Defense strategy aimed at China

Tread with care, Pentagon, said Yu Zhixiao in China’s state news agency Xinhua. President Obama said last week that his new defense strategy would refocus the U.S. military from the Mideast to the Asia-Pacific. That’s not a threat in itself. The U.S. is certainly “welcome to make a greater contribution to peace and stability” in our region. But it must be careful not to throw its weight around. “If the United States indiscreetly applies militarism in the region, it will be like a bull in a china shop, and endanger peace instead of enhancing regional stability.” Reckless interventionism—like the foray into Iraq—has no place in our neighborhood.

When will the Americans realize that China is not their enemy? asked the Beijing China Daily in an editorial. “There have been dark mutterings among U.S. power brokers that the country should counterbalance China’s influence” in Asia. That would be a mistake. We see ourselves not as an opponent but as a “competitive partner.” Both countries will gain if we “turn the Asia-Pacific into a region of cooperation”—and both will lose if the U.S. treats the region instead “as a wrestling ring.” President Obama said he wanted the new defense strategy to purge the military of its outdated, Cold War­–era weaponry. He would “do better to do away with its entire Cold War mentality.”

The Cold War may be over, but one relic remains: North Korea, said the Seoul Korea Herald. The Pentagon has assured us that the new defense strategy won’t reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed here in South Korea. But it didn’t rule out deploying some of those troops to other international missions “under the doctrine of strategic flexibility.” We’ve already seen how that can happen. In 2009, one of the two Apache attack helicopter battalions stationed in Korea was sent to Iraq, and it didn’t return after the war ended. Further such borrowings could “create a hole in Seoul’s defense posture.” That’s why it’s unwise to continue relying solely on the U.S. to protect us from the North, said the Seoul Chosun Ilbo. Given that China is boosting military spending, it may be time for South Korea to “consider a more diversified diplomatic strategy, in line with changing conditions in Northeast Asia.”

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South Korea isn’t the only country that needs to learn to live with less American protection, said the London Guardian. The subtext of Obama’s announcement is that after a decade of war and military policy failures, a weakened U.S. is retrenching, turning to its Pacific flank. NATO is no longer a priority—and that means that for the next Libya-style intervention, “America may not be there” to provide the in-flight refueling and intelligence. From now on, “Europe’s collective defense is up to Europe, and its forces have to stand alone.”