America s Perilous Pivot

A Chinese Pivot?

America s Unhinged Pivot

Obama s Pacific Pivot

Europe s Asian Pivot

Nuclear Disarmament s Asian Pivot

Europe s Smart Asian Pivot

China s North Korean Pivot

Shinzo Abe s Pivot To Asia

A Pivot to the People

This is a back step pivot.

This would be an example of one pivot.

It's the pivot, it's biology, it's the natural instinct.

But you know the object is just a pivot.

It's a pivot between a process and a system.

The latter has created a multinational consortium for emergency mapping of which UNOSAT is the pivot.

If the Chinese are successful in shifting away from North Korea, they have to pivot somewhere. And that place is South Korea.

The correction in US policy actually extends even to terminology. American diplomats have now abandoned the term pivot altogether, owing to its military connotation, in favor of rebalancing.

Nonetheless, warnings that the Atlantic partnership is eroding are unduly dire. Tellingly, US President Barack Obama s administration has replaced the term pivot, which implies a turn away from something, with rebalancing.

Although the US is certainly undertaking a strategic pivot to Asia, America alone cannot construct a viable security structure for the region. From India to Japan, every Asian country must play its part.

In Europe, once torn apart by war, armed conflict among EU member states is now almost unthinkable. The EU s institutional architecture facilitated the pivot from devastating and recurrent wars to peace and prosperity.

America s strategic pivot to Asia adds more tension. The longer these frictions fester, the greater the risk of an accident or miscalculation leading to a military response culminating in the ultimate break up nightmare.

When push came to shove, Varoufakis faced the difficult choice of going along with more of the same, despite knowing that it would fail, or trying to pivot to a new approach. He bravely opted for the latter.

America s supposed pivot to Asia took a back seat in 2014 to the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. To what extent has uncertainty about the US commitment in Asia stoked tension between China and America s Asian allies?

With the US blueprint for its withdrawal from Afghanistan completed by Obama earlier on Clinton s journey, one might think so. In any case, Clinton s tour appears to confirm the central fact of US diplomacy nowadays the Asia pivot is complete.

Something along these lines is likely to be no less critical for Asia, where the US, which is also a Pacific power, has vital interests and deep commitments. America s strategic pivot to Asia thus needs to be substantial and lasting.

Egypt is not the first country to struggle in the critical revolutionary pivot from a repressive past to a better and more just future. Nor is it the first country to combine an uncertain political transition with worrisome economic and financial conditions.

Those strong words reflect a new sensibility in Washington. As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared in one of her last foreign policy speeches, the US is not planning to pivot away from Europe to Asia, but rather with Europe to Asia.

Moreover, China s relationship with the United States is deteriorating, owing to conflict over America s foreign policy pivot toward Asia and disputes over cyber security. China has already restricted access to its market for some US based technology firms, and more such actions may follow.

PARIS For some time now, a certain strategic vision has been gaining traction the United States is becoming energy independent, paving the way for its political retreat from the Middle East and justifying its strategic pivot toward Asia. This view seems intuitively correct, but is it?

But no one should have any illusions about US policy. Despite America s pivot to Asia, it intends to stick to its two pronged approach seek to maintain a balance of power with the help of strategic allies and partners, while continuing to accommodate a rising China.

Abe would then have an opportunity to pivot from the past to the future by declaring Japan s intention to be generous and constructive. He could talk about the sort of Asia he would like to help build and describe the kind of regional institutions that he believes are necessary.

But, rather than keeping an eye on that ball, the United States wasted the first decade of this century mired in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in a recent speech, American foreign policy will pivot toward East Asia.

Perhaps China s apparent economic, strategic, and military advantages will prove less significant than many believe especially given continuing uncertainty over the terms of America s strategic pivot toward Asia. Indeed, with the US on their side, either Japan or India could conceivably tip the scales in its own favor.

Second, many Europeans understood the pivot to Asia as implying a reduction in America s commitment to the Atlantic alliance. Though several European countries have done relatively well in terms of maintaining consultations and commitments with the US, Europe s leaders have watched with growing concern as the postwar security structure has faltered.

In managing the transition toward multipolarity, the West s greatest challenge lies in Asia a region that is simultaneously dynamic and future oriented and hampered by historical tensions and divides. Recognizing Asia s profound importance to the new world order, US President Barack Obama announced a strategic pivot toward the region in 2012.

Japan s incoming government has already signaled an economic policy pivot, relying on what it directly controls (fiscal policy), together with pressure on the Bank of Japan, to relax the monetary policy stance, in an effort to generate faster growth and higher inflation. In the process, officials are weakening the yen.

President Barack Obama s decision to rotate 2,500 US Marines through a base in northern Australia is an early sign of that pivot. In addition, the November Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, held in Obama s home state of Hawaii, promoted a new set of trade talks called the Trans Pacific Partnership.

HONG KONG The California summit between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 7 8 comes at a time of heightened tension between the world s two preeminent powers. But divisive issues from computer hacking to America s pivot to Asia must not claim all of the attention.

Conceived as a long overdue shift in resources and attention from wars and other urgent challenges in the Middle East toward the vast expanse of opportunities in the Asia Pacific region, America s much vaunted strategic pivot immediately ran into a gauntlet of unintended consequences (the handmaidens of inconsistent and poorly articulated policy).

For starters, there was the perception that the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan amounted to a downgrading of US interests in the Middle East. Coming as it did on the eve of the cataclysmic Arab Spring, the Obama administration has struggled with this unintended consequence of the pivot ever since.

We need you to overcome a prolonged period of congressional paralysis and polarization in order to address the country s malaise. We need you to pivot in your responses from the tactical to the strategic, from the cyclical to the secular, from the partial to the comprehensive, and from sequential to simultaneous reforms.

Moreover, America s Asian pivot is occurring at a time when its international credibility has been badly eroded by domestic political dysfunction and disappointing performance in the Middle East. This, for example, explains Japan s fear that the US might eventually reach an accommodation with China over the disputed Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands in Chinese).

In attempting to execute its strategic pivot, the US is haunted at virtually every turn by its status as a historical hegemon, a military power, and the guarantor of its Asian allies security. Even when rebranded as a rebalancing, America s eastward shift is inevitably met with suspicion by some Asian countries, particularly China.

Obama s first foreign excursion after the election will be to Laos to attend the East Asian summit, a trip that is perceived as part of his administration s pivot to Asia. He will also visit Myanmar (Burma) in an effort to lend support to that struggling country s extraordinary changes and encourage further progress.