POLITICS

Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economic

Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economic

Introduction

This paper will be discussing ana analyzing the Secretary Clinton's article "America's Pacific Century" in Foreign Policy employing the Strategy Formulation Framework. the article adequately discusses the importance of the region, identifies US national interests and strategic objectives, proposes but the strategic ways for accomplishing these objectives employing the full range of the national instruments of power (DIME) was not mention adequately.

Discussion and Analysis Employing the Strategy Formulation Framework

How many ways are there to say you're back? In 2010, Hillary Clinton grabbed Beijing's 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 America's Pacific Century (Evans, 1996). At the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Honolulu, Barack Obama talked about hardly anything else. “The US is a Pacific power and we're here to stay,” he said. The message is clear. America is back. And by the way, it never left.

In her essay, Mrs Clinton elaborates on what kind of engagement she favours. “We must create a rules-based order - one that is open, free, transparent and fair.” America, she says, is uniquely placed to create such an order and to police it. “We are the only power with a network of strong alliances in the region, no territorial ambitions, and a long record of providing for the common good.”

The words are about the future. But they hark back to the past. It will not be so easy to reinvent a time when, after the war, the US had no credible rival for the role of honest broker. Japan had been defeated and turned into the US's unsinkable aircraft carrier (Camilleri, 1995). China was poor and consumed by its own Maoist revolution. Today China has stirred from its slumbers. The US now has a significant rival, if not yet globally, then certainly in Asia. As Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's prime minister, puts it, Asia is just one region for the US. China is here all the time.

This week, two elements of Washington's strategy came together. Mr Obama launched the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a so-called 21st century trade pact meant to incorporate non-tariff issues, such as intellectual property protection and state procurement. Trade officials have talked up the TPP's “next-generation” qualities. But the most glaring thing about it is that it does not include China, Asia's biggest trading nation (Calleo, 1999). That could be, as US officials say, because China - with its state-owned enterprises, piratical tendencies and questionable currency policy - is not yet ready to join such a high-level agreement.

Beijing might be forgiven for thinking that TPP looks like a club to which it has not been invited. It is one element of the rules-based order Mrs Clinton talked about. The rules are made in America. In the long run, in keeping with Robert Zoellick's notion ...