Why Obama is emphasizing the Pacific

                        GDP by Continent (US$)

Continent	GDP
Africa	2,092,300,800,000
Asia	21,504,497,000,000
Europe	14,244,444,000,000
North America	12,776,478,300,000
Oceana	737,226,300,000
South America and Caribbean	4,299,879,000,000
Source: GeoHive http://www.geohive.com/charts/ec_gdp4.aspx

Data from the CIA World Factbook 2005

Eurocentric policy focuses on an area that has a Gross Domestic Product 2/3rds of that of Asia, and a product which is growing more slowly than that of Asia. The GDP of the rest of the world is about half that of Europe. These data are somewhat our of date, and the Asian GDP is relatively larger now.

The GDP of the United States was on the order of half of the global total in 1946. Since that time, the European GDP has again climbed to be greater than that of North America. However, that of Asia was already in 2005 almost twice that of North America.

It seems clear that the economic foreign policy of the United States must be more oriented towards Asia than it was a couple of generations ago. It may have taken a President who grew up in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia as a kid to recognize this simple fact. Of course, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Oceana must not be ignored.

I suspect that this fact also underlies the changes in our security foreign policy. The greater the comparative economic power, then the greater the military power is likely to be. The rapid economic growth of Asian countries implies their greater military power as well as their greater economic importance in a global economy.

Does this realization influence our restructuring of the U.S. military as the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming down? I suspect a part of the change is due to the change from soldiers providing support for frontline soldiers to private sector contractors providing that support. Is another factor the recognition that the United States with 1/20th of the world's population should not get involved in a land war in Asia which has 4/7th of global population.