As the money and bravado have run out, Obama may be edging toward "Offshore Balancing", an affordable strategy that America can best contain its adversaries by maintaining its naval and air power while strengthening smaller nations that see US as a natural counterweight to their larger neighbors, says Peter Beinart, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, on the website of Newsweek on Nov 28.

Actually, America's shifting policy in the Middle East reflects that it is moving offshore, says Beinart. "Instead of directly occupying Islamic lands, we're trying to secure our interests from the sea, the air and by equipping our allies. That's in large measure what the Obama administration is trying to do in East Asia, too."

Offshore balancing has its drawbacks, notes Beinart. "It requires abandoning the idea that via nation building the US can remake other societies, and often involves partnering with smaller nations with which America faces a common enemy—the Gulf States against Iran, Vietnam against China—regardless of our allies' democratic credentials."

But for the Obama administration that manifestly cannot afford any war on land, concludes Beinart, it offers a way for the US to maintain influence at reduced cost, which is likely to be the central foreign policy challenge of the next few years. It also offers a way to help US distinguish between vital national interests.