Toward a New Cold War?

During his tour of countries in the Pacific Rim, Obama announced a momentous change.

After three years of vain attempts to break with the central tenets of his predecessor’s foreign policy, President Barack Obama has recently announced a fundamental change in his national security strategy.

On Australian territory last week, Obama promised to increased American military presence in the region and reestablish the role of the U.S. as the great economic and military power in the Pacific Basin. “After 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-Pacific,” said Obama. Therefore, the war on terror that defined George W. Bush’s foreign policy, which also brought about the massive military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to spokespeople for the administration, the war against terrorists will intensify through other means.

In his tour through the Pacific Rim, Obama said that his objective is to increase trade with the countries of the area and initiate conversations for the negotiation of free trade agreements with eight of them. While the European Union and U.S. continue to be stuck in their labyrinthine economic crises it is imperative that the U.S. returns its sights to the Orient and competes openly with China, who has became the principal trading partner of the majority of the region’s countries.

This takes place during a moment in which the business relationship between China and the U.S. continues to be problematic and profoundly unjust for the United States, while China increases its military presence in the region by a disproportionate margin. It is such that various countries in the Pacific, principally the Philippines and Vietnam, have voiced their concerns to the Obama administration regarding maneuvers by the Chinese government to control the territorial waters near their shores that are rich with natural resources. These countries have also asked that Washington intervene to ensure that said disputes be brought to international forums. They have also asked that the administration fortify its military presence in the South China Sea.

This is the background of the announcement Obama made in Canberra about the future deployment of American troops in the Pacific Ocean. And as suspected, China has reacted by accusing the Obama administration of intensifying military tensions in the region and warning the area’s countries seeking a military alliance with the U.S. that such an agreement wouldn’t necessarily be in their interests, according to a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry.

Obama has responded by saying that the movement of troops is due to concrete requests not only by smaller countries in the area, but also Japan and India, who fear that China intends to control the region’s leadership by force.

It could be, as said by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, that Obama’s new foreign policy “can be misinterpreted as a policy of containment towards China and could stimulate an undesired hostile reaction.” On the other hand, and keeping with the parallels that Brzezinski has attempted to draw with the famous policy of “containment” of the Soviet Union that was formulated by the legendary American diplomat George F. Kennan, it could be that this new version of a containment policy would permit the U.S. to wait patiently for the implosion of the Chinese regime, it took place with the Soviet Union, just as Kennan predicted.

Whatever the case may be, it is evident that this rethinking of U.S. foreign policy carries tremendous risks.