In this context, I fear that the so-called "pivot" to Asia will turn out be an unresourced bluff. It's impressive enough to encourage China to spend more on its military, but what it means, in practice, is that we will cut military commitments to Asia less than we cut commitments elsewhere. That is, we will do this if the Middle East comes to need less attention than we have been giving it. At best, the "pivot" promises more or less more of the same in the Indo-Pacific region. This would be a tough maneuver to bring off even if we had our act together both at home and in the Middle East. But we do not have our act together at home. Our position in West Asia and North Africa is not improving. And some Americans are currently actively advocating war with Iran, intervention in Syria, going after Pakistan, and other misguided military adventures in West and South Asia.

So, what's the affordable alternative approach to sustaining stability in the Asia-Pacific region as China rises? My guess is that it's to be found in adjustments in our psychology. We need to get over World War II and the Cold War and focus on the realities of the present rather than the past.

Japan initially defeated all other powers in the Asia-Pacific, including the United States. We then cleaned Japan's clock and filled the resulting strategic vacuum. We found our regional preeminence so gratifying that we didn't notice as the vacuum we had filled proceeded to disappear. Japan restored itself. Southeast Asians came together in the Second Indochina War. ASEAN incorporated Indochina and Myanmar. India rose from its post-colonial sick bed and strode forward. Indonesia did the same.

But we have continued to behave as though there is an Asian-Pacific power vacuum only we can fill. And, as China's rise has begun to shift the strategic equilibrium in the region, we have stepped forward to restore it. We seem to think that, if we Americans don't provide it, there can be no balance or peace in Asia. But, quite aside from the fact that there was a balance and peace in the region long before the United States became a Pacific power, this overlooks the formidable capabilities of re-risen and rising powers like Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. It is a self-realizing strategic delusion that powers a self-licking ice-cream cone.

If Americans step forward to balance China for everyone else in the region, the nations of the Indo-Pacific will hang back and let us take the lead. And if we put ourselves between them and China, they will not just rely on us to back their existing claims against China, they will up the ante. It cannot make sense to empower the Philippines, Vietnam and others to pick our fights with China for us.

The bottom line is that the return of Japan, South Korea and China to wealth and power and the impressive development of other countries in the region should challenge us to rethink the entire structure of our defense posture in Asia. Unable to live by our wallets, we must learn to live by our wits. In my view, President Nixon's "Guam Doctrine" pointed the way. We need to find ways to ask Asians to do more in their own interest and their own defense. Our role should be to back them as our interests demand, not to pretend that we care more about their national-security interests or understand these better than they do, still less to push them aside to take on defense tasks on their behalf.