Pacific President, Ctd.

December 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Asia, China, Richard Nixon, Vietnam 

Former New York Times military correspondent Richard Halloran posted an article over the weekend in which he asserts repeatedly that President Obama’s Asia policy — hinting at a carefully and competently molded  Obama Doctrine — is poised to weld cross-Pacific relations and reinvigorate U.S. power in the region after decades of decline.

Halloran — naively and very absurdly — cites RN’s Guam Doctrine (Nixon Doctrine) as the source of declinism:

In contrast, President Obama has reversed course in meetings in Asia with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and nine other Southeast Asian nations, and with the leader of India in Washington this week. The president is scheduled to see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia in the White House on Monday. With all, the president has reaffirmed America’s security commitments. In addition, he had a frosty visit with leaders of a potential adversary, China, in Beijing.

After the Nixon Doctrine had been decreed, the US withdrew in defeat from Vietnam, let the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization wither, and forsook Taiwan to recognize China. Okinawa was reverted to Japan with restrictions on US forces, New Zealand was booted from a treaty with the US and Australia in a dispute over nuclear arms, and US bases in the Philippines were abandoned after a volcanic eruption.

RN’s aims were just the opposite. He would re-affirm all security commitments, and provide allies with a nuclear deterrent should they get bullied by a major nuclear power. He would also help furnish economic and military assistance for nations willing to accept the responsibility for their own security, a strategy that is working in Iraq and would have proven successful in Vietnam, if not for Congress’s decision to cut off aid and leave the South vulnerable to a conventional invasion from the North.

Unfortunately for Halloran’s argument, RN was the one accused by his critics of prolonging the war in Indochina. Halloran is in fact right that RN would end the war, but peace in Asia was conducted on his terms, and would be artfully correlated with the rise of American prestige in the world that culminated during his historic trip to China in 1972.

RN was fully aware of the interminable misinterpretations of his speech in Guam (p.394-395):

The Nixon Doctrine announced on Guam was misinterpreted by some signaling a new policy that would lead to total American withdrawal from Asia and from other parts of the world as well. In one of our regular breakfast meetings after I returned from the Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield articulated this misunderstanding. I emphasized  to him, as I had to our friends in the Asian countries, that the Nixon Doctrine was not a formula for getting America out of Asia, but one that provided the only sound basis for America’s stating in and continuing to play a responsible role in helping the non-Communist nations and neutrals as well as our Asian allies to defend their independence.

RN’s Asia policy — most notably his diplomatic triumph in China — would establish strong bonds and allow America to further its interests in the region.

When diplomatic relations were formally restored in 1979, bilateral trade rose to $2.4 billion from zero in 1971. A three year Chinese-America trade relations agreement was also signed, each side granting one-another favored nation status. By the mid 1980’s, China was ready to engage the rest of the world.

It would also bring the Soviets back to the peace table and fasten the end of the Cold War, establishing the United States as the sole surviving superpower by the end of the Reagan administration.

In a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, President Obama said: “I intend to make clear that the United States is a Pacific nation.”

As he brought the Vietnam war to a close, RN would fulfill his legacy after proclaiming similar words:

the United States is a Pacific power and should remain so.

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