1. a
Clarifying America's Pacific Future
Written by Nicholas Greaves-Tunnell, Eurasia Center
August, 2014
Three years after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared this to be
“America's Pacific Century,” what is the present state of the much-touted Pacific
Pivot? Despite all of the rhetoric geared towards assuring the world that we are
winding down in the Middle East and focusing instead on the primary hub of 21st
century trade, many questions still remain about America's role and ambitions in
the Asia-Pacific. Thus far there has been an alarming disconnect between executive
nomenclature and legislative action. The most encouraging demonstration of
American resolve to remain active in the region has come from the Asia Pacific
Priority Act put forward by Representatives Forbes (R, VA) and Hanabusa (D, HI).
Measures included in the act such as independent evaluation of Chinese Anti-
Access/ Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities and the state of the modernized Chinese
navy, maintenance and encouragement of cooperative security and training
locations within Pacific Command (PACOM), establishment of a Defense Unmanned
Systems Office, and direction for improved missile defense research and
a

2. coordination will go a long way towards maintaining the present favorable balance
of American regional power projection, while reassuring local allies that America
will remain committed to preventing military resolutions to regional disputes and
anticipating the direction and posture of a future military presence in the region. It
can be argued, however, that all of these measures put the cart before the horse.
Even while America is using force posture and political rhetoric to assert its
continued interests in the Asia-Pacific, it has done little to clarify what these
interests are or even the extent of involvement which it anticipates in the future.
Numbers and labels describing American determination to remain regionally
involved are easy to come by. The State Department is fond of terms such as pivot,
rebalance, and refocus, while those who prefer more quantitative reasoning point to
estimates of the enormous importance (both in terms of GDP growth of member
states and global trade) of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Yet these assessments tend
to skirt the bare questions that demand clarification of what the pivot specifically
involves, especially given an absence of physical strategic clarification for our own
actions, let alone those of regional allies such as South Korea and Japan. Most would
consider the traditional “hub and spoke” style of relations with regional partners to
be outdated; particularly in light of popular calls for increased burden sharing that
would require greater interconnectivity and reliance between nations in the region
rather than on the United States. However, persistent problems in the form of
historical impediments and offenses continue to rankle, souring the prospects of
anything but American-led alliances in the region.

3. Despite the inherent difficulty involved in attempting to encourage the resolution of
these historical impediments, greater interconnectivity between regional allies in
the Asia-Pacific is precisely what the United States should be encouraging. Nations
in East Asia, even those that are traditionally non-committal in calling for U.S.
involvement, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, are actively encouraging greater
regional commitment from America, both economically and militarily. Evidently the
rapid economic gains and military modernization of China has raised concerns even
of those nations that are not traditionally overt American allies. Continuing to
pursue the present “hub and spoke” model of alliances in the region, however, risks
creating a binary choice in the region between being an American ally or a Chinese
one. At the same time that nations want to increase their economic engagement
with a booming China, they are wary of increasingly being brought under threat of
China's rising regional influence. The solution must be one of collective balancing by
regional parties. A strategy of containment cannot work in the absence of an
autarkic economic system like the one that existed during the Cold War. The modern
economic system is one of globalization and extreme interconnectivity; nations are
understandably loathe to risk the economic rewards of increased trade with China,
and a system of containment cannot succeed in an environment where nations
refuse to take sides. On top of this, attempting to completely isolate and ostracize
China goes against the interests of the United States. Economics is not zero-sum, and
America stands to make massive gains by continuing to interact with China. The
problem, then, is that it is exceedingly difficult to impose costs on China for actions

4. that the United States deems coercive and unacceptable while also continuing to
cooperate and mutually profit on a variety of other issues.
America has a vested interest in maintaining the global liberal economic order that
it currently presides over, which ironically is the system that is fueling the rapid rise
of its largest 21st
century geopolitical rival; this tension is an unprecedented
challenge in American foreign policy. Beijing's repeated declarations that it is not
pursuing aggressive or expansionist policies have evidently done little to assuage
widespread regional mistrust of its intentions. As the United States continues to
avow its lasting interest in maintaining order in the region, both economic and
military, it has simultaneously failed to pursue significant, coherent action to
accompany its rhetoric. Regional partners continue to call for increased American
involvement but fail to elaborate what they are asking; it is likely that what each
nation wants from the United States differs greatly. Yet even before it can begin to
navigate the complicated and probably conflicting demands of these states, America
must first decide upon its own interests and capabilities. Before beginning to
answer the calls of other states, the United States must decide what it is capable, and
what it is willing, to invest in the region, and towards the securement of what
interests these investments will be directed. The implications of a global rebalance
seem to suggest that the United States will be willing to sustain increased costs in
order to remain deeply engaged in the Asia-Pacific, but successful burden sharing
and successful balancing of China will require that it also cultivate greater
interconnectivity and growth of other regional partners. If this is truly going to be

5. America's Pacific Century, legislature in the vein of the APPA must continue to
accompany lofty rhetoric.
Sources:
Forbes, Randy, Colleen Hanabusa, and Michael Green, PhD. "Sustaining America's Enduring Role in the
Pacific." United States, Washington, D.C. 19 June 2014. Lecture.

6. America's Pacific Century, legislature in the vein of the APPA must continue to
accompany lofty rhetoric.
Sources:
Forbes, Randy, Colleen Hanabusa, and Michael Green, PhD. "Sustaining America's Enduring Role in the
Pacific." United States, Washington, D.C. 19 June 2014. Lecture.