Good read to understand the context of our attempted rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region. We're not talking about chasing terrorists, but attempting to preserve our status as a global leader and our economic system. In my view it is worth debating what are most significant strategic interests we must protect, and other than a catastrophic attack which terrorists can't launch, even if they get one nuke, I suspect it our economic system. Where else is it threatened (other than by our politicians) geographically? It seems the major threats to our economic system are in the Persian Gulf and the Asia-Pacific region.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2013/02...southeast-asia

The Geopolitical Transformation of Southeast Asia

Capabilities are one thing; intentions are another. Here the crystal ball becomes cloudy. As noted, Chinese officials have been very insistent that China’s intentions toward Southeast Asia are entirely benign—nothing other than to join with the region in a common endeavor of economic development and regional peace and security. Nevertheless, doubts arise—on several grounds. In 1992 a PLA civilian analyst with close ties to China’s most senior leaders held an extended discussion with a handful of US security analysts. After some time in a moment of refreshing candor he made the following comment. “You keep asking about China’s strategic intent. I will tell you how the PLA views Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Rim. The PLA is determined to build sufficient capability to accomplish two things: first, solve the Taiwan problem by force if necessary and second, expel the U.S. military from this region. You Americans have playgrounds all over the world where you can play—in the Atlantic, in the Caribbean, and in the central and eastern Pacific. But this playground (Southeast Asia and its environs) is ours. You have no business being here and we are determined to move you out.” Nothing that has happened in the subsequent two decades invalidates that formulation; quite the contrary. Chinese scholars writing with official sanction a few years later characterized U.S. strategic intentions toward China as “encirclement” and “strangulation.” They identified Southeast Asia as the weak link in this chain and the point where China could break through and defeat America’s attempted “containment.” In private Chinese diplomats have been known to use the Churchillian phrase “soft underbelly” to refer to Southeast Asia in relation to the rest of the region.

Still, by the spring of 2010 the relationship between the ASEAN countries and China remained overtly and determinedly cordial. But in July Foreign Ministers from the 26 nations that make up the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) convened their annual meeting. The ARF is distinctive because it is a forum to discuss regional security issues. There were two aspects of this particular meeting that were additionally distinctive. It was the first ARF meeting held in Hanoi which meant Vietnam controlled the agenda and the American Secretary of State was attending for the first time. For several years Vietnam had been trying to get the South China Sea on the ARF agenda but previous ASEAN hosts had refused knowing that to do so would anger China. But now Secretary of State Clinton (clearly in consultation with Hanoi) agreed to raise the issue in her statement to the Forum. In that statement the Secretary made two quite ordinary assertions: (1) the South China Sea was an arena with multiple claimants and such disputes should be addressed through a multilateral negotiation; (2) the sea lanes through the South China Sea, like major international sea lanes elsewhere, were a “global commons” and not within the territory of any state—they belonged to the world. This was pretty much standard diplomatic boilerplate and might have generated only minimal attention. But eight of the ten ASEAN Ministers in their statements endorsed Secretary Clinton’s remarks. Then things got really interesting. It was Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi’s turn to speak. Instead of a perfunctory response, his reaction was incendiary. He grew red in the face, he shouted, he sweated—and he had to leave the room to compose himself. When he returned he glared at the Singapore Foreign Minister (an ethnic Chinese) and observed that there are “big countries” and “small countries.” The message was unmistakable.