ASIA
01 January 2026
America’s long affair with Asia
The US has long been a player in the Asia Pacific, irrespective of what Chinese leader Xi Jinping might think.
For my Christmas holidays, I read the 760 pages of Michael Green’s book, “By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783”. He argues that the US has long been a player in the Asia Pacific. Modern America’s preeminence in the Pacific was no accidental by-product of victory in the Second World War, as many cursory histories suggest.
In Green’s assessment, over the course of two hundred years, the United States has in fact developed a distinctive strategic approach toward Asia and the Pacific. There have been numerous instances of hypocrisy, inconsistency, and insufficient harnessing of national will and means. There have been strategic miscalculations—particularly before Pearl Harbor, on the Yalu River, and in Vietnam.
In the aggregate, however, the United States has emerged as the preeminent power in the Pacific not by providence alone but through the effective (if not always efficient) application of military, diplomatic, economic, and ideational tools of national power to the problems of Asia.
Yet Asia also has presented a consistent set of geostrategic challenges that have shaped an American way of strategizing toward the region. Asia has always been a region defined by hierarchy; the waxing and waning of the Sinocentric order; a geography that surrounds China with smaller peripheral states and offshore island chains; and a vast ocean spanning 7,000 miles that separates the Asian continent from the West Coast of the United States. The sources of political legitimacy have constantly been contested as empires have collapsed and arisen, and economic development has always been diverse and uneven.
In more recent history, challenges to US preeminence in the region have prompted external balancing, using the China card to check Soviet expansion, or the Japan and India cards to maintain a favorable strategic equilibrium vis-à-vis China’s rise.
Green identifies five tensions in the American strategic approach toward Asia that reappear with striking predictability: Europe Versus Asia; Continental Versus Maritime/China Versus Japan; Defining the Forward Defense Line against potential hegemonic aspirants; Self-Determination Versus Universal Values; and Protectionism Versus Free Trade.
Over the course of more than two centuries of engaging Asia, American statesmen have struggled to find the right balance between each of these five tensions. American strategy has been most successful when applying all the instruments of national power, since these reflect foundational American interests and values: protecting the nation and its citizens against harm, expanding economic access and opportunity, and promoting democratic values.
The book is divided into sections dealing with: the rise of the United States in the nineteenth century; the rise of Japan as European power collapsed, the rise of the Soviets as victory over Japan gave way to a new contest for supremacy; and the rise of China, as Sinocentric visions of regional order have returned in a new collision with the rules-based order established by the US.
Some of the most interesting postwar episodes covered in the book are set out below.
The US arguably incited North Korea’s invasion of the South through Secretary of State Dean Acheson's January 1950 "defense perimeter" speech, which excluded Korea, leading North Korea (and possibly the Soviets) to believe the U.S. wouldn't intervene when the invasion began in June 1950. In the end, the US did intervene dramatically, seeing the invasion as global communist aggression, not just a civil war.
The American defeat in Vietnam appears as a humiliating failure of grand strategy. But when President Johnson chose escalation in 1965, there was a serious communist threat to all of Southeast Asia. The war in Vietnam was arguably necessary to buy these vulnerable states time to fortify their political, economic, and military capabilities. Indeed, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, was convinced that countries like Singapore would have fallen without the American stand in Vietnam in 1965. An American counterpunch was needed in 1965, and as American forces blunted North Vietnamese momentum, the rest of Asia began to recover its footing.
At the same time, Nixon cancelled direct international convertibility of the US dollar to gold. This two-pronged “Nixon shock” led US-Japan ties into the most difficult period since the end of World War II – all the more so as Nixon and Kissinger embarked on a period of rapturous enchantment with China, sidelining Japan. This Nixon shock had spillover effects elsewhere in Asia.
Nixon and Kissinger also sided with Pakistan, a Chinese ally, (and against India) during the Bangladesh war of independence. Nixon even ordered a US carrier battle group to the Indian Ocean to pressure India and deter the Soviets, while Kissinger provided the Chinese with detailed satellite images and other intelligence on Indian and Soviet military moves. The White House even pressed China to increase its own military presence on the Indian border.
