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March 24, 2011

Confused in Asia
Posted by Jacob Stokes

ConfusedOnce again the West’s attention is being pulled westward, away from the crisis and extraordinary show of resilience by the Japanese towards the war in Libya. Just in time, Evan Feigenbaum has a strong think piece – his words – in the Washington Quarterly arguing that America no longer “gets” Asia. Feigenbaum says American policy towards the region is fractured and badly out of date intellectually, strategically and bureaucratically. The first two take a bit more real estate, so go read the piece. The third, bureaucracies, is worth quoting though:

Bureaucratically, U.S. institutions, policies, and programs are badly skewed. The United States just isn’t organized for success in the new Asia. The United States formulates and implements its Asia policy through a baffling mishmash of misaligned agencies and military commands. Thus, Pacific Command (PACOM) based in Hawaii handles East Asia and half of South Asia, while Central Command (CENTCOM) based in Florida oversees the other half of South Asia and Central Asia. Responsibility for Central Asia is lumped with Russia and Ukraine at the National Security Council, with India at the State Department, and with India, China, and Japan at the Pentagon. In fact, the United States didn’t even treat India as an Asian country until as recently as the 1990s, managing relations with New Delhi through a westward-looking bureau with principal responsibility for the Middle East.

I’ve made arguments on this blog pushing back against those who say the administration has flubbed its promise to “return” American focus back to Asia after years zeroed in on the Middle East. But for that happen in a lasting way, the thicket of bureaucratic confusion Feigenbaum illustrates here surely needs to get cleaned up. Maybe that can be part of the administration’s approach to negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan, which will require significant regional buy-in and therefore extensive cross-departmental coordination. A more coherent and streamlined organization could also help alleviate the need for regional czars and special envoys, which make for great profile pieces but, as the death of Richard Holbrooke has shown, don't often result in effective policy solutions over the long term. One thing’s for sure: No matter what’s happening in the rest of the world, Asia won’t wait around for us.

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I think the original reason why the West got a foothold in Asia was the decline of land-based Chinese and Islamic empires in Asia – Mughal India, Persia, and Ottoman Turkey. The decline meant that no one could guarantee safety along trade routes particularly the hubs in Central Asia & Afghanistan. This was the time when the West began to consolidate as a technology and military power. It had a lot of liquidity thanks to the New world, with which it attracted the intra-Asia trade to the shores. What one can say is that once it consolidated its control over trade it did all it could to prevent intra-Asian trade from re-emerging. But the reliance on force came afterwards. Aurangzeb could have easily smashed the Europeans on the Indian coast but he didn't. As early as the early 16th century European forearms experts were emeployed in the South Asian armies. They observed the weaknesses of Asians firsthand long before they could muster military power to exploit the weakness. So, force was not the original source of western power. It is a different matter that it has been the most enduring source of Western power in Asia and elsewhere.

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