Why Myanmar Matters

The Middle East is once again in flames this week as Hamas and Israeli authorities continue to exchange fire in the Gaza Strip and Syria remains unstable. Additionally, a partisan storm is forming in Washington over the poor handling of the Benghazi attacks, resulting in the death of 9 Americans. GOP senators John Mccain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have initiated a political vendetta against UN ambassador Susan Rice regarding the Benghazi intelligence failure, vowing to block her nomination as the Secretary of State. President Obama has considered Rice for the position but hasn't made a finalized decision at this point. The debacle has been further complicated by the marital scandal of former FBI chief Gen. David Petraeus.  

In the midst of this calamity, several observers find i difficult to understand why President Obama has chosen to visit Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, the mysterious closed society that has recently opened the doors to Democracy after 50 years of military dictatorship. Americans still do not realize the importance of this area of the world for American geopolitical strategy. This sobering fact is largely the result of a lack of education provided by a disinterested media and a mostly silent commander in chief. Both accounts are disheartening. When I watched the last presidential debate on foreign policy, I was taken aback by the lack of discussion regarding regional security, military/ navy strategy, and soft power projections in the Asia Pacific. In my observation, this was one of the areas the Obama Administration preformed best on. 

During the Bush years, the Asia Pacific remains largely ignored by the US Government. President Bush's foreign policy focused primarily on the Middle East, while Asia was considered a second front for the War on Terrorism in areas such as the Malacca Straights which has suffered numerous pirate attacks and the southern Philippines stilled plagued by the terrorist network Abu Sayyaf. The Southeast Asian regional organization ASEAN was demised by President Bush as a "talk fest" and the policy adopted for Myanmar was strict economic sanctions and isolation without communication. The result was a diplomatic shift towards China from the nations of Southeast Asia. China appeared more diplomatic in the South China Sea, and showered countries such as Cambodia with interest free loans and infrastructure investment. State owned Chinese power companies liberally invested in hydroelectric dams in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. The business community in Thailand is mostly made up of overseas Chinese immigrants which were eager to extend ties to the mainland to garner investment in Thai as well as Malaysian, Vietnamese, and Indonesian industries. 

However, starting in 2010, disputes began to break out once again over the South China between China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Chinese dams were met with animosity held by local Laotians and Burmese who witnessed the destructive results that leveled their villages and agriculture lands. 

In the midst of this tide of uncertainty in regards to Southeast Asia's benevolent neighbor to the north, the Obama Administration saw an opportunity to reverse these trends that resulted in a near decade of American neglect. Now 2,500 marines have been stationed in Darwin, Australia, US air craft carriers are now stationed in Singapore, and military exercises are annually conducted with Vietnam and the Philippines. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended the 17th ASEAN summit and announced the US is "Back in Asia." Soon after, the US signed ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and submitted an official ambassador to ASEAN. 

Around this time, Myanmar experienced changes of its own. In November of 2010, world renowned Burmese Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi was released after seven and a half years under house arrest. Following her release, Suu Kyi encouraged the international community to show more flexibility on the sanctions imposed upon Myanmar. Since then under the leadership of President Thein Sein, Myanmar has undertaken a number of reforms such as expanding the freedom of the press and releasing hundreds of political prisoners. Additionally, on April 1st, 2012 Myanmar held its first open elections in over a half a century in which Aung Suu Kyi was elected to the lower house of parliament under the Union Solidarity and Development Party. In response, the Obama Administration has gradually rolled back sanctions on Myanmar, and Suu Kyi was congratulated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Myanmar earlier his year. 

A reverse in Myanmar's shift towards China has also followed these reforms. Taking into consideration negative public opinion, President Thein Sein temporarily suspended the Myitsone Dam which was to be built on the Irawaddy River near the Chinese boarder. The dam was funded by a Chinese state owned company called China Power Investment Corporation which was to hold 70 percent of the profits. The dam would have provided an estimated 3,600 to 6,000 megawatts of electricity to Yunnan Province most likely the city of Kunming. For China this is bad sign. It reflects the fear Southeast Asian nations have regarding their weak geopolitical position in relation to a rising China. Such fear yields encouragement from Southeast nations for a larger American role in the Asia Pacific.  

President Obama has made his best efforts to capitalize on these fears, and it appears to be reversing the influence the US had lost under the Bush Administration in this vital region of the world. During his speech at Rangoon University, President Obama used this opportunity as the first US President to visit Myanmar to help foster this strategic shift in the Asia Pacific towards America's favor. His words were pragmatically employed in effort to encourage reforms and suggest benefits for doing so. 

Taken from the Diplomat Magazine:

“I recognize that this is just the first steps on what will be a long journey,” the U.S. president said alongside his Burmese counterpart, Thein Sein, at the former parliament in Rangoon. “But we think that a process of democratic reform and economic reform in Myanmar … can lead to incredible development opportunities here.”

In my observation President Obama's recent trip to Myanmar represents a Reagan moment of his presidency. While Ronald Reagan was known for being bold, his strong words pontificating the destruction of the Berlin Wall were a strategic response to observed shifts in Eastern Europe and the greater Soviet Union.

Today a similar shift is occurring in the Asia Pacific. While many Americans still believe that the Middle East and Israel's sovereignty should be our number one foreign policy objectives, I see such a direction as nostalgic and senseless. America's involvement in the Middle East has been a mistake and under Obama our domestic energy supply has expanded to the point that the region's geopolitical value is minimal. Our goal in the Middle East should be stability and nothing more. Policies shaped to expand democracy in the Middle East by military means  has depleted that ability to preserve peace. The more involvement America undertakes in the Middle East, the more trapped we will become by our own geopolitical folly.

In Myanmar on the other hand, our crusade for global democracy is already being won. Sanctions and regional pressures from Myanmar's neighbors brought about this change, not military presence. To fail to recognize this accomplishment would be to miss out on a historic opportunity to regain influence in a region of the world that does matter to the economic and maritime security of the US. Furthermore, to ignore Myanmar at this point would be to ignore the beginning of a successful transition towards a regime that reflects American values in democracy and human rights.

 In recognizing the geopolitical necessity of the Asia Pacific by making Southeast Asia his first foreign visit after reelection, I believe President Obama has proven himself to be one America's greatest presidential diplomats, and an exemplary commander in chief. Following his presidency, Barack Obama will surely join the ranks of other presidential diplomats such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. One thing's for sure, he won't be wallowing in the shadows of a political tragedy at some dusty ranch in Texas.