Neoclassical Realism and the US Asia Pivot

When president Obama announced the Asia Pivot in 2011, the US was facing an increased security threat from China. With this increased security threat, structural realism expects balancing behaviour. The pivot contains elements which indicate balancing behaviour, whereas other elements do not. Neoclassical realism argues that the policymaking process is influenced by several forces. Firstly, leader images influence the process, and Obama’s image of international relations is one of pragmatism, and a believe that China’s growth could prove a good thing. Furthermore, the US strategic culture relies heavily on technology, state-society relations are characterised by a belief in global capitalism, and the Great Recession was the issue of the time, impacting all groups in society. Foreign policy decision making knows multiple actors in the US system. All the aforementioned factors influence the actual policymaking process, which begins at the perception of the systemic incentives. Obama...Show moreWhen president Obama announced the Asia Pivot in 2011, the US was facing an increased security threat from China. With this increased security threat, structural realism expects balancing behaviour. The pivot contains elements which indicate balancing behaviour, whereas other elements do not. Neoclassical realism argues that the policymaking process is influenced by several forces. Firstly, leader images influence the process, and Obama’s image of international relations is one of pragmatism, and a believe that China’s growth could prove a good thing. Furthermore, the US strategic culture relies heavily on technology, state-society relations are characterised by a belief in global capitalism, and the Great Recession was the issue of the time, impacting all groups in society. Foreign policy decision making knows multiple actors in the US system. All the aforementioned factors influence the actual policymaking process, which begins at the perception of the systemic incentives. Obama understood the risks China posed, but believed a pragmatist mix between the carrot and the stick was best to deal with the threat. He thought the solution to the Great Recession was in International Trade, and China could help with that as well as his foreign policy goals of solving the nuclear threats from Iran and North-Korea. Foreign policy was also an easy victory in the Republican dominated House, which blocked his domestic agenda, and with the Pivot supported by the Republicans, Obama may have hoped that the Republicans would come along a bit more on his domestic agenda. The decision-making of the pivot was not so easy, however. Surprisingly enough not because many wanted the president to be tougher on China, but because the people were tired of US interventionism, and the political actors from Obama’s own party were reluctant to support a trade deal. TPP was supported by corporations, republicans and the people, but not by the democrats, and labour unions. The military component of the pivot was costly. Lastly, the US cultural trust in technology may well explain its tough approach in the cyber war with China. The policy-implementation phase was characterised by disagreement between different parts of the Administration. The State Department, Department of Defence and the President occasionally found each other at the other end of the table. In Obama’s second Administration, the execution of the Pivot seems to have slowed down. In conclusion: neoclassical realism gives a more inclusive account of the pivot. The implications hereof are that in due time, we may have to come to the conclusion that neoclassical realism is better suited to explain actual state behaviour. Other implications may be that the determinism underlying Gilpin’s power transitioning theory is not matching reality. In short, the implication of this research is that states are in fact not unitary actors, but domestic agency matters next to structural incentives.Show less

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Neoclassical Realism and the US Asia Pivot