Obama’s Asian defense moves

I am not a totally serious columnist particularly in ideological matters. Obtuse and opinionated, I stand guilty as accused, but I have no cognitive beef to sell. I am, however, serious this time about President Obama’s defensive moves in his recent Asian trip. His pivot turn strategy to move military attention to the Pacific Far East has not convince the privatized sector of the Pentagon as profitable since it does not expand the profit margin but reduces it, unless of course we keep Japan, SoKor, Taiwan, and the Philippines buying products of our military-industrial complex.
I am older than Barack, and am also a resident of military-dependent Hawaii, so I have no compulsion to genuflect toward my half-Kenyan brother, though I defer to him as the President of my country. Born Malay brown, beautifully situated in the meridian of the skin color spectrum, I am also not inclined to make judgments on the basis of skin color. I had lived in Chicago, and briefly made the Nairobi airport on a stopover to Lusaka after I picked up malaria in Nigeria, so Obama and I had inhaled the same air. He’ll just be “Bro,” as island males endearingly address each other.

A contrast between Xi Jinping’s European tour and Obama’s Asian trip was the fact that China had only one thing to offer—trade. Business contracts were signed right and left not only to open EU to Chinese investments but also to encourage member nations to continue bilateral trade, and invite them to China’s culture much the same way as China invited itself to the rest of the world. It was a masterful orchestration of foreign policy formulation without mentioning the word.

In contrast, Obama was all foreign policy talk, probably playing more to his domestic audience who wanted him to display some traditional gringo machismo in foreign policy, perceived to be weak in his administration. Trade was not a major issue since Uncle Sam already dominates three of the four markets visited.

He started in Japan, the surrogate quality miniature manufacturers and accountants to Wall Streets’ darlings. Tokyo played coy to U.S. interest in the Korean and Vietnam wars, performing a materials support role while rebuilding its own geographical strength and internal capability. Its emergence after WWII is short of miraculous except that the U.S. used Japan’s industry and exploited its seeming docile acquiescence to promote interests in the Western Pacific.

Obama wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to move beyond its “beef” disagreements with Japan. He affirmed U.S. mutual defense treaty commitments on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Island territorial squabble, staying within legal accuracy, hoping that Shinzo Abe would reciprocate in kind on the TTP.

South Korea was forthright. It wanted Washington to stand firm with Hangul on the unoccupied islands of Dokdo/Takeshima claimed by Japan. The 1953 U.S.-Korea Alliance was “bought with blood” and took precedence. Obama did a diplomatic shuffle, reminding Japan to face up to its military atrocities in the region, focused on the DPRK danger, and dropped a sigh on the tragedy of MV Sewol’s sinking. The PM just resigned and President Park Geun-Hye was apologetically subdued and grieving. In any case, South Korea is ipso facto Pentagon territory.

Barack traveled next to MH370 country where the U.S. did not previously see eye-to-eye with the mercurial Mahathir bin Mohamad, MD, strongman for 22 years, who managed to keep a hefty trade volume, nonetheless. Dato’ Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak, Najib Razak, for short, famous for his premature cost-cutting announcement that MH370 crashed in the South Indian Ocean without a shred of evidence, was regal but subdued in his hosting, focusing on bilateral relations.

Bilateral relationship was the signed, sealed, and delivered act in the Philippines. The serendipitous eruption of Mt. Pinatubo hastened the U.S. military’s exit from Subic Naval and Clark Air stations, then costing the Pentagon a bundle craftily negotiated by Ferdinand Marcos. U.S. presence also enflamed local dissent but assets were scattered all over the archipelago, including covert operations in Mindanao, so the treaty Obama entered into with Noynoy Aquino was simply a formalization of what is already on the ground, save this time it runs overtly from Philippine military installations.

But Barack, like John Kerry’s Defense grandstanding, takes the form of preaching on what the U.S. thinks others ought to be doing, or threaten them with sanctions (today’s hellfire damnation) if they keep doing what they are doing. Neither has been effective.

EU will follow U.S. sanctions against Russia but will water it down. The Russian ruble value will decline but Putin will look east to China and reignite a partnership long overdue in remaking. The oligarchs of EU and the U.S. will learn to live unostentatiously, their political entities and military sizes shrinking to more realistic scope. Washington will keep its pulpit, but like its bellicose screeching on Crimea and Ukraine, it will be summarily ignored.

Jaime Vergara previously taught at SVES in the CNMI. A peripatetic pedagogue, he last taught in China but makes Honolulu, Shenyang, and Saipan home. He can be reached at pinoypanda2031@aol.com.