ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy following the Bush years and what it can tell us about both continuities and changes in security discourses and practices relating to the threat of terrorism, and its impacts on East Asia. Immediately upon taking office, the Obama administration appeared to consciously shift the White House’s public narratives relating to the War on Terror. In terms of the Obama administration’s relations with Asia, there was a clear departure from Bush’s more bilateral approach towards more of a diplomatic-multilateral approach to the region. Under Bush, Secretary Rice had snubbed several Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN Regional Forum meetings that the US had been invited to attend. Donald Trump’s approach to the world is so far quite unlike Obama’s “cerebral to a fault” foreign policy approach – or even Bush’s, who for all his personal shortcomings was at least surrounded by those who were well-informed.