Scholars and journalists debate which of the two men was the visionary and which the implementer. With respect to Asia, however, it was clearly Nixon who had the greater experience and imagination at the beginning of the administration. By birthright, scholarship, and experience, Kissinger was a Europeanist. In contrast, Nixon was the first president from the Pacific Coast, with wartime service as a navy logistics officer in the South Pacific and then unprecedented access to NSC decision-making and diplomacy as Eisenhower’s vice president, particularly with respect to East Asia. Ideologically, Nixon had anchored Ike on the right because of his leading role as a young senator investigating the Alger Hiss affair and communist influence on the US China policy.
Normalisation of diplomatic relations with China proceeded without upsetting the broader set of American relationships in the region, with the notable exception of Taiwan. In part, this was possible because Japan had already adjusted to the Nixon shocks and had moved closer to China by the time of US normalization with Beijing. Carter did create confusion with his plans to withdraw US troops from South Korea (ultimately not implemented), and reduce them elsewhere.
As Barack Obama acknowledged, Ronald Reagan was a transformational president. His flaws were legendary, of course. But he personified the confidence and willpower to lead that had been suppressed within the American spirit for over a decade, and in so doing he laid the groundwork for the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of the West. The conceptual key to Reagan’s success was an explicit recognition of the link among capitalism, liberty, and military strength.
President Bill Clinton worked hard to balance economic interests with human rights concerns. It was under his leadership that China joined the World Trade Organisation. One difficult issue that Clinton had to deal with was the US accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on 7 May 1999, which greatly upset the Chinese political leadership..
President George W. Bush is widely considered to be one of the US worst presidents because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 2008/09 global financial crisis. But many analysts, including Green, give Bush high marks for his Asia policies. The strategic relationship with India was transformed, China policy was stable, and the U.S.-Japan alliance had moved significantly toward the vision in the 2000 Armitage-Nye Report.
Despite President Barack Obama’s claims, he was not the first “Pacific President,” but he was the first to declare Asia as the highest priority in US foreign policy. He advanced important U.S. interests, including upgrading US-Japan defense guidelines and aligning the trans-Pacific and intra-Asian institutional architecture by joining the East Asia Summit and convincing Southeast Asians to time the meeting with APEC so he could attend.
With much fanfare, Obama launched the US “pivot” to Asia. But most regrettably, very little was achieved by way of implementation of the pivot. The Transpacific Partnership was a key element of the pivot and negotiated under his leadership. But he was slow to embrace the trade deal and not effective in selling it to the US. The consequence was that President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal. It was subsequently picked by Japan and Australia and became the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for a Trans Pacific Partnership.
“For about twenty years after the end of the war, American foreign policy was conducted with the maxims and the inspiration that guided the Marshall Plan, that is, the notion of a predominant United States, as the only stable country, the richest country, the country without whose leadership and physical contribution nothing was possible, and which had to make all the difference for defense and progress everywhere in the world. Now whichever Administration had come into office would have had to face the fact, I believe, that we have run out of that particular vision. Conditions have changed enormously. We are now in a world in which other parties are playing a greater role. They have regained some of their self-confidence. New nations have come into being. Communism is no longer monolithic and we, therefore, face the problem of helping to build international relations”.
But Green’s book is a masterpiece of scholarship, and is fascinating to read. But it is also distressing to compare America’s historic sophisticated diplomacy in Asia with the appalling diplomacy of Donald Trump’s administration.
The US as a Pacific country
In his narrative, Green takes us back to the cradle of the American state when the newly independent republic was just 13 states clinging to the Atlantic coast, while at the same time merchants, explorers, and missionaries from America were discovering Asia. Over the past two centuries, Americans have overcome bids for regional hegemony in Asia from the European powers, imperial Japan, and Soviet communism – but today it is being challenged by China.In Green’s assessment, over the course of two hundred years, the United States has in fact developed a distinctive strategic approach toward Asia and the Pacific. There have been numerous instances of hypocrisy, inconsistency, and insufficient harnessing of national will and means. There have been strategic miscalculations—particularly before Pearl Harbor, on the Yalu River, and in Vietnam.
