Via Micheal Green at Foreign Policy:
First, Campbell is widely recognized as an early and important architect of a strategy to build up alliances and partnerships to keep Beijing in check as Chinese power grew. In the mid-1990s, he was appointed as the senior U.S. Defense Department official on Asia, arriving with relatively little regional expertise but powerful strategic instincts. Within two years, he pushed through a major expansion of the U.S.-Japanese alliance, arresting years of post-Cold War drift and setting in train the close defense cooperation between Washington and Tokyo today. As assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific under then-President Barack Obama, he championed the so-called pivot to Asia. Some were critical of a metaphor that suggested the United States no longer cared about Europe or the Middle East, while others argued the policy was too provocative toward China. But the balance-of-power logic behind the pivot was sound and served as the precedent for the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept. Campbell’s pivot strategy remains the core point of consensus between the incoming team and congressional leaders of both parties.
Second, the new position is unprecedented in elevating Asia’s strategic importance in the U.S. policy apparatus. When I arrived at the National Security Council (NSC) in 2001, the Europe Directorate was three times larger than that for Asia. When I left in 2005, they were about the same size, each headed by one senior director and about five directors. It looks as if Biden’s new Asia shop at the White House could have three or four senior directors, making it the powerhouse within the NSC—likely three times the current size of the Europe Directorate. This kind of major reorganization always has some collateral impact, but if it is played well, it could also be a boost to trans-Atlantic relations. NATO and much of the European Union are focused on working with the Biden administration on China—a strategic card the Trump team tossed away with its anti-European stance.
