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At the 11th IISS Asian Security Summit: The Shangri-la Dialogue (SLD), the US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, spoke on 'The US rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific'. The speech was filled with powerful rhetoric and dramatic punch-lines. This commentary is a reflection on Panetta's address at the dialogue's first plenary session.
Full marks to the Obama administration for coming up with innovative terminologies and expressions. From President Obama's own 'Asian Pivot' to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's 'America's Pacific Century', and now to Leon Panetta's 'US rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific', the democratic administration has undertaken the construction of a whole new lexicon to sell the latest policy of shifting focus to the Asia-Pacific region. Panetta's address was focused on the US defense policy and strategy towards the Asia-Pacific.
The articulation of this strategy as one of 'rebalancing' is worth probing. Rebalancing strategies are popularly used in the banking and investment sectors with the aim of re-allocating resources, assets or investments, which have gone astray over a period of time, into portfolios that they were originally meant for. To use this analogy, the US has always considered the Asia-Pacific to be important for the consolidation of global power. This would also mean a shift from the offshore balancing strategies that became the cornerstone of American policy in the Asia-Pacific, and particularly against the rise of Chinese power in the region in the aftermath of the Cold War. Although a status-quoist power, the US has never been referred to as an 'Eastern power'. In terms of military force projection (one of the shared principles that Panetta enumerates), rebalancing has been explained as in fact tilting the balance in favour of the force strength in the Pacific Ocean. The US Navy would now dedicate 60 per cent of its force to the Pacific Ocean region, instead of the previous split of 50-50 per cent between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
