During the U.S. presidential campaign in 2008, an overzealous staffer purloined a list of Barack Obama's Asia policy advisers and delivered it to the campaign team for Senator John McCain. Presented with the list, a senior McCain adviser wryly observed that, if President Obama's Asia team was exchanged for McCain's Asia advisers, the policy papers would be identical.
Obama's visit to Hiroshima and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent visit to Pearl Harbor remind the world how durable and consistent American interests in Asia have been since the end of World War II. Five American presidents served as military officers in the Asia-Pacific theater. Obama was the first American president born in the Asian region, where he spent a formative part of his childhood. Whether or not they have lived and worked in the region, all of Obama's successors will find Asia of increasing significance to their office.
