The High Price of Isolationism

Those who believe World War I was caused by a crazy-quilt of alliances among the European powers may shudder at the ones America has now. We are obligated to defend Japan and we are obligated to defend South Korea. Both countries have issues with one another and, more importantly, with China. Japan and China contest a group of islands and China and South Korea contest a different area of the East China Sea. None of this is worth the life of a single person. But in the Far East, what concerns South Korean, Japanese and other policymakers is not just the potential instability of the region but the Obama administration's erratic Syrian policy. A red line was pronounced, then ignored. Force was threatened by the president and then the decision was lateraled to Congress where, to further the metaphor, the ball was downed and, just for good measure, deflated. None of this comforted the nations that see China as a looming menace and rely on the U.S. for backup. "The administration's prevarications over Syria continue to linger for the elites who drive national strategy in these countries," wrote Michael J. Green, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. The Syria debacle, coupled with the consensus that the U.S. is turning inward, is bound to produce instability.