President Obama’s Asia-Pacific “pivot” appears to be losing steam in 2014

NEW YORK — In 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first articulated the Obama Administration’s intention to “pivot” toward Asia, rebalancing its commitments and resources eastward. “Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama,” wrote Clinton in Foreign Policy.

A little more than two years later, the administration has little to show. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama devoted just one sentence to the region and the majority of that was to commend the Marines for disaster relief work in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan. This came just a few months after he canceled a trip to the region to deal with the government shutdown in Washington – a public diplomacy signal of disinterest that United States allies were quick to criticize.

This wasn’t the first sign of trouble for the strategic pivot. Fallout from the Arab Spring, a war in Syria and Russian aggression in Eastern Europe have kept the administration tied down outside the region. Budgetary constraints in Washington continue to threaten the scale of the Pentagon’s plan to shift military assets to Asia and a transformational Pacific trade deal has stalled amidst domestic opposition.

Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fellow Democrat, opposed giving Obama trade promotion authority – a free hand to negotiate trade pacts and submit a final version to Congress for an up or down vote, with no amendments or filibusters. This was a major setback for efforts to finalize agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The economic centerpiece of the pivot, the TPP is a massive trade agreement between the US and eleven other Pacific nations, whose combined economies make up 40 percent of global GDP. If enacted, the deal will create the world’s largest free trade zone and shore up US economic links across Asia.

But key constituencies within the Democratic base, such as labor unions and environmentalists, are strongly opposed to the deal. They call it a giveaway to corporate interests at the expense of consumers, workers and the environment, and they fear it will suppress innovation and the availability of affordable drugs, among other concerns.

Reid’s refusal to fast-track the negotiation reflects strong anti-trade lobbying in an election year when Democrats face gale-force political headwinds because of Obamacare’s bumpy rollout. Congressional leaders are loath to aggravate the base. And without fast-track authority, it’s difficult to see how negotiators will be able to conclude the TPP. Trade partners are reluctant to negotiate conclusively if Congress can still meddle with the terms.

Reid’s withholding of trade promotion authority virtually guarantees that the earliest the TPP could be approved would be 2015, and consideration might drift into 2017 if Democrats do poorly in November.

This is already creating significant uncertainty among US allies worried about China’s expanding reach across the region. Notably, China is not a party to the TPP. When the U.S. joined the negotiations in 2009, it was in “recognition that China had done an end-run around us through trade and assistance,” and so an ambitious deal that would strengthen American allies such as Japan and South Korea was needed, according to John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. Any delays in shoring up alliances could drive some American allies closer to the economic superpower in their backyard, notwithstanding their anxieties about Chinese hegemony.

Although American diplomats have repeatedly said that they do not regard conflict with China as inevitable or remotely desirable, it has been clear that containing China is a motivation of the TTP – and the entire strategic pivot. China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea accompanied by its rapid military modernization and increased defense spending have worried US policymakers for at least a decade.

Rebalancing is an old strategy dusted off for a new century and a new adversary. But what happens when old adversaries don’t go away?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea earlier this month forced the US and its European allies to scramble for ways to confront a resurgent nuclear-power and unabashed energy blackmailer slicing sovereign territory from it neighbors. China clearly possesses a greater economic and security threat over the medium and long terms than Russia. But Europe’s dependency on Russian oil and gas has exposed limitations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s ability to counter Russian aggression, particularly without American leadership.

The US has already reduced its military footprint in Europe by seventy-five percent since the end of the Cold War.

Earlier this month, President Obama sent fighter jets and American service members to Lithuania and Poland to reassure Eastern Europe that NATO will not permit Russia to bully them as it did Ukraine.

Earlier this month the Defense Department released the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and addressed the status of the Asian pivot: “Under sequestration-level cuts, the United States would continue prioritizing efforts to sustain and complete our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, including our focus on ensuring strong relations with our allies and partners.” But the reality is that allocating resources in this way in an increasingly tight fiscal climate is not easy.

“Right now the pivot is being looked at again, because candidly it can’t happen,” said Katrina McFarland, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions in the same week the QDR was released. McFarland later walked back the comment, claiming there was no change in the Department’s strategy, but not before seeding doubts about the Administration’s ability to rebalance amidst military budget cuts.

The US will remain the dominant military force in the region for decades. Currently, half of the Navy’s fleet is deployed to the Pacific, and the Pentagon has said that it plans to increase that to 60 percent by 2020. But that may not tell the whole story. “They will achieve the 60 percent over time, but out of a smaller Navy,” says Michael O’Hanlon, a specialist in defense strategy at the Brookings Institution. “And there’s the possibility that some of those ships, though newly based in the Pacific, will deploy to the Persian Gulf, as they might have before.”

The demands of austerity have also pushed the US to encourage its allies in the region to increase their own defenses and share the cost of US deployments.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is in the region now reassuring US allies that the administration remains committed to the rebalance. Earlier this month, Hagel affirmed the administration’s continued focus on engagement in the region, claiming that the rebalance “remains front and center in our national security strategy.” However, domestic pressures, competing crises outside of Asia and a reassessment of commitments in Europe clearly threaten US efforts to pivot as planned.

Chris Mossa is a graduate student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.