The Imperial ‘Pivot’ to Asia-Pacific
 and the New Cold War

The Pentagon document on Strategic Guid-ance, entitled “Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for Twenty First Century†, released in January 2012, has inaugurated a new cold war. If the theatre of the ‘old’ Cold War was Europe, the new theatre is the Asia-Pacific. The docu-ment affirms that the US will of necessity rebal-ance towards the Asia-Pacific region. ‘Rebalance’ seems to have replaced the earlier term ‘pivot’. The document maps the region as “the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia†.
In his Introduction to the document, for the release of which he made a rare visit to the Pentagon as †Commander-in-Chief†, remarked President Obama: “I am determined that we meet the challenges of the moment responsibly and that we emerge even stronger in a manner that preserves American global leadership, maintains our military superiority…†. George W. Bush can be proud of his successor. About Obama’s appetite for military action, Aaron David Miller, an adviser to six Secretaries of State, wrote in Foreign Policy: “Barack Obama has become George Bush on steroid.†American ‘global leadership’ is the fancy name for the Empire, admittedly maintained by military superiority.

The Administration’s increased emphasis on the A-P appears to have been prompted by four major developments:

– the growing economic importance of the Asia-Pacific region, and particularly China, to the US’ economic future;
– China’s growing military capabilities and its increasing assertiveness of claims to disputed maritime territory with implications for free-dom of navigation and the US’ ability to pro-ject power in the region;
– the winding down of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan;
– efforts to cut the US Government’s defence budget which threaten to create a perception in Asia that the US commitment to the region will wane.

In a November 2011 article in Foreign Policy, entitled ‘America’s Pacific Century’, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the “future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq and the US will be right at the centre of the action†. She detailed US plans to bolster its military presence in the region. Claiming that it is the US which “maintains peace and security, defends freedom of navigation and ensures transparency†, Clinton emphasised the importance of the Asia-Pacific’s economic deve-lopment, trade routes, resources and investment opportunities for the US. The Asia-Pacific’s “remarkable economic growth and potential for continued growth†, she wrote, “depends on the security and stability that has long been guaranteed by the US military†whose presence has to be further strengthened.
Many aspects of the Asia-Pacific pivot repre-sent an expansion rather than a transformation of policy. A number of Obama’s discrete initia-tives build on previous actions so that some observers argue that the Administration over-stated the depth and scope of its pivot. For ins-tance, in the military sphere the Administra-tion is expanding and accelerating policies under Bush. The Obama Administration is also expan-ding Bush-era initiatives such as strengthening relations with existing allies in Asia and forging new partnership with India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

That said, there are at least three broad new features of US policy that are worth emphasi-sing: new military priorities and deployments; an arguably more integrated and region-wise approach to the Asia-Pacific; and a vision of the region’s geography to include the Indian Ocean.

The highest-profile new initiatives lie in the security sphere. The planned deployment of troops and equipment to Australia and Singa-pore represent an expanded US presence. Moreover the pledge that reductions in deficit spending will not come at the expense reflects Asia-oriented priorities. The most obvious implication subsequently reflected in the Department of Defence’s January 2012 ‘Strategic Guidance’ has been to minimise cuts in the size of the Navy with reductions focused on the Army’s ground forces. Asia is seen mainly as a naval theatre of operation and the decision not to cut the Navy as sharply as other services reflects a shift in priorities that is unusual in year to year defence planning. It is an ocean-centred strategy in which the USA is far superior to China.
A second new dynamic is the way the various new and old military, diplomatic and economic initiatives have been presented as parts of one package.

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Another new element in the Obama Adminis-tration’s policy is the inclusion of the coastal areas of South Asia in the geographic area of the Pacific pivot. South Asia has often been consi-dered as a distinct strategic sub-region of Asia. Increasing strategic rivalry between China and India also serves to bring that Asia sub-region into a larger Asia-wide strategic dynamic.

In her Foreign Policy article, Secretary of State Clinton defined the Asia-Pacific as “stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans—the Pacific and the Indian—that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy†. Underlying the rebalancing is the Administra-tion’s belief that the centre of gravity for US foreign policy, national security and economic interests is shifting towards Asia and that US strategies and priorities need to be adjusted accordingly.

