Boston – Hillary Clinton concluded her tenure last month as US Secretary of State with her reputation and profile enhanced, her foreign policy credentials burnished, and an approval rating that most politicians can only envy.
She has won plaudits from both sides of the political aisle, with many commending the intensity of her travel schedule and high public visibility, her ability to remain a team player in a sometimes discordant cabinet, and her willingness to master the intricacies of foreign policy despite little prior experience. Speculation is already rife that she will make a bid for the presidency in 2016.
And yet, critics have also pointed to the paucity of signature accomplishments during Clinton’s tenure, as well as a startling number of foreign policy failures: an unfulfilled Afghanistan reconciliation process, flat-footedness following the Arab Spring, a failed reset with Russia, no diplomatic headway with Iran’s nuclear program, and the dissolution of the Israel-Palestine peace process, to name just a few high-profile examples.
But while Clinton’s diplomatic accomplishments were certainly uneven in the region stretching from North Africa to Pakistan, the same cannot necessarily be said of her record between India and the Pacific. A list of her successes might include the US opening to Myanmar, a forceful repudiation of China’s approach to the South China Sea at the 2010 East Asian Summit in Hanoi, and an articulation and defense of the so-called US ‘pivot’ to Asia.
Coming at a time when the Asia-Pacific continued its rapid growth, the region’s security concerns multiplied, and doubts remained about the future of American influence, these developments may yet offset diplomatic setbacks in other regions.
Clinton’s tenure may have seen little forward movement in US relations with India – due as much to developments in New Delhi over the past four years as to attitudes in Washington – but her call in a 2011 speech in Chennai for India “not just to look East, but to engage East and act East” was a welcome change in tenor from an administration that had previously been sceptical about India’s role in the broader region.
Clinton’s visit to India in 2009 can also be credited with reassuring New Delhi when serious questions were being asked about Washington’s commitment to the future of the bilateral relationship.
However, the trend begun under Clinton of American extrication from the Islamic world and a refocus on larger global trends centered in Asia was not necessarily matched by the attention given or energy expended on the region. The number of official visits is a crude measure of the importance attached to different countries or regions, but it is not entirely devoid of meaning.
The fact that Clinton made more visits as Secretary of State to France than to China, more to Germany than to Japan, and as many to Denmark as to India, is indicative of the distance the United States still needs to travel to credibly claim to have rebalanced its foreign policy in favor of the Asia-Pacific.
As John Kerry assumes the role of Secretary of State, Clinton’s track record in Asia offers some useful guidance. Although Kerry has been a fixture of the American foreign policy establishment for decades and a presidential nominee in 2004, the guiding principles shaping his overall approach to foreign affairs are difficult to ascertain.
His signature legislative accomplishments include support for arms control agreements with Russia and expanded assistance to Pakistan as part of the landmark Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation, while his prepared remarks during his Senate confirmation hearing placed an emphasis on nation-building at home and on challenges across the Muslim world.
Both his recent statements and those during his presidential bid suggest that Kerry is concerned about the United States’ limited capabilities and wary of aggressively promoting liberal democratic values.
Clinton’s successes in Asia could yet provide Kerry with a basis upon which to build his own legacy, one that sees the United States emerge as a more confident Asian power with fewer commitments in regions of marginal strategic relevance. This, in turn, might require more frequent appearances in major Asian capitals, higher visibility with Asian publics, and more miles logged on transpacific flights.
That is not to say that rectifying the long war in Afghanistan, restarting the Middle East peace process, resolving the Iranian nuclear stand-off, and responding to the Arab Spring are not deserving of attention. But these are thankless – and perhaps impossible – tasks for any Secretary of State.
In a job where the immediate is often crowded out by the urgent, Kerry should take his predecessor’s lead and go farther in working to preserve of an Asian balance of power that promotes US interests and values. Observers in India – as well as in many other countries across the region – will be watching closely for signs to that effect.
Dhruva Jaishankar
Dhruva Jaishankar is a Transatlantic Fellow with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.