When Joe Biden, a key architect of the Obama administration’s “Asia Pivot” policy, became the US president in 2020 and introduced his Indo-Pacific Strategy in February 2022, his apparent objective was to make the region more “peaceful” and manage its seas according to accepted international “rules”.

Biden’s Pacific Dream

“The passage of time has underscored the strategic necessity of the United States’ consistent role” in the Indo-Pacific region, says Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy document. How this so-called necessity was established and how the so-called consistent role was imagined is irrelevant today insofar as we do see some form of permanence taking root. This is most clearly evident from the recent reports in the Western media indicating the permanent deployment of the US Typhoon Missile system in the Philippines.
The missile system was brought to the Philippines earlier this year as part of joint exercises. Now that Washington is citing “tensions with China” to justify a permanent deployment of this system, make it crystal clear that the former never intended to take it back, since “tensions” with China are nothing new. Had the US indicated earlier its actual intentions, it would have drawn a very strong response from Beijing. But Washington’s strategy was to present Beijing with a fait accompli. Washington preferred deceit to strategic clarity to establish Biden’s dream: a consistent (read:........

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