Why the pivot to Asia won't happen.
Robert Kelly thinks the U.S. won't really "pivot" to Asia:
'So the US pivot toward Asia is all the rage in foreign policy now. Obama and Secretary Clinton genuinely seem to believe in this, and there good reasons for it. Briefly put, Asia has the money, people, and guns to dramatically impact world politics in a way that no other region can now. But I think the US Asian pivot wonâ??t happen much nonetheless, because: 1) Americans, especially Republicans, donâ??t care about Asia, but they really care about the Middle East (a point the GOP presidential debates made really obvious); 2) Americans know less about Asia than any part of the world, bar Africa perhaps; 3) intra-Asian soft balancing (i.e., almost everyone lining up informally against China) means we donâ??t really need to be that involved, because our local allies will do most of the work; 4) weâ??re too broke to replicate in Asia the sort of overwhelming presence we built in the Middle East in the last decades.'
I would say that supporters of the "pivot" - such as it is - should be gratified that it's not getting as much high-level attention as the Middle East. It's true that the Mideast is bogging down U.S. attention - but it's also bogging down the attention of people with a lot of bad ideas. Better those bad ideas play themselves out in the Mideast than in Asia.