Honolulu – Visiting America’s Pacific-based military forces, one gets the clear impression that they feel their countrymen are finally catching up with their views on the growing Chinese threat to Asian stability. Yet they worry that smaller budgets will make their job harder, and they know that the Asia-Pacific region will be watching to see whether Washington follows through on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s newly declared intention to oppose Beijing’s attempts to pressure smaller Asian nations over territorial issues. How the Obama administration shapes its Pacific strategy and manages relations with China will go a long way toward determining whether the United States retains its dominant position as a stabilizing force in the region.

To talk with the professionals at Pacific Command or Pacific Fleet is to return to what most landlubbers consider the bygone maritime world of Herman Melville or Joseph Conrad. Names such as Oceania, Palau, and the Lombok Strait regularly come up in conversation — not as vacation spots, but as places in which the United States is constantly engaged, wary of China, and planning how to maintain or expand its influence. Such is the worldview of the 325,000 U.S. military personnel under the command of Adm. Robert F. Willard.

In Hawaii, the benign view of China often expressed in Washington political circles is all but absent. Though clearly acknowledged, China’s economic power and its ostensibly positive political role in dealing with global issues are seldom discussed. For those at the tip of America’s Pacific spear, China’s aggressive policies and actions in recent years have immediate impact. They are not simply the fodder for talk shows or political salons.

Above all, there is a recognition that America is at a crossroads in deciding how it will play its role as the guarantor of regional stability. The future budget environment looks “lean,” in common parlance, making it harder to maintain U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region, and making it more likely that America will have to struggle to catch up to changing military balances, political alignments, and multilateral initiatives. For those who are forward deployed in the Pacific, “presence” is more than a description of how they operate; it is, rather, the essence of who they are. They believe that American ships, planes, and personnel must constantly interact with allies, partners, and even those who may be competitors. Such presence is crucial to creating pro-U.S. sentiment and alignments, especially given China’s dramatic increase in diplomatic and economic activity across the region.

Unfortunately, Washington, D.C., has become a growing obstacle to Pacific Command’s ability to do its job. While Pacific Command’s leaders publicly assert that they will continue to fulfill their mission, everyone looking at the issue knows that shrinking budgets, fewer ships in the Navy, and an aging Air Force will put severe stress on the force, diminishing its effectiveness. Shipbuilding plans show shortfalls in submarines, destroyers, and other surface ships over the next 30 years. Already, steaming time and flight hours are down, although officials avoid providing specifics. All of this cuts at the heart of operations in Pacific Command’s 100-million-square-mile area of responsibility, stretching from the West Coast of the United States to the Indian Ocean, and containing half the world’s population and 36 separate countries, including four of the most populous and powerful (China, India, Russia, and the U.S. itself).