Chicago Tribune on President Obama stressing the durability of the U.S. Pacific role:
When President Barack Obama scrubbed an October trip to Asia to attend to the government shutdown in Washington, Asian leaders worried that it meant the United States lacked sufficient interest in the region to remain a powerful presence. In late April, Obama finally made the trip, but it may not be enough to reassure allies and others.
Why not? Two obvious reasons. One is Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its aggressive activities in eastern Ukraine, which have focused Washington’s attention on how to assure the security of Europe. The fear is that this new threat will divert American attention and resources to the task of bolstering NATO and containing Russia, at the expense of its Pacific role.
Another is that the administration trumpeted its intent to make Asia a higher priority ”“ the Asia pivot ”“ but has repeatedly disappointed. In 2011, reported Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons in the Tribune, “U.S. foreign policy revolves around a single idea: With U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan coming to a close, Washington is focusing on the fast-growing Pacific region to curb the influence of China.” But the world has had a way of preventing any “single idea” from enjoying a monopoly on the U.S. global agenda.
Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have all demanded their share of the spotlight. Ukraine is the latest crisis to preoccupy the president and his advisers. Cuts in the defense budget mean the U.S. will have fewer military assets to bring to bear in the world. So Asian allies figure they’re bound to get shortchanged.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
The U.S. has proven in the past that it’s capable of addressing dangers in both places. The Pacific alliances were established in the same era that NATO came into being. We fought wars in Korea and Vietnam while facing down the Soviet threat in Europe. We’re a global power, with the means to act in more than one place at a time.
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