A new Guam doctrine?
Lowy's Graeme Dobell notes the emergence of a new American security paradigm in Asia:
The Guam stopover will underline the point that the US is spending billions on the island as a fresh assertion of its continuing role as Asia's military guarantor. A previous column offered this translation of the doctrine that will be blessed when Obama makes his Guam touchdown: 'We're going to be here for a long time yet.'But my translation sentence is deficient because it reflects only the military dimension of the new doctrine. The beauty of what Obama will offer is that it will have a second, multilateral (Concert of Powers) dimension, building on the military framework of the US bilateral alliance system in Asia.
A translation of both dimensions of the Obama doctrine would look like this: 'We're going to be here for a long time yet, but we are certainly ready to talk about new ways to run the neighbourhood.' Or to put it more formally: the new doctrine will link a continuing assertion of US military capability to a willingness to think new thoughts about Asia's security architecture and a concert of powers.
As Dobell notes, the original "Guam Doctrine" enunciated by President Nixon (that countries had to front their own defense against non-nuclear threats) set of a scramble in Asia that continues to this day. Any new doctrine, I think, should enshrine Nixon's admonishment even as it seeks to build more cooperative relationships across the region.
(AP Photo)
