By Trefor Moss
The Obama administration is pivoting en masse this week. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just been in Australia and Singapore, the recently signed-up hosts of, respectively, U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy littoral combat ships. Soon President Barack Obama will build on the diplomatic momentum when he visits Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. He will be joined by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, whose presence underscores the security focus of Washington’s Asia initiative.
But is this a case of rebalancing or overbalancing? The plan certainly has its detractors, with critics suggesting that the pivot is all a waste of time – or worse, that it’s harmful to the security of the United States. Among them is Robert Ross, who argues in the latest Foreign Affairs that the pivot is “unnecessary and counterproductive”. James Holmes has already pointed out elsewhere on The Diplomat that Ross makes some rather bold assumptions about the U.S. military’s capability advantages over the PLA. But what about Ross’s other, strategic arguments?
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