Asia Rebalance

Connecting the Dots: Linking Principles to Priorities in the New National Security Strategy The Obama Administration has just released its 2015 National Security Strategy. The updated strategy concentrates on broad lines of effort that are crucial to American interests, ranging across the categories of security, prosperity, values, and international order. However, to have full effect, leadership is needed to transform the document’s intent into concrete priorities. Indeed, the document reads, “our resources will never be limitless. Policy tradeoffs and hard choices will need to be made.” In moving towards implementation, therefore, national security leaders have the opportunity to reassess their near-term policy priorities to make sure they are addressing long-term trends. In particular, priorities should better reflect the need to effectively deal with the security… Read More ›

Implementing Obama’s “Smarter Kind of American Leadership” Last night, President Obama in his State of the Union address touched on a host of national security issues of critical importance to the United States and international community. While his discussion of national security was broad, a key theme running through his address was the forward-looking need to reinforce America’s global position and security in the 21stcentury by emphasizing diplomatic and economic power. This “smarter kind of American leadership” applies to a number of issues, but the President’s comments on Asia, Iran, Cuba, trade strategy, and climate security in particular demonstrate the value of careful and relentless global engagement to producing results. Now armed with a clear agenda, the Administration and Congress need to work together to… Read More ›

President Obama at the welcome ceremony at the Imperial Palace during his state visit to Tokyo, Japan on April 24, 2014 [State Department photo by William Ng, 4/24/14]With Vice President Biden in Kiev and President Obama arriving in Asia tomorrow, the need and capacity for the United States to manage multiple priority issues is on full display, including balancing long-term strategy with near-term crises. In Asia, the President will meet with leaders in Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Malaysia to consolidate and deepen strategic rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific. As a long-term policy movement, rebalancing to Asia will require sustained attention at the whole-of-government level – particularly to ensure properly-scaled distribution of resources – and coordinated priorities. Of special concern going forward is investing the… Read More ›

To read the full report, click here. By Bill French March 2013 A NEW PHASE of the debate over Pentagon spending is on the horizon. On March 1, sequestration went into effect as mandated by the Budget Control Act (BCA) and as modified by the American Taxpayer Relief Act. Under sequestration, Pentagon spending is to be reduced by approximately $500 billion over the next decade. But whether or not sequestration is the mechanism of reductions, what the Pentagon needs now are choices about U.S. strategic priorities in order to guide allocating resources.  Therefore, whereas the debate prior to sequestration focused tightly on budgetary considerations, the next round of debate over funding for the Department of Defense (DoD) will likely focus on the connection between resources and… Read More ›