pacific governments or the public, but rather extends throughout the U.S. government. Strikingly, the report points out that “there remains no central U.S. government document that describes the rebalance strategy and its associated elements.”
Since the moment the rebalance was announced, debate has flourished. Was it an unnecessary distraction from crises elsewhere, or an under-funded half-measure? Did it reassure allies and put China on notice, or has the administration over-promised and under-delivered? Whatever one’s views, it seems late in the game for outsiders to justifiably recommend the administration “develop and then articulate a clear and coherent strategy.”
Reading the CSIS report, which was directed by former officials from the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, one encounters a vision of Obama-era Asia policy as incoherent and weak, but not wrong-headed. The core message of the report is that, particularly in the military dimension, the U.S. needs to rebalance harder.
Read the full story at The Diplomat