In the aggregate, however, the United States has emerged as the preeminent power in the Pacific not by providence alone but through the effective (if not always efficient) application of military, diplomatic, economic, and ideational tools of national power to the problems of Asia.
Yet Asia also has presented a consistent set of geostrategic challenges that have shaped an American way of strategizing toward the region. Asia has always been a region defined by hierarchy; the waxing and waning of the Sinocentric order; a geography that surrounds China with smaller peripheral states and offshore island chains; and a vast ocean spanning 7,000 miles that separates the Asian continent from the West Coast of the United States. The sources of political legitimacy have constantly been contested as empires have collapsed and arisen, and economic development has always been diverse and uneven.
US strategic culture
Green argues that one central theme in American strategic culture is that the US will not tolerate any other power establishing exclusive hegemonic control over Asia or the Pacific. The national interest of the United States has been identified by key leaders as ensuring that the Pacific Ocean remains a conduit for American ideas and goods to flow westward, and not for threats to flow eastward toward the homeland.In more recent history, challenges to US preeminence in the region have prompted external balancing, using the China card to check Soviet expansion, or the Japan and India cards to maintain a favorable strategic equilibrium vis-à-vis China’s rise.
Green identifies five tensions in the American strategic approach toward Asia that reappear with striking predictability: Europe Versus Asia; Continental Versus Maritime/China Versus Japan; Defining the Forward Defense Line against potential hegemonic aspirants; Self-Determination Versus Universal Values; and Protectionism Versus Free Trade.
Over the course of more than two centuries of engaging Asia, American statesmen have struggled to find the right balance between each of these five tensions. American strategy has been most successful when applying all the instruments of national power, since these reflect foundational American interests and values: protecting the nation and its citizens against harm, expanding economic access and opportunity, and promoting democratic values.
The book is divided into sections dealing with: the rise of the United States in the nineteenth century; the rise of Japan as European power collapsed, the rise of the Soviets as victory over Japan gave way to a new contest for supremacy; and the rise of China, as Sinocentric visions of regional order have returned in a new collision with the rules-based order established by the US.
Some of the most interesting postwar episodes covered in the book are set out below.
Japan, Korea and Vietnam
The "Reverse Course" in Japan by which there was a significant shift in US Occupation policies after World War II from punishing Japan to transforming the country into a strong, capitalist bulwark against communism.The US arguably incited North Korea’s invasion of the South through Secretary of State Dean Acheson's January 1950 "defense perimeter" speech, which excluded Korea, leading North Korea (and possibly the Soviets) to believe the U.S. wouldn't intervene when the invasion began in June 1950. In the end, the US did intervene dramatically, seeing the invasion as global communist aggression, not just a civil war.
The American defeat in Vietnam appears as a humiliating failure of grand strategy. But when President Johnson chose escalation in 1965, there was a serious communist threat to all of Southeast Asia. The war in Vietnam was arguably necessary to buy these vulnerable states time to fortify their political, economic, and military capabilities. Indeed, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, was convinced that countries like Singapore would have fallen without the American stand in Vietnam in 1965. An American counterpunch was needed in 1965, and as American forces blunted North Vietnamese momentum, the rest of Asia began to recover its footing.
Nixon and Kissinger
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger had the foresight and willpower to set US-China relations on a trajectory that every president since has generally followed and that has resulted in a wealthier and more stable Asia-Pacific. But Nixon never warned the loyal Japanese who were following the US line on China, against their own interests.At the same time, Nixon cancelled direct international convertibility of the US dollar to gold. This two-pronged “Nixon shock” led US-Japan ties into the most difficult period since the end of World War II – all the more so as Nixon and Kissinger embarked on a period of rapturous enchantment with China, sidelining Japan. This Nixon shock had spillover effects elsewhere in Asia.
Nixon and Kissinger also sided with Pakistan, a Chinese ally, (and against India) during the Bangladesh war of independence. Nixon even ordered a US carrier battle group to the Indian Ocean to pressure India and deter the Soviets, while Kissinger provided the Chinese with detailed satellite images and other intelligence on Indian and Soviet military moves. The White House even pressed China to increase its own military presence on the Indian border.