As Noam Chomsky wrote in Al Jazeera (May 7, 2012), the US pivot towards the Asia-Pacific region is in response to what he calls the classic security dilemma posed by the rising influence of China and Russia. The pivot is perceived as bullying, threatening and an intrusion of the same—in other words more of the same—by those most impacted by US foreign military presence. The “classic security dilemma makes sense†, Chomsky argues, if one operates under the assumption that the US “has the right to control most of the world and that US security requires absolutely global control†.

Some Asian leaders may feel that the enhanced US presence may serve as a counterweight to China as it asserts territorial rights to the oil-rich South China Sea that are disputed by other Asian countries. The US had asserted its position in the region already at the ASEAN Regional Forum last year where it declared the outcome of the disputes in the South China Sea to be of ‘national interest’. The stance received conspi-cuous support within and beyond the ASEAN and was accompanied by efforts to energise the US’ relations with Vietnam and the Philippines.

We may have to go back a bit into the White House history to see the significance of the South China Sea in the US strategy. As Michael Klare points out, “there is reason to believe that President Obama is implementing the geopoli-tical blueprint of former Vice-President Dick Cheney†. Among the key features of this blue-print prominent is “to dominate the sea lands of Asia so as to control the flow of oil and other raw materials to America’s political rivals China and Japan†.

Among the strategic initiatives that the Department of Defence has been developing apparently with the A-P in mind is a new ‘Air Sea Battle (ASB)’ concept that is intended to improve the joint effectiveness of the US’ Naval and Air Force units, particularly in operations for countering anti-access strategies. This strategy is of course the primary reason that the South Korean Navy is building, at the behest of Pentagon, the naval base on Jeju island. The US Navy needs more ports to dock their warships. The Pentagon has stated that it is modernising its basing arrangements with traditional allies while enhancing its presence in South-East Asia and into the Indian Ocean. It is working on an “operational concept†to translate the growing connection between the Indian and Pacific Oceans which in effect will mean military presence over a broader region.

It is only natural that the US’ Asia ‘pivot’ has prompted Chinese anxiety about US contain-ment. One might inquire on what is exactly about ‘rising China’ that is being counter-balanced with such an increased military presence in the Pacific. The US is not putting a military presence in the region to be an impartial or fair mediator but to pursue its own interest and that of its allies which are competing against China for ownership of the resource-rich islands (including oil).

Although the Obama Administration officials have often stated that these moves are not aimed at any one particular country, the Strategic Guidance document says they are responses at least in part to China’s growing influence. “The maintenance of peace, stability, the free flow of commerce and of US influence in this dynamic region will depend in part on an underlying balance of military capability and presence. Over the long-term China’s emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the US economy and our security in a variety of ways...The growth of China’s military power must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intention in order to avoid causing friction in the region.†This is a rather strange statement and would suggest that there is clarity about the USA’s strategic intention.

The new developments from the US side are about one thing: containing China’s military rise and the tectonic shifts associated with it. While commentators of all ideologies agree that China, by virtue of its advances on the entire standard measures of power, from economic to military, has put itself high up in the list of rising powers, it is far from clear that it is a menacing power. One may even say that China’s military rise is normal—not illegitimate, if we speak in terms of power politics.

The pivot to the Pacific is seen by some in China in stark terms as focused on dividing China from its neighbours and keeping China’s military in check. Such an impression may strengthen the hands of China’s military (PLA) which has long been suspicious of US intentions in the region. The military, in turn, could become more determined to strengthen China’s anti-access capabilities and more assertive about defending China’s territorial claims. The impre-ssion that the rebalancing is aimed at containing China could potentially make it more difficult for the US to gain China’s cooperation on issues such as North Korea. China cannot ignore the new US stance. The question is how they inter-pret it.

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An interpretation was given by China Daily in an article at the end of last year (27-12-2011). It said: “Washington uses the ‘China threat’ as an excuse to maintain excessive military spen-ding so that it can continue its hegemony.†It added that “the confused policy of ‘congage-ment’—mixing containment and engagement—has increasingly characterised the US approach to China†. The article accused the US of “attempting to maintain a de facto empire on borrowed money while its creditors are at its doors†. The new strategy is seen as a threat in Beijing. “The Administration’s plan to augment America’s permanent strength in Asia cannot be seen as anything but threatening,†the spokesman of the Ministry of Defence, Geng Youshang, said. “We believe it is all a matter of a cold war mentality.â€

But there are even more strident voices from Beijing. Writing in the People’s Liberation Daily on January 13, 2012, Major Luo Luan bluntly warned that the US was targeting China. “Casting our eyes around, we can see that the US has been bolstering its five major military alliances in the Asia-Pacific and is adjusting the positing of its four major military base clusters in the AP region while also seeking more entry rights for military bases around China. Who can believe that you are not directing this at China?†he asked.

