Mière, Christian Le

Abstract
When the Obama administration announced its pivot to Asia in late 2011 and early 2012, there was much consternation over the choice of words. ‘Pivot’ implies impermanence, and suggests that the United States had been neglecting the Asia-Pacific to a greater extent than it might wish to signal. The preferred term soon became ‘rebalance’. But this only partially describes the policy mix adopted by Washington. A more accurate phrase would have been a ‘rebalance of burdens in Asia’.
This is because the strategy contains, beyond the oft-discussed military, economic and diplomatic elements, a burden-sharing (or burden-shifting) component that aims to rebalance responsibility for security in Asia from the United States to its allies. Facing fiscal austerity and still tied down in the Middle East and Africa, the United States is unable to effect a wholesale shift in the weight of its forces to the Asia-Pacific. As a result, it is encouraging its allies to assume a greater burden of regional defence and security.
The problem is there are clear limitations not only to US fiscal resources but also to the possibility of a robust Asian defence alliance to balance China’s rise. As such, the rebalance, which aims to reassure allies and more effectively deter China, seems intrinsically destined to fail to fulfil its goals.
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