American policy lost in translation

American policy lost in translation

United States President Barack Obama's recent absence from key Asian summits due to the ongoing government shutdown in Washington was regarded by many as another palpable sign of American global decline.

The contrast could not have been clearer. While the US leader went Awol, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Mr Vladimir Putin, hogged the limelight. Mr Putin even managed to crack a joke at Mr Obama's expense.

Mr Obama's no-show was both a missed opportunity and an embarrassment to his hosts. Only those involved in organising a visit by a US President can truly appreciate just what this means. As a British protocol chief once remarked: "Next to organising the arrival of an American President, the worst nightmare is being told at the last minute that he is not, after all, coming."

It is also clear that in the aftermath of Mr Obama's dithering over Syria - when he first threatened to use force but then retracted the threat - aborting another major foreign policy initiative such as a trip to Asia is not going to boost the President's ratings as a decisive leader.

Although the episode will have no lasting impact, the real problem with US foreign and security policies in Asia is the content of the policies themselves, and not so much the number of trips the Air Force One jumbo jet makes to the region.

Washington's government lockdown already tells us a great deal about the way US politicians view their global economic duties.

The fact that a gridlock exists between Congress and the President is not surprising. America's founding fathers viewed the inherent tension between the executive and lawmakers not as a regrettable fluke, but as a necessary safeguard of democratic government.

Nor is it obvious that congressmen alone are responsible for the current crisis. To suggest that legislators should never threaten to close the US government down is tantamount to arguing that, ultimately, the President always prevails over Congress, precisely the concept which the US Constitution rejects.

Globalised debt threat

WHAT is truly shocking about the current situation is that neither the President nor Congress is planning to address the fundamental economic problem, which is the US' growing sovereign debt. It is the only country struck by the financial crisis to have done absolutely nothing about its debt liabilities.

Neither Capitol Hill nor the White House seems to care about the implications of their actions on the welfare of other nations. The Washington confrontation could lead to a debt default, damaging any nation which lends the US money. Even if the outcome is averted, political dithering in Washington depresses the value of the US dollar, artificially pushing up Asian currencies.

This is particularly critical in Japan, where a strengthening yen could destroy Abenomics, the effort by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to pull one of the US' key allies out of decades of stagnation.

The US is in a unique position of borrowing its own currency, a currency which only Washington can print. This represents a huge financial privilege; yet it also carries responsibilities.

But most US politicians now take the advantages for granted, ignoring the concomitant global duties. That's the true message from the current gridlock.

And a similar tendency to pick and choose is also evident in the elaboration of US security policies in Asia. Much has been said about President Obama's so-called "pivot" to the region, whether it is serious, whether it is properly funded and whether its real aim is no more than the containment of China. But what really merits scrutiny is the ambiguous nature of the key US policy strands which underpin this pivot.

Take North Korea as an example. The US continues to claim that it will "never accept" a nuclear North Korea - Mr Obama reiterated that pledge in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last month - despite all the evidence that Pyongyang already has both nuclear warheads and a rudimentary system for their delivery and is racing ahead to perfect both.

The official US response to this contradiction was framed by the then secretary of state Hillary Clinton as "strategic patience", a policy which suggests that the US can afford to wait for North Korea to either collapse or somehow, spontaneously decide to denuclearise. There is absolutely no evidence that either of these scenarios is ever likely to happen. Nor is there any indication that China, North Korea's real patron, is ready to push Pyongyang in either direction.

Patience wearing thin

BUT there is considerable evidence that, while the US can afford to wait in the knowledge that, despite its bluster, the North Korean regime is unlikely to go to war against the US, South Korea and Japan cannot wait for a good outcome, which nobody can foresee.

"Strategic patience" is, therefore, no more than a smoke screen, an elegant term designed to hide the fact that Washington does not know what should be done and doesn't care very much either.

The same game of substituting slogans for real policies applies to the South China Sea and Taiwan, where the US adheres to a so-called "strategic ambiguity", which keeps everyone guessing as to what the US may do in case of a military showdown.

In theory, the concept makes sense. It accounts for the fact that China is an important partner for everyone and a key stakeholder in Asia's stability by refusing to identify Beijing as America's inevitable enemy.

It also discourages regional governments from being lulled into a sense of false security or from undertaking rash moves in the expectation that they may get US military cover for their actions.

But the disadvantages of this ambiguity are now bigger than its advantages.

The weasel words the US uses in the case of Japan and the Philippines have only succeeded in rattling both of these US allies.

Mr Obama's diplomats claim that America's security guarantee to Japan remains valid but that Washington "takes no view" on who owns the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, while the US claims that it remains bound by the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty with the Philippines, although it's "not clear" whether this covers the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.

Indeed, these intellectual gymnastics are becoming difficult even for US diplomats.

During his maiden tour to Asia after his appointment, US Secretary of State John Kerry twice had to be corrected by officials after he "misspoke" about the finer points of these distinctions.

Clarity prevents war

FAR from reassuring allies and partners, the US strategic ambiguity has encouraged parties to the South China Sea dispute to exaggerate their claims and create facts on the ground by occupying various rocks.

It has also prompted governments to prepare for the worst by re-arming and by forging various regional alliances which often overlap.

Strategic ambiguity may have been a useful policy a decade ago. Today, clarity from the US is potentially one of the key requirements to stabilise the situation.

And this does not have to result in either throwing a ring of steel around China or in identifying the country as America's enemy. If the US pushed Japan and South Korea into a strategic reconciliation, this would immediately force China to change its attitude towards North Korea and may unleash a diplomatic process which could be productive.

If the US starts to provide clear answers on the South China Sea and what it means by its strong declaration issued in July 2010, when Mrs Clinton announced that America had a "national interest" in the freedom of navigation through that stretch of waters, this will also help clarify matters.

In short, there are policy options which are both sensible and do not entail writing blank cheques to Asian allies or proclamations of war on enemies.

Throughout the Cold War, the US protective umbrella in Europe was predicated on the fundamental idea that strategic ambiguity is destabilising, that clarity is the only way to prevent a war. As long as this same concept is not applied to Asia, America's "pivot" to the region will remain incomplete.

That surely matters more than whether the US President ever finds the time to travel to the region again.

jonathan.eyal@gmail.com


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