Does a pivot from an underperforming Europe and chaotic Mediterranean to the Pacific make sense at this time? No—a global power that must "pivot" is no longer a global power. Even in World War II, the United States found itself forced to fight great-power wars simultaneously in the European and Pacific theaters. If the United States intends to preserve the current international order—and it’s uncertain that we do—it must retain the military capability to preserve a favorable balance of power in both the Pacific and the Mediterranean, or, perhaps more precisely, the Muslim world. This is all the more true in that, as it has matured, the current security order is highly globalized. In particular, the strong and rising nations of East Asia rely heavily on the energy resources of the Middle East, their secure supply and free flow, for their advanced economies.
Since the end of the Cold War, maintaining a decent balance of power and constraining the voracious appetites for violence prevalent in the central and western Muslim world—violence that has even periodically infected the otherwise quiet and democratically oriented Muslims of Southeast Asia—has been a central task for U.S. military forces. The global security "good" that results is of paramount benefit to our allies and to the developing world, goes a long way toward explaining why, even at a time of relative decline, the United States retains its geopolitical clout. Conversely, if now the rest of the world becomes convinced that America has renounced that role, there will be global consequences. Trying to "lead from behind" is the result of a retreat.
So the "Pacific Pivot" is in fact a turning away from the demands of primacy, and no amount of increased presence there can "rebalance" a global system that has become fundamentally unbalanced. Unlike the pivot away from Europe—where, thanks to a century of U.S. and allied effort, a durable peace is solidly in place—the pivot away from the Middle East is an opportunity for increased geopolitical competition, one that is already attracting the attention of outside powers, and conflict. The U.S. withdrawal is making the Middle East a power vacuum, something human nature abhors.
There is indeed, a Pacific pivot underway, one that is also a de facto withdrawal. There is (and has been for some time) a slight shift in the basing of U.S. forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but the value of that is more than undercut by the overall reduction in forces and the rebasing of forward-stationed forces in the western Pacific. The Marines moving to Australia are, essentially, being moved from Okinawa, and the overall U.S. posture in Japan and Korea has been and will no doubt continue to be reduced. In the southwest Pacific, Guam is becoming a dangerously exposed outpost that has limited strategic or logistics value; it’s a juicy target with limited "throughput" capacity. Our posture in the South China Sea—where the absence of U.S. patrols is creating opportunities for the Chinese to play "bumper boats" with impunity—was crippled by the loss of the Philippines and the failure to renegotiate substitute arrangements.
The sum total of the global re-posturing of the U.S. military is that, in ways not seen since the end of World War II, the force is largely based in the continental United States. The current "pivots" all but complete the retreat.