In theory, senior party and government cadres have not abandoned late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s famous foreign policy dictum of the early 1990s: “Take a low profile and never take the lead.†A rising number of influential academic and military advisers in Beijing have argued that due to China’s fast-rising quasi-superpower status and intensification the country’s compe-tition with the US and its Asian allies, the low profile has become all but obsolete. According to widely published defence theorist Yang Yi, “It is no longer possible for China to keep a low profile†.

The differing responses reflect a debate in Beijing that intensified after last year’s NATO intervention in Libya, which caused losses of billions of dollars of Chinese investments in that country. This happened in the wake of the NATO’s ousting of the Libyan regime of Gaddafi. The NATO was able to do this only with the support of the US. The US is now threatening Iran which China relies on as a major supplier of oil. One camp advocates a continuation of the present cautious policy of avoiding a confronta-tion with the US. The second calls for a shift to a more aggressive policy to defend China’s growing economic and strategic interests around the world.

India is highly visible in the new US Asia-Pacific map. The January Strategic Guidance Document refers specifically to “the area extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia†. Hillary Clinton was even more specific when she defined Asia-Pacific as reaching from the Indian subcontinent to the Western shores of America.

Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary, came to New Delhi at the end of the first week of May with an agenda to win India to the US side in its new Asia-Pacific strategy. India gets a promi-nent place in the Strategy Guidance document of the Pentagon. It says that the US intends to invest in a ‘long-term strategic partnership’ with India in order that New Delhi might serve as a regional economic and military anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region. Commenting on New Delhi’s role, Panetta said defence cooperation with India is a linchpin in US strategy. “India is one of the largest and most dynamic countries in the region and the world and with one of the most capable mili-taries.†Defence cooperation between India and the US has deepened from the time of the begin-ning of War on Terror and India is the largest partner in defence exercises with the US. More-over from that time India had aligned itself with the USA.
But observers have noticed a subtle shift in India’s policy recently. Responding to Panetta’s overtures, Defence Minister Antony emphasised the “need to strengthen a multilateral security architecture in the Asia-Pacific and to move to a pace comfortable to all countries concerned†. India is closely watching the ramifications of US rebalancing as it will considerably increase American military presence in its neighbour-hood, especially in the Indian Ocean. It did not go unnoticed that exactly the same days Panetta was in New Delhi, Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna was in China where, in response to questions about the new US strategy, he affirmed that the bilateral relationship with China was a priority for India’s foreign policy. More specifically, he expressed India’s desire to expand strategic cooperation with China.

There seems to be a debate within the Indian establishment with one section arguing for a new non-alignment in the emerging cold war in Asia and another, apparently stronger and prevailing, advocating linking its strategic part-nership with the USA’s Asia-Pacific rebalancing.

Although conventionally treated as separate, America’s four wars in Asia were actually phases in a sustained US bid for regional dominance, according to Michael H. Hunt and Steven Levine (Arc of Empire, University of North Carolina Press, 2012). “The effort unfolded as an imperial project in which military power and the importance of America’s political will created the Arc of Empire. America’s wars in Asia, from the Philippines to Vietnam, follow the long arc of conflicts across. Seventyfive years from the Philippines war through Japan and Korea to Vietnam, we trace the American ambitions’ ascendance and ultimate defeat. By the time we got to the Japan war, we were convinced how American leaders had developed a strong sense of a stake in the future of Pacific.â€

The consequences of this strategy as well as ideological stake were soon apparent in Korea and then in Vietnam. After seventyfive years President Nixon finally abandoned the forward policy in East Asia. Ultimately the political and social changes transforming the region proved beyond the control of Americans despite the military advantage that their vastly superior weaponry and material resources conferred.

Only in the last decade or so has the uninhibited exercise of the US global power again become a policy in Washington. The latter-day champions of US military interventions had forgotten the lessons learned the hard way over the last half-a-century. They don’t seem to have learnt anything either from the disastrous adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new cold war in the Asia-Pacific is a continuation of the US-led imperial project for dominance in the region recreating the Arc of the Empire.

Dr Ninan Koshy, formerly a Visiting Fellow, Harvard Law School, USA, is the author of The War on Terror—Reordering the World and Under the Empire—India’s New Foreign Policy.