American Foreign Policy Looks West

Impact

In light of North Korea's provocative behaviour, less available resources (not in the least symbolized by the withdrawal of one of the two aircraft carriers from the Persian Gulf) and the need to still address multiple existing and emerging threats, Washington will look west actively for the first time since WWII.

North Korea will be an accent in Barack Obama's speech tomorrow night, and very likely a point of agreement with China, which is itself important, as the two superpowers begin to vie for influence in the Pacific.

The drawdown from the Middle East and the new Islamic regimes in place of the old authoritarians will likely diminish the influence of American policy in the region for the forseeable future. The Mideast will be a secondary focus, to be supplanted by East Asia as soon as NATO leaves Afghanistan in 2014.

This could very well sum up the foreign policy perspective of the address.