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Much has been made of Washington’s “pivot” to Asia since November, when U.S. Secretary of State Clinton announced it in Foreign Policy. We took this largely in stride in the sea services, namely the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. We never left the Pacific. And we’ve been present in force in the Persian Gulf – an inlet or bay in the Indian Ocean, as Indian geopolitical thinker points out – for over two decades, since the first Gulf War. Indeed, our combat power in Asia has been on the increase for nearly a decade, since the Bush administration decided to realign U.S. forces stationed overseas. One example: the U.S. submarine force started moving units to the Pacific in 2006.

Indeed, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard formally...