Why McHale is wrong about the pivot

By Shawn Brimley

Best Defense strategic respondent

I read with interest your
link to Paul McHale's comments on
the so-called "Pacific Pivot." I was surprised to read his argument
that President Obama's Asia team has "grounded the pivot in its military
strategy, as revealed in the document released in January [2012] "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership:
Priorities for the 21st Century Defense."

That comment would
surprise not only the authors of that defense strategy, but the hundreds of
diplomats and civilian strategists at the White House and other agencies who
formulated this approach starting in early 2009. It would probably also
surprise the president, who has consistently focused on the need for the United
States to embrace its role
as a resident, Pacific power. There are literally hundreds of Cabinet-level
interactions, trips, and regional forums that have provided the groundwork for
the most sustained U.S. engagement in Asia in many years. Just as one example,
President Obama has met with Hu Jintao, the outgoing Chinese president, a dozen
times since 2009. Thanks to the efforts of diplomats such as Kurt
Campbell and White House strategists such as Jeff Bader, Danny Russell, and
Evan Medeiros,
the United States has consistently leaned forward in Asia since the day
President Obama took office. From joining the East Asia Summit, adding a
permanent U.S. mission to ASEAN in Jakarta, to securing trade deals with the
Republic of Korea and joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is hard to
argue that our engagement in Asia "fails to distinguish threat and
opportunity," as McHale argues. 

And even on a purely
military basis, I disagree that focusing on ways to work with allies and
partners in Asia to buttress their military capabilities and to find ways to be
more present in Asia sends the wrong signal to our partners in the Middle East. I find it hard to believe that a small contingent of U.S. Marines in Darwin,
Australia, or four Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore, are causing serious
heartburn for Saudi Arabia (with whom we signed a massive arms deal
in 2011) or Israel (with whom our military aid is at record highs). And I
doubt that Iranian strategists are comforted at night thinking of the massive
U.S. air and naval presence in and around the Persian Gulf. Finally, the
assertion that a military strategy that adds some focus to the Asia-Pacific
somehow skews procurement and planning of weapons systems to the detriment of
plausible contingencies in the Middle East is odd. In fact the types of
military trends we see in Asia are very much applicable to the Persian Gulf,
where military planners must contend with the proliferation of capabilities
that can potentially put U.S. power projection capabilities at
risk.   

The Asia rebalancing strategy is not perfect -- no
strategic initiative can be. But having witnessed the formulation of this
approach, from my time at the Pentagon and at the White House, I am convinced
that the president deserves credit for conceiving the strategy, and civilian
strategists, diplomats, and defense officials and officers that have
implemented it over the last four years should be proud of what they have done
and will continue to accomplish over the next four years.  

Shawn Brimley is a jolly good Senior Fellow at
the Center for a New American Security . Until
recently he was director for strategic planning on the National Security
Council staff at the White House.