The Asia Pivot as a Strategy of Foreign Policy: A Source of Peace or a Harbinger of Conflict?

Abstract

The Obama Administration’s Asia Pivot strategy has sought to strengthen the United States’ (US) bilateral security alliances in Asia, intensify working relationships with regional states and the US, and boost regional trade and investment. This paper investigates whether the Obama administration’s Asia Pivot has fulfilled its strategy of enhancing peace and cooperation in the Pacific, or whether it has in fact magnified the potential for regional conflict. In doing so, it seeks an answer to the following, interrelated questions: What have been the costs and benefits of the Asia Pivot strategy for the United States and regional actors? Is the Asia Pivot strategy an example of foreign policy success, or failure? For the purpose of this paper, foreign policy is understood as a multidimensional concept that takes into account degree of goal attainment, the costs to the user; the costs to the target; and an identification of who has most at stake in the issue. In doing so it will argue that the costs of the Asia Pivot strategy have largely outweighed the benefits, thus having a negative impact on peace in the Asia Pacific.