The US suffered an embarrassing economic defeat by not concluding a TPP deal with its long-standing ally Japan, nor was an agreement reached with possible ally Malaysia. Instead, the US bunkered down by reinforcing its military commitment to Japan and South Korea, as well as choosing to support the Philippines in its South China Sea island dispute with China. Careful not to draw any politically binding red lines like he did with Syria, Obama has nonetheless still placed the US in a rigid position for the emerging security architecture of 21st -century East and Southeast Asia. All together, the military commitments to Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines place the US on a collision course with China and its patron state North Korea, leaving little room for negotiation or maneuver in the event that unexpected military hostilities break out between the parties.

The agreement to rotate significant amounts of US soldiers and military hardware in and out of the Philippines over a 10-year period (de-facto amounting to a decade-long US protectorate over the Philippines), has made the island chain a new “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the US in the South China Sea. Unlike Japan, the Philippines has inherent problems to its stability, including the active Maoist and Fundamental Islamic insurgencies. The inequality and squalid poverty afflicting the country presents a social stabilization risk, undermining the ability of the US military to project anti-Chinese influence in the region if there is a “mutiny aboard its aircraft carrier”, so to speak.

The US is essentially continuing the Bush-era mantra (most recently applied in the Ukrainian destabilization events and subsequent coup) of “Either you’re with us, or against us”. By making nations choose sides between the US and China, let alone before some states are even ready to do so, can create more regional instability.

This is the dangerous approach that the US is attempting to do with Malaysia, the most pragmatic Southeast Asian state when it comes to Chinese-Western relations. On the diplomatic and geostrategic front, it is similar to how Ukraine was before the November destabilization, a kind of pivot between larger interests. As the US pivots itself to the region, will it force Malaysia to choose a side as well? And if Malaysia does not “flip”, can the US’ intelligence agencies exacerbate and exploit anti-government sentiment from the plane crash and rescue operations to pressure the government to comply? And what would this mean for Southeast Asia and ASEAN?

The political and military lines have long been drawn in Northeast Asia, and the real “Great Game” in the region is the political posturing between the US and China in Southeast Asia. The situation is still dynamic, but the following arrangement appears to be emerging:

Thailand/Philippines: Pro-US

Malaysia: Regional pivot

Myanmar/Laos: Relatively Pro-China

Cambodia: Problems with Vietnam and Thailand, close to China

Vietnam: Pragmatic balancing and maneuvering against China, no boisterous militancy

Indonesia: Silent regional behemoth, politically brooding and economically/socially consolidating prior to becoming a solid regional political power

The US end goal is to use a strong pro-American Indonesia as a regional bulwark against China, but this plan is still in the making. Therefore, there is a need for one or two regional “Lead from Behind” states to be anointed the title of “anti-China champion” in being an “irritating fly to the Chinese horse” in Southeast Asia. The Philippines has loyally submitted to its former colonial master’s will, yet Malaysia is still pragmatically holding out.

Coming full circle and bringing things back into the global perspective, one needs to question why the US has seemed so refocused on Europe (besides wanting to reinvent the goal of NATO). This is because the US wants to simultaneously contain Russia and China by manipulating both countries’ neighbors into seeing them as a threat. By balancing against them and bandwagoning with the US, America can then anoint one or two Lead from Behind states to do its bidding while it supervises the containment policy and provides security guarantees in the event of a “hot war”.

Europe and Asia are different theaters, but they have the same plan. The US is learning important lessons in Europe that it will later apply to Asia. By perfecting its plans to construct an anti-Russian alliance, promoting anti-Russian rhetoric, and expanding regional military cooperation (the Baltics and Poland), it hopes to transplant these strategies to Asia for use against China. There is a risk (possibly calculated for strategic gain and divide and rule ends), however, of dividing the EU and fracturing its societies and governments. One needs look no further than the probable collapse of the Bulgarian government in the near term over its irreconcilable divisions over anti-Russian policies and pragmatic Russian cooperation. The Ukrainian “choice” strategy is being applied on a regional basis now. European governments are once more either with America or against them.

Basically, Europe is the testing ground and the Asia-Pacific is the final deployment area. The “Asian Ukraine” in terms of destabilization and maximum damage to Chinese interests may possibly be Myanmar, with its already simmering civil conflict (that has stretched on for decades already) and its recent foreign policy confusion over whether to remain close to China or realign with India and the West. Also, the deceptive plan for a rotational agreement with the Philippines may be copied for use in Poland, the Baltics, and possibly Romania to contain and aggravate Russia. This new model is likely the future for US military deployment abroad. One may also see Obama parade across Eastern Europe in the same manner as he did East and Southeast Asia in order to further his anti-Russian containment policy.

The obvious strategic oversight with all of these plans is that Washington is simply pushing Moscow and Beijing closer together. They are under the same threats in the same way, and the US is applying regional tweaks for its grand strategy of containment against each of them. Thus, they have a common self-interest for survival in increasing their cooperation and working to break out of their containment. The coming together of these two Eurasian giants over the next decade will result in a geopolitical earthquake that will shake the foundations of global power, and multipolarity may well be on the horizon by mid-century.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_04_29/The-Asian-Pivot-and-NATO-s-Return-to-Russian-Containment-Same-Game-Different-Face-1675/