Posted on 11/18/2011 8:35:13 AM PST by Comrade Brother Abu Bubba
How many ways are there to say youre back? In 2010, Hillary Clinton grabbed Beijings lapels when she declared the South China Sea, claimed in its entirety by China, was also a vital American interest. A few weeks ago, the secretary of state published a lengthy piece in Foreign Policy magazine in which she laid out the terms of what she called Americas Pacific Century. And this week, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Honolulu, Barack Obama talked about hardly anything else. The US is a Pacific power and were here to stay, he said. The message is clear. America is back. And by the way, it never left.
The second element is security. Mr Obama said in Hawaii this week that planned cuts to the US defence budget would not affect the USs presence in Asia. On Thursday he will visit new facilities in Darwin that will house a semi-permanent Marine presence in Australia.
A minority in the US argues that Washington should read the writing on the Great Wall and begin to draw down its presence. Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Washington-based Economic Strategy Institute, is one. He says America spends too much time worrying about grand strategic goals and not enough about making its economy strong.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Throwing Obama into the Pacific would be a nice start.
Pei Ping.
The “Pacific Century” will be coming to a screaming-ass halt as soon as Islamists srike their neighbors with WMDs.
In other news Clyde says....DEMOCRATS Bloviate.....
I’d say a bigger threat to the US is the growing ‘Montezuma’s revenge’ brewing just south of the Rio Grande and I am not talking about a bad night of chilli with Tequila from Laredo either.
Not if the Democrats on the Super Committee have their way!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.