Scholars and journalists debate which of the two men was the visionary and which the implementer. With respect to Asia, however, it was clearly Nixon who had the greater experience and imagination at the beginning of the administration. By birthright, scholarship, and experience, Kissinger was a Europeanist. In contrast, Nixon was the first president from the Pacific Coast, with wartime service as a navy logistics officer in the South Pacific and then unprecedented access to NSC decision-making and diplomacy as Eisenhower’s vice president, particularly with respect to East Asia. Ideologically, Nixon had anchored Ike on the right because of his leading role as a young senator investigating the Alger Hiss affair and communist influence on the US China policy.
From Carter to Reagan
President Jimmy Carter's divided and often chaotic presidency did have a number of achievements amidst a turbulent period in international and American politics. Carter completed the process of normalization with China, and welcomed a very successful visit by paramount Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping.Normalisation of diplomatic relations with China proceeded without upsetting the broader set of American relationships in the region, with the notable exception of Taiwan. In part, this was possible because Japan had already adjusted to the Nixon shocks and had moved closer to China by the time of US normalization with Beijing. Carter did create confusion with his plans to withdraw US troops from South Korea (ultimately not implemented), and reduce them elsewhere.
As Barack Obama acknowledged, Ronald Reagan was a transformational president. His flaws were legendary, of course. But he personified the confidence and willpower to lead that had been suppressed within the American spirit for over a decade, and in so doing he laid the groundwork for the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of the West. The conceptual key to Reagan’s success was an explicit recognition of the link among capitalism, liberty, and military strength.
From George Bush senior to Barack Obama
George H. W. Bush's presidency coincided with the Tiananmen Square massacre. Bush had been the US top representative in Beijing during the 1970s, and knew China well. With a cool head he worked hard behind the scenes to keep US/China relations on an even keel.President Bill Clinton worked hard to balance economic interests with human rights concerns. It was under his leadership that China joined the World Trade Organisation. One difficult issue that Clinton had to deal with was the US accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on 7 May 1999, which greatly upset the Chinese political leadership..
President George W. Bush is widely considered to be one of the US worst presidents because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 2008/09 global financial crisis. But many analysts, including Green, give Bush high marks for his Asia policies. The strategic relationship with India was transformed, China policy was stable, and the U.S.-Japan alliance had moved significantly toward the vision in the 2000 Armitage-Nye Report.
Despite President Barack Obama’s claims, he was not the first “Pacific President,” but he was the first to declare Asia as the highest priority in US foreign policy. He advanced important U.S. interests, including upgrading US-Japan defense guidelines and aligning the trans-Pacific and intra-Asian institutional architecture by joining the East Asia Summit and convincing Southeast Asians to time the meeting with APEC so he could attend.
With much fanfare, Obama launched the US “pivot” to Asia. But most regrettably, very little was achieved by way of implementation of the pivot. The Transpacific Partnership was a key element of the pivot and negotiated under his leadership. But he was slow to embrace the trade deal and not effective in selling it to the US. The consequence was that President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal. It was subsequently picked by Japan and Australia and became the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for a Trans Pacific Partnership.
Some parting thoughts from Henry Kissinger
To prove the worth of history, it is worth recalling what President Nixon’s new national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, explained to the press in December 1969:“For about twenty years after the end of the war, American foreign policy was conducted with the maxims and the inspiration that guided the Marshall Plan, that is, the notion of a predominant United States, as the only stable country, the richest country, the country without whose leadership and physical contribution nothing was possible, and which had to make all the difference for defense and progress everywhere in the world. Now whichever Administration had come into office would have had to face the fact, I believe, that we have run out of that particular vision. Conditions have changed enormously. We are now in a world in which other parties are playing a greater role. They have regained some of their self-confidence. New nations have come into being. Communism is no longer monolithic and we, therefore, face the problem of helping to build international relations”.
Some concluding comments
Analysts have quibbled with some of the details of Green’s book, notably his positive assessment of George W. Bush. And there is a case for scepticism as Green spent much of his career working closely with Republican administrations.But Green’s book is a masterpiece of scholarship, and is fascinating to read. But it is also distressing to compare America’s historic sophisticated diplomacy in Asia with the appalling diplomacy of Donald Trump’s administration.