In preparation for President Obama’s trip to the region, the Council on Foreign Relations has published a new report titled, “The United States in the New Asia”:
As Asia’s economic and strategic weight has grown, Asians have sought to build multilateral frameworks capable of effectively channeling the region’s energies. But for more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as proposals multiply and the region organizes itself into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups.
The Obama administration has an opportunity to help define new roles for the United States in this changing Asia. But to sustain its position in the region, Washington will need to move beyond its traditional “hub and spokes” approach to Asia—with the United States as the hub, bilateral alliances as the spokes, and multilateral institutions largely at the margins of U.S. policy. Otherwise, the United States will pay increasing costs to its interests, credibility, and influence.
In this Council Special Report, commissioned by CFR’s International Institutions and Global Governance program, Evan A. Feigenbaum and Robert A. Manning examine Asia’s regional architecture and consider what it means for the United States. They identify shortcomings in the region’s existing multilateral mix and contend that the United States must increase its involvement in shaping Asian institutions in order to advance U.S. strategic interests and protect the competitiveness of American firms.
