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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Warhttp://globalnation.inquirer.net/24321/protest-against-greater-us-rol...
The following article is written by Dr Patrick Porter, an Australian
and a
Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London.
He sees US's role as an offshore balancer.
"The main challenge for offshore balancing, in trying to navigate a
mid-
point between isolation and hegemony..."
I guess the above also describes the view of most SE Asian nations.
http://offshorebalancer.wordpress.com/
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Obama’s Offshore Dominance
January 25, 2012 - Comments Off
Its a little late in coming, but I wanted to post some thoughts on
Peter Beinart’s thoughtful recent description of President Obama’s
evolving approach to US grand strategy as ‘offshore balancing.’
Stephen Walt has already responded, and there have already been some
great posts on the broader issue of what really counts as offshore
balancing, here, and here.
One of the difficulties in the endless debate over how to taxonomise
US strategic behaviour is that many folk naturally emphasise
techniques or goals (or means and ends) at the other’s expense.
Perhaps this reflects a deeper reflex in Washington foreign policy
debate, where the overriding goals of American diplomacy are debated
far less intensively than the means. Muscular liberals might agree
with Neoconservatives that the ultimate goal is American benevolent
primacy in the world, which in turn would advance American and global
security, but they disagree at times over how to get there (consensual
multilateralism and institution-building or hawkish unilateral action,
etc). At times this can lead to a certain ‘narcissism of small
differences.’ So there is a temptation to stress the ‘offshore’ aspect
and downplay ‘balancing.’ As Peter Beinart characterises it:
One way of understanding America’s shifting policy in the Middle
East is that we’re moving offshore. Instead of directly occupying
Islamic lands, we’re trying to secure our interests from the sea, the
air and by equipping our allies. That’s in large measure what the
Obama administration is trying to do in East Asia, too.The central
message of Obama’s trip last week to Australia was that the U.S.
finally is focused on restraining China’s rise in the Pacific. And how
will the U.S. do that? A token deployment of Marines in northern
Australia notwithstanding, the Obama administration’s strategy will be
to buttress America’s naval presence in the Pacific and aid those
nations on China’s periphery that fear its hegemonic ambitions.
This echoes the approach of the likes of Robert Pape, who argues
(especially in the context of how to reduce anti-American terrorism)
for a lighter footprint and a more naval-oriented military posture.
And to be sure, it is important to consider that a big part of driving
down the costs of American strategy could be moving offshore and
avoiding large-scale expeditionary land commitments.
But offshore balancing, at least as it has been formulated since the
first generation of post World War Two realists all the way to
contemporaries such as Barry Posen, Christopher Preble and Christopher
Layne, is a bigger and more demanding creature than that.
It isn’t just an alternative path to maintaining American hegemony
abroad, or to making hegemony cheaper. It proposes a substantively new
role for the U.S. in the world. As Brian C. Schmidt argues observantly
in a paper he gave a while back, it is an argument that the US abandon
the pursuit of unipolar primacy in the world. Its about ‘ends’ as well
as ‘means’, or at least, it argues that America’ security interests
are better served by accommodating what is inevitable, the return of
mulitpolarity.
Take Obama’s recent Defence Strategic Guidance, and the stance he
articulated recently, orienting the US strategically towards East Asia
while scaling back its onshore commitments, de-emphasising prolonged
counter-insurgency and nation-building missions and ramping up
investment in drones and cyber capabilities.
While it may be tempting to define this – as some of Obama’s defenders
and supporters do- as a fundamental grand strategic shift, it really
isn’t. Its an attempt to pursue the existing, inherited grand
strategic goal (the preservation of American primacy) while adjusting
the ever-shifting mix of military supremacy, deterrence, reassurance,
democratisation and liberalisation, in an apparently increasing
important part of the world where the economic weight and political
ambition is moving. (It is also, incidentally, a softly expressed but
unmistakable confirmation that America is drawing down its military
protectorate in Europe).
The title of Obama’s Defence Strategic Guidance gives the game away:
‘Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership.’ Which is a polished, euphemistic
way of saying that America is not abandoning its role as No. 1, the
guardian of world order. Offshore Balancers who go beyond tactics and
techniques and methods do not usually share this ambition. In fact,
they regard the pursuit of primacy and the vehicle to pursue it -a
vast, forward-leaning military-strategic presence, a set of permanent
formal alliances, and the attempt to remake the world in America’s
image – as pernicious, exhausting, prone to inviting ‘free riding’
from others and creating security dilemmas unintentionally, as well as
damaging American democracy at home. If America isn’t to embrace an
amoral cynicism in place of the Pax Americana, they argue that it can
better embody and repair its values at home, as an example to the
world.
The main challenge for offshore balancing, in trying to navigate a mid-
point between isolation and hegemony, is how to operationalise such a
role, and how to give it geopolitical shape. In other words, precisely
where would US forces be parked if they aren’t just to pack up and go
home, and how should the US prepare for the possibility of competitive
balancing or even bandwagoning if its onshore presence its reduced? On
that note, I’m writing a little pamphlet that will be published later
in 2012, all being well.
The suspense must be killing you.
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