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November 17, 2011
The video and transcript of Obama's address to the House of Representatives is not online yet, but there is a video of the address. It was a plain speaking speech despite all the flattery and over-statement.
The core of Obama's speech was that the United States was “here to stay” in the Asia-Pacific, that it would be stepping up its role in the region, and that America’s fiscal problems will not be an opportunity for China's expansion at the expense of the United States.
Contrary to what Kim Beazley was saying on Radio National this morning that containment was a Cold War term that had no meaning in the current geopolitical context, Obama clearly signaled a determination by the US to counter a rising China. And Beazley is on board--like he always has been. The strengthening of military ties between America and Australia can be interpreted as the latest step in Washington’s coordination of Asia Pacific nations into a containment strategy aimed at limiting China’s growing influence in the Asia Pacific region.
Will the Australian Defence Force now become a fully-fledged subsidiary of the US Armed Forces? One that make "niche contributions" to US-led coalitions far beyond Australia’s immediate region, such as Afghanistan? That was John Howard's model. Will Gillard Labor tread the same path?
In The National Interest Stephen Walt says:
If China is like all previous great powers—including the United States—its definition of “vital” interests will grow as its power increases—and it will try to use its growing muscle to protect an expanding sphere of influence. Given its dependence on raw-material imports (especially energy) and export-led growth, prudent Chinese leaders will want to make sure that no one is in a position to deny them access to the resources and markets on which their future prosperity and political stability depend.
He adds that this situation will encourage Beijing to challenge the current U.S. role in Asia and that such ambitions should not be hard for Americans to understand, given that the United States has sought to exclude outside powers from its own neighborhood ever since the Monroe Doctrine. he continues:
By a similar logic, China is bound to feel uneasy if Washington maintains a network of Asian alliances and a sizable military presence in East Asia and the Indian Ocean. Over time, Beijing will try to convince other Asian states to abandon ties with America, and Washington will almost certainly resist these efforts. An intense security competition will follow.
The short-lived “unipolar moment” to an end, and the result will be either a bipolar Sino-American rivalry or a multipolar system containing several unequal great powers.
The US's grand strategy since the 1990s has been one of global dominance or global hegemony, which John J Mearsheimer in The National Interest describes thus:
Global dominance has two broad objectives: maintaining American primacy, which means making sure that the United States remains the most powerful state in the international system; and spreading democracy across the globe, in effect, making the world over in America’s image. The underlying belief is that new liberal democracies will be peacefully inclined and pro-American, so the more the better. Of course, this means that Washington must care a lot about every country’s politics. With global dominance, no serious attempt is made to prioritize U.S. interests, because they are virtually limitless.
He adds that this grand strategy is “imperial” at its core; its proponents believe that the United States has the right as well as the responsibility to interfere in the politics of other countries.
The Obama administration belongs to the liberal imperialists version of global dominance, and they hold that running the world requires the United States to work closely with allies and international institutions.
Judging from Gillard's action's Australia's defence and diplomatic interests are to remain dependent on US primacy remaining unchallenged-- Australia uncritically supports the Obama Administration's policy of global dominance.
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Beijing would see that the US is engaged in a policy of encirclement of China. The Gillard Government downplays this interpretation.