President Obama completed his series of visits to the East with a final visit to South Korea, a country of which the United States has been a protector and patron since the end of the war between the North and the South that ended in stalemate in July of 1953. To historians of war, his visit will have invoked memories of the varieties of American intervention since the Second World War, particularly in respect of the pressure which was put on then President Harry Truman by the war hero, General Douglas MacArthur for permission to destroy the bridge across the Yalu River in response to a threat of Chinese intervention, during a period in which talks to end the war were in train. Truman eventually took the risk of dismissing McArthur, popular as a Pacific war hero, rather than open a new hot front in the Cold War.
During his visit to Korea, President Obama will undoubtedly have continued to ponder the request recently made by General McCrystal, the commanding officer in Afghanistan, for an additional 40,000 troops to be sent there, and contemporary reports that among the senior military personnel there, contrary advice as to a large-scale dispatch of troops was being given to the President. But the larger question that these series of events must certainly have given rise to among the President and his senior civilian advisors, must be where, today, is it necessary to establish a substantial American presence over the globe as a whole in the interests of both American military and economic security, as global economic trends take new directions, and with that there emerge states with new senses of independence and autonomy.
As the President has travelled over Asia, he will have sought to reinforce the US view of the importance of constraining North Korea from its nuclear development pursuits, and to do so simultaneously in respect of Iran. The President seems to have elicited stronger support from China in the North Korea case than in respect of the Iran case. For while North Korea is in a situation of relative isolation even in Asia and the Far East, so-called emerging powers like China and India seem to take a somewhat different view from the Americans as to how much, and what kind of pressure should be put on Iran. That country is a player of some significance in the Middle East and a neighbour of some of the new ex-Soviet Republics in Asia (and therefore on the boundaries of the Soviet Union also). Many countries in the Middle East itself, and it would appear in Turkey (a key strategic ally of the US), perceive Iran to be, at present and potentially, a player of significance in terms of the future determination of Middle Eastern geopolitics. A perception among these states is that a certain patience should be exercised by the US, in order to permit an internal political evolution of Iran over the next few years. They will not want any precedents, in terms of pressure on Korea to conform to nuclear non-proliferation standards, to be created in respect of Iran. In this regard they would appear to have the support of China more than that of Russia which has recently tended to lean towards the American view of a rapid achievement of non-proliferation agreement by Iran.
Of course, as the President has returned from China, he is this week entertaining the Prime Minister of India, whose country the United States under President George Bush, had released from pressure over development of nuclear capabilities for both peaceful and military purposes. India remains extremely concerned that as the world defreezes from the Cold War, and as assurances of support from the one-time superpowers become more fragile, she needs to be more or less militarily on a par with China, given the border and related geopolitical differences that characterize the relations between the two countries. As these different orientations among these emerging Asian powers exist, the United States also has to be conscious that she has imposed, since the end of the Second World War, certain constraints on Japan which that country itself will be concerned to ensure do not place her, in terms of her security in the new geopolitical setting, in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis China in particular, but also the Pacific as a whole.
The main conclusion to be drawn from these gradually emerging permutations in thinking and in action among the significant countries of Asia and the Pacific, is that obviously, the United States has to involve itself in the future, more in stances of continual discourse and negotiation with them than she had to do in the now disappearing era of American strategic and diplomatic superiority. And yet, this has been a lesson that has been emerging for some time now, hidden by the original isolationist posture of China, and by the somewhat obscured change in its economic policies. In this context, reports of the American President not being able to draw the support of the Chinese on a number of issues important to the US seem to be accurate.
On the other hand, perceptions of an America in a posture of negotiation, rather than imposition, also appear to reflect an intellectual-cum-strategic orientation on the part of President Obama himself. The President did run his electoral campaign, of course, on a line which emphasized that the bullying approach of his predecessor had not really borne fruit, and indeed had led to a degree of isolation of the United States in world public opinion. Already some American domestic responses to his tour of Asia, and particularly his visit to China, are beginning to suggest that this ‘soft’ approach to other powers in parts of the world traditionally of strategic interest to the United States, has not produced the kind of positive response that the President might have expected, and indeed which Americans feel they are entitled to receive. This sentiment is mixed with similar sentiments concerning America’s apparent difficulty in getting the Chinese to bend on certain economic international trade and monetary issues, as well as on the issue of climate change of critical importance to the US. But then, on the other hand, India has not shown itself particularly inclined to accept the Western powers’ views on climate change either.
It is probably the case that President Obama, in terms of his own world view, is not necessarily disappointed that his entreaties have not been greeted with open arms. This is a divide, in terms of perception of emerging global relations, between himself and certain Republican leaders which the President would want to have decided by the general American electorate in his favour over the period of his presidential term. It is being played out at the present time, in security terms in respect of the Afghanistan issue, and in economic terms on the question of protectionism in international trade, particularly in respect of China.
The President having last week got a fairly good picture of Chinese stances on a number of issues, will be in a good position to discuss the posture of an India with which relations have warmed quite substantially over the last few years. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has consistently pursued a general economic line of both domestic and international liberalization, both from his position as a well-known Third World professional economist, and from the perspective of the national interest of an India which now seeks foreign investment with more enthusiasm than she did for most of the years of the Cold War.
