In “The Pivot before the Pivot: U.S. Strategy to Preserve the Power Balance in Asia,” Nina Silove provides an illuminating history of U.S. policy in Asia since 2001.1 She argues that, with the goal of preserving the balance of power in the Asia Paciac, the George W. Bush administration undertook a substantial “reorientation strategy” in the early 2000s, combining internal balancing, external balancing, and expanded engagement. Three problems, however, weaken Silove’s argument that the Bush administration engaged in internal and external balancing in Asia. First, Silove fails to provide a clear and coherent deanition of balancing, both internal and external. To be fair, Silove does provide a few cursory deanitions. She deanes balancing as a strategy in which a state “aims to match the rate of growth of the rising power to maintain the power balance.” She then deanes internal balancing as efforts to “increas[e] the power of the hegemonic state,” and external balancing as steps to “increas[e] the power of the alliance led by the hegemon” (p. 66). Silove’s deanitions lack speciacity, however, including a cataloguing of the sort of behaviors one would expect to observe if balancing were taking place.2 Without this necessary speciacity, Silove can use a variety of different behaviors, which may or may not constitute balancing, to bolster her claims. Second, because Silove does not provide a clear deanition of balancing, a great deal of the evidence that she uses to argue that the Bush administration pursued a policy of balancing in the Asia Paciac is unconvincing. There are two issues here. First, much of the evidence Silove draws upon begins in 2004, the year she claims that the United States implemented its “pivot before the pivot” (pp. 67–73). But because she does not describe what the United States was doing in Asia before 2004, it is difacult to evaluate whether this strategic “reorientation” represented a substantive change from what preceded it. Second, some of Silove’s indicators of balancing do not well reoect traditional understandings of this behavior. For instance, in discussing U.S. troop withdrawals from the region, Silove notes that “U.S. ofacials believed that South Korea and Japan

中文翻译：

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信函：对枢轴的看法

在“枢轴之前的枢轴：美国维持亚洲力量平衡的战略”中，尼娜·西洛夫 (Nina Silove) 提供了自 2001 年以来美国在亚洲的政策的启发性历史。1 她认为，为了维护亚太地区的力量平衡，乔治·W·布什政府在 2000 年代初期采取了实质性的“重新定位战略”，将内部平衡、外部平衡和扩大接触相结合。然而，三个问题削弱了西洛夫关于布什政府在亚洲从事内外平衡的论点。首先，Silove 未能提供清晰和连贯的内部和外部平衡定义。公平地说，Silove 确实提供了一些粗略的解释。她认为平衡是一种战略，其中一个国家“旨在匹配崛起大国的增长率以维持权力平衡。” 然后，她将内部平衡定义为“增加 [e] 霸权国家的力量”的努力，将外部平衡定义为“增加 [e] 由霸权领导的联盟的力量”的步骤（第 66 页）。然而，Silove 的 deanitions 缺乏特殊性，包括对发生平衡时人们期望观察到的行为类型进行分类。 2 如果没有这种必要的特殊性，Silove 可以使用各种不同的行为，这些行为可能构成也可能不构成平衡，以支持她的主张。其次，由于西洛夫没有提供一个明确的制衡主张，她用来论证布什政府在亚太地区奉行制衡政策的大量证据并不能令人信服。这里有两个问题。首先，Silove 借鉴的大部分证据始于 2004 年，她声称美国在这一年实施了“转轨之前的转轨”（第 67-73 页）。但由于她没有描述美国在 2004 年之前在亚洲的所作所为，很难评估这种战略“重新定位”是否代表了与之前相比的实质性变化。其次，Silove 的一些平衡指标并不能很好地反映对这种行为的传统理解。例如，在讨论美国从该地区撤军时，Silove 指出，“美国官员认为韩国和日本 Silove 的一些平衡指标并不能很好地反映对这种行为的传统理解。例如，在讨论美国从该地区撤军时，Silove 指出，“美国官员认为韩国和日本 Silove 的一些平衡指标并不能很好地反映对这种行为的传统理解。例如，在讨论美国从该地区撤军时，Silove 指出，“美国官员认为韩国和日本