As the US is winding down its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it now wants to turn its attention to the Asia-Pacific region. This announcement is as grandiose as it is self-serving. It reveals two principal US weaknesses. The first is the country’s inability to make actual hard choices. The second is its illusory belief that, in contrast to all other nations, it does not have to live with the consequences of its past actions To lay the groundwork for President Obama’s current Asia trip, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently penned a long article titled ‘America’s Pacific Century’ in Foreign Policy magazine. She argued that her country now wants to “lock in a substantially increased investment” in the Asia-Pacific region and, she added, “The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the US will be right at the centre of the action.” It would have shown strategic acumen and a clear-headed sense of priorities, if that article had been published in the first year of the Obama administration. But now? From a budgetary perspective, the past 10 years clearly represented the maximum the US will be able to dedicate to foreign (including military) affairs for the foreseeable future. To assume anything other than severe cutbacks at a time when the country’s infrastructure is crumbling, and when police, firefighters and teachers are being laid off, attests to the misbegotten priorities of the US elite. Ask leaders in Asia, and you will receive truly disbelieving looks. Many are rendered speechless by the patrician attitude that the current US administration exhibits, after having stood with the Bush administration’s ill-fated strategies for too long. Most Asian leaders have also had to contend with scarce financial resources for most of their careers. Unlike their US counterparts, they know from up close that governing means choosing. If you talk to leaders in Europe, they are downright amused by the highly transparent American effort to sell the US turn toward Asia as a not-so-gentle reminder that the Europeans better fall in line, lest they be left behind by the American-Asian tandem. Senior European officials point out calmly that the US government is far from alone in shifting its attention to Asia. In other words, it is a competitive world out there — and let’s see who fares better in Asia over the long haul. In addition, there is a widespread feeling both in Asia and in Europe that the US government ought to relent on its inclination to give great-sounding speeches and publish heroic articles. Whom are they trying to convince? Others? Hardly. Themselves? That is probably much closer to reality. The boastful US rhetoric is primarily indicative of one thing: a desperate desire to hold on to a world and options — financial, economic or diplomatic — that are no longer truly in reach of the US. As mighty as the country still is, especially militarily, its tendency to be overly ambitious in its rhetoric diminishes its national power. The US strategy of maximising global aspiration largely by rhetoric leads to a serious imbalance on the domestic front. The American people are oversold a bill of goods — namely, global supremacy (as a presumed return on their hefty investment) — that is turning out to be more hollow every day. Truth be told, the US investment in foreign relations has mostly been an investment in the business(!) of foreign relations. Hence the overreliance on defence spending (and sales to foreign militaries, as well as the extremely well-paid contractors in war zones). And one should not forget the all-too-mercenary character of its so-called development aid machinery. Foreign policy as a for-profit business? That is the gruesome reality of today’s Washington — and the clear opposite of what the country’s wise Founding Fathers had in mind. Their concept was great: to focus on commerce to build alliances, not armies. In today’s Washington, their path has been sadly turned onto its very head. The writer is the president of The Globalist Research Centre, a think tank based in Washington, DC