{"id":29503,"date":"2016-11-14T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T19:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=29503"},"modified":"2016-11-11T13:59:20","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T02:59:20","slug":"pivot-trumped-amexit-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pivot-trumped-amexit-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pivot Trumped, Amexit looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five years ago this week, Barack Obama launched the Pivot. Thus, on its fifth birthday, the Pivot expires. This is an epitaph.<\/p>\n

The American people have decided and the Pivot is Trumped. Asia confronts Amexit: not a rebalance towards Asia but a lurch away. The Pivot was a work in progress because Asia has made so much progress. The Pivot\u2019s achievements were partial and contested because Asia\u2019s issues are so large. Looking at what Obama and Hillary Clinton were trying with the Pivot offers ways to consider what Trump will do to US policy in Asia\u2014and to the regional settings of Australia\u2019s alliance.<\/p>\n

Go back five years to see the stakes. The US President stood in the Australian Parliament on 17 November 2011, delivering a speech<\/a> marking \u2018the 60th anniversary of our unbreakable alliance.\u2019<\/p>\n

Beyond alliance, Obama outlined \u2018the larger purpose\u2019 of his visit to the Asia\u2013Pacific, to launch a \u2018broader shift\u2019 by the US: \u2018After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia\u2013Pacific region.\u2019 The \u2018new focus on this region,\u2019 he said, reflected \u2018a fundamental truth\u2014the US has been, and always will be, a Pacific nation.\u2019 Obama announced a \u2018deliberate and strategic decision\u2019 that America \u2018will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future.\u2019 The Pivot ambition was to make the 21st century a US-flavoured Pacific century, not just the century of Asia resurgent. Obama proclaimed it as responsibility and right.<\/p>\n

The word \u2018Pivot\u2019 wasn\u2019t in the speech. The label was launched the previous month in Hillary\u2019s Foreign Policy<\/em> article, \u2018America\u2019s Pacific Century\u2019<\/a>. The Secretary of State put it in her first sentence:\u00a0 \u2018As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point.\u2019\u00a0In the 5,000 words that followed, \u2018pivot\u2019 was used twice more. The Pivot was born.<\/p>\n

Hillary claimed creator rights<\/a>. She saw Asia as pivotal and wanted the US at the heart of a great geo-political and geo-economic shift in world affairs.<\/p>\n

Goodbye to that.<\/p>\n

The tides that created the Pivot still rise. The headlines have taken an amazing turn, but the trendlines continue. Those trends will pound Trump. As the world\u2019s centre of gravity\u2014economic and military and even political\u2014settles in Asia, the Pivot was a US claim to a large role in making the gravity. More than military might, the Pivot was about partnership, engagement, diplomacy, cooperation, values and norms. Pick how much of that The Donald will adopt.<\/p>\n

The Pivot ambition was Robert Browning territory:<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,<\/p>\n

Or what’s a heaven for?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The US grasped to shape the contours and course of an increasingly powerful Asia. How to manage relative decline yet reach to maintain relative dominance? No wonder the US military prefers Rebalance\u2014much balancing needed!<\/p>\n

The power shifts were dissected in the US National Intelligence Council\u2019s Global Trends<\/a>, issued 12 months after Obama\u2019s Canberra speech. The Council pronounced the end of the US unilateral moment. The Megatrend prediction was the diffusion of power: \u2018There will not be any hegemonic power. Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.\u2019<\/p>\n

Networks and coalitions aren\u2019t the language of the US\u2019s 45th President. \u00a0Consider the Pivot\u2019s three essentials and what Trump will do to them.<\/p>\n

Pivot: stay Asia\u2019s military guarantor and guardian for decades<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Navy is shifting from a 50\/50 Pacific-Atlantic split to have 60% of forces in the Pacific by 2020; 60% of the Air Force will be in the Asia\u2013Pacific by 2020. The departing Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter<\/a> promised: \u2018The Pentagon is operationalizing the military part of the rebalance to ensure that the US remains the primary provider of regional security for decades to come.\u2019<\/p>\n

The military machinery of Pivot\/Rebalance should grind on. And Trump promises the US will maintain the world\u2019s most powerful military. As an American Firster, though, Trump has no interest in being the \u2018primary provider of regional security.\u2019 He wants everyone else to pay more.<\/p>\n

Pivot: write the economic and trade rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead. Trump threatens a 45% tariff on China as a currency manipulator. Trade war trumps trade rules.<\/p>\n

Obama set the stakes dangerously high with his description of the TPP as the test of US will in his State of the Union Address<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018China wants to write the rules for the world\u2019s fastest-growing region.\u00a0 That would put our workers and businesses at a disadvantage.\u00a0 Why would we let that happen?\u00a0 We should write those rules.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The economic importance of the TPP was overstated. But as an expression of US intent it became emblematic. Trump\u2019s victory says the US isn\u2019t interested in writing rules and its will-to-power in Asia wanes.<\/p>\n

Pivot: make Asia\u2019s diplomatic weather in partnership with Asia<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Trump weather forecast is for storms and unpredictable gusts.\u00a0 Amexit won\u2019t be full-blown withdrawal from Asia of the magnitude of Brexit from Europe. This is the Amexit of shrinking ambition and refusal to show up. Anger replaces imagination: can\u2019t pay, don\u2019t care. It\u2019s the Amexit of a US no longer committed to write the rules and run the region, an America less interested in partnerships and building institutions to serve its values.<\/p>\n

Trump does deals, not designs.<\/p>\n

The 400 page epitaph is Kurt Campbell\u2019s book, The Pivot<\/a><\/em>. His Pivot prescription\u2014\u2018the future of American statecraft in Asia\u2019\u2014was \u2018bolstering traditional alliances, forging new partnerships, engaging regional institutions, diversifying military forces, defending democratic values, embracing economic statecraft.\u2019<\/p>\n

Goodbye to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago this week, Barack Obama launched the Pivot. Thus, on its fifth birthday, the Pivot expires. This is an epitaph. The American people have decided and the Pivot is Trumped. Asia confronts Amexit: …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":29504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,1428,293,1606],"class_list":["post-29503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asia-pacific","tag-donald-trump","tag-pivot","tag-presidential-election-2016"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pivot Trumped, Amexit looms | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pivot-trumped-amexit-looms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pivot Trumped, Amexit looms | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Five years ago this week, Barack Obama launched the Pivot. 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