Pursuing U.S. Strategic Interests in the Asia-Pacific: Pivoting Away From Disorder?

In late 2011, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would respond to China’s growing military power by adopting a posture of ‘re-balancing’ or a ‘pivot strategy’ in the Asia-Pacific region. Some key policy challenges and patterns are emerging that should provide a basis for determining how useful and relevant this US re-balancing strategy will be and whether and how US land power might be an effective tool in achieving that strategy. Two such challenges are discussed here: how to facilitate US overarching policy interests in the Asia-Pacific relating to the pivot strategy; and how to link those interests to America’s overall geopolitical interests directed toward Eurasia, with emphasis on how US and allied strategy, military deployments, and land power capabilities could be affected in an era of increasing austerity.