As President-elect Donald Trump continues to stir up a hornet's nest in Washington and elsewhere in America, the outgoing and lame-duck presidency of Barack Obama looks spent, its foreign policy agenda at risk of reversal and dismantlement. This is a pity because Mr Obama had his heart in the right places. He tried to make the world a better place but ultimately fell short.
Mr Obama will go down in history as the most "Asianised" American president the world is likely to see, attuned to the grievances and aspirations of Asian countries, especially those in Southeast Asia, where he spent significant time during his formative years. Not again for as many years as we can imagine will the United States harbour a black president, due to its racially raw and politically polarised society. Mr Obama is also setting himself up to be the most politically active former US president whom Americans will likely see in the contemporary period.
Already the two-term president has been challenging President-elect Donald Trump's principles and values. In the final stretches of Hillary Clinton's defeated candidacy, Mr Obama (and his wife Michelle) made stump speeches in an all-out effort to deny a Trump victory almost as if he was running for a third term. As Mr Obama reportedly plans to reside in the Washington area, he will not be far from Mr Trump's environs, both at the White House in the US capital and on 5th Avenue in New York's Manhattan where Trump Tower is located.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
Mr Obama will continue to challenge the Trump agenda even after presidential retirement because the two hold different values and see America's interests in fundamentally divergent ways. Mr Trump has shown signs of economic nationalism and favouring an inward-looking society.
On foreign relations, Mr Trump has conjured up images of relative isolation on one hand and unilateralism on the other, under an overall pitch of "America First" and "Making America Great Again" election pledges. Perhaps most importantly, Mr Obama will want to protect his foreign policy legacy as much as he can, even while out of office, as his successor appears intent on undoing and tearing it down.
Front and centre of Mr Obama's legacy will be his "pivot to Asia" geo-strategy, which was immensely popular in Asia excluding China.
The future of the "pivot", later renamed "rebalance", is now uncertain. Its trade liberalisation pillar, namely the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is now dead on arrival. Mr Trump is likely to ditch the entire pivot in favour of a refashioned US posture and priorities based more on bilateral frameworks with some regional engagement rather than a multilateral and regional framework based on bilateral alliances.
Mr Trump's campaign pledges and post-election comments so far point to a more transactional, quid-pro-quo leadership rather than a web of American alliances and partnerships to shore up the global order set up after World War II.
Viewed in this light, Mr Trump will hasten the demise of the post-war order whereby the international system will rely less on international cooperation for collective action and more on unilateralism and bilateralism in a self-help system.
There is a Thai saying that captures this trend vividly, namely tua krai, tua mun ("every man for himself"). From historical experience, Thailand is well-versed in the self-help world. Its leaders should be thinking now about how to navigate it again, as multilateralism comes to a halt and regionalism becomes more problematic.
For the US, President Obama tried in vain. In fact, some critics may well argue down the line that the Obama pivot and rebalance to Asia, with Asean as its linchpin, proved disastrous because it provoked China's assertive challenge.
In the Obama first term, in 2009-12, the pivot had momentum. It began with President Obama's speech in Hawaii in 2009 about being the first US Pacific president, subsequently followed by then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton's declaration of an unfolding "Pacific Century". As the US pivot to Asia caused some conceptual and linguistic confusion, the term "rebalance" was tagged to it, signifying the shift of American priorities and resources from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
It was all good in the Obama first term. But other priorities intervened and overwhelmed it in Mr Obama's second term in 2013-16, not least crises in the Middle East with the upsurge of Islamist terrorism such as the rise of the Islamic State and in Eastern Europe that included Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine. In April 2012,
China took over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, within proximity of the southern Philippines. China proceeded to occupy more reefs and rocks and converted them into artificial islands.
The Philippines took the case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration and won a decisive legal victory. China naturally ignored it. The US did little more than conduct naval patrols and tell Beijing to abide by international law. That the US has not ratified the 1982 UN Conventional on the Law of the Sea deprives it of credibility to admonish others in observing international rulings. China essentially got away with its unilateral takeover of land features in the South China Sea. This is why newly elected Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte travelled to Beijing and dealt with his Chinese counterpart bilaterally. The US under the Obama administration, despite its fancy rhetorical footwork, had no follow-through.
It is a damning but regrettable indictment of Mr Obama's presidency because he is so well-liked in Southeast Asia. He attended Asean-centred regional meetings time and again, and hosted Asean leaders in the US. He liked Asean, and Asean leaders liked him.
But what went well for him personally did not translate into policy achievements. The Obama foreign policy results now lie in tatters. Mr Trump may also tamper with the Iranian nuclear deal and even with smaller agreements like US rapprochement with Cuba.
For Asia broadly, so be it. What counts now is what a Trump presidency will do. Mr Obama was exceptional in his fondness for Southeast Asia. Other presidents, Mr Trump included, should not be measured by the same standards of regional meetings attendance. It is difficult to imagine Mr Trump and his eventual Asia policy team travelling as often to the region as those from the Obama administration.
Mr Trump should know that Asia is moving on with or without the US.
Many of the regional states just happen to view the US's continued engagement as critical to regional peace and stability. The US can just be a player without having to be at the forefront, bearing the burden of leadership. But if Asia, with its history of hostilities, is left to its own devices entirely, the prospects will not bode well for anyone, including the US.