서강대학교

초록/요약

A great deal of attention has been paid to offshore balancing strategy (OBS) as one of the alternative options for U.S. grand strategy since inauguration of president Obama in 2009. This strategy highlights the role of U.S. allies in the key regions to counter-balance the rise of potential hegemon. The existing explanation on adoption of OBS provides the international structural factors. The supportive neo-realist camp scholars characterized the change of international power structure and geopolitical position as the main variables that induce the acceptance of OBS. This study suggests a supplementary explanation for a comprehensive understanding of OBS. Applying the framework of neo-classical realism, the adoption of OBS can be explained by activities of the domestic political actors such as public opinion, Congress, executive branch, epistemic community, interest group, and national bureaucracy on foreign policy and security. This research aims to analyze how the domestic sources of foreign policy contributed to the decision-making of OBS as the U.S. grand strategy of Obama administration. This study is based on the qualitative research methodology, and uses the process tracing to analyze ‘Pivot to Asia’, Obama’s grand strategy toward Asia. It focuses on the U.S. public opinion on supporting the limited U.S. involvement globally and the people’s desire to cut down the military defense spending. The political polarization and the rise of Tea Party within Congress also make an impact on OBS. The interest groups mainly influence the development of Trans-Pacific Partnership, key economic agenda of ‘Pivot to Asia’. The ideas and visions of president Obama, knowledge-based experts, and key decision-makers on U.S. grand strategy consolidate the argument that America requires more modest policy to deal with economic recession and domestic problems preferentially. This study does not downplay the significance of existing explanation. This research is to add the role of domestic actors and aims at showing more complete and accurate account for the adoption of OBS.