The U.S. is already out of Iraq. Afghanistan remains the only major theater of military operations that continues to keep it engaged. The War on Terror (WTO), which is now euphemistically re-named "Overseas Contingency Operations", has been significantly toned down by the Obama Administration. With the end of 2014 being the deadline by which it intends to withdraw the majority of its armed forces from Afghanistan, the U.S. is planning to take on a more assertive role where it matters the most in the twenty first century: the Asia-Pacific region.

This region is fast catching up with the imagination of American strategists. Almost the entire range of American foreign policy ideologues uphold the Asia-Pacific region as fast emerging as an extremely important region that would parallel only the Middle East in terms of its centrality to world economy and geo-politics.

It is not uncommon to hear many Western thinkers proclaim this region where the center of gravity of world politics and economics come to meet one another. With the U.S. determined to preserve its military and geo-strategic superiority in the twenty-first century, American strategists are counting a great deal on the Asia-Pacific region.

The strategic plan is to drastically increase American involvement in and engagement with the countries in the broader Asia-Pacific region. In preparation for this, the U.S. is strengthening strategic ties with an array of countries in this vast region.

Australia, Vietnam, India, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia are on the list. The U.S. sits between the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Atlantic on the other. This makes the U.S. consider itself as a bona fide pacific country that is entitled to the right of increasing involvement in the Pacific region.

In tandem with increasing American involvement in this region, the NATO too, considering itself as a global force led by the U.S., is gradually building on its involvement with the region and is deepening military partnerships and associations with a large number of Asia-Pacific countries.

What is interesting is that the ongoing military endeavor by the NATO in our country Afghanistan is providing this military alliance with a perfect opportunity to diversify and deepen military to military and government to government partnerships and associations with a wide array of countries many of them in the Asia-Pacific region.

Thanks to the ongoing Afghanistan war, the NATO now is expanding relations with such countries as Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia, Georgia and many other such countries that happen to be strategically significant to the NATO and American global military agenda.

China is one major Asia-Pacific country and emerging power that has the U.S. worrying. The 'core' national interests of China seem to be in conflict with those of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region. As an emerging power with a burgeoning economy and double digit growth rate in annual military expenditure, China is the only major Pacific power that remains out of the current Western-dominated international economic and political system.

It is increasingly finding the capacity to challenge the "national interests" and the perceived geo-political and geo-strategic superiority of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region. For the U.S., "containment" of China is a priority in the Asia-Pacific region as well as on a global scale.

From Latin America to Africa and onwards to the Pacific region, the U.S.'s global strategy has one dimension in terms of locking into China's increasing commercial and economic interests worldwide. China looks at the Asia-Pacific region as its strategic space and regards the U.S. as an external, extra-regional power that is only bent on expanding its hegemony in this region.

The U.S., on the other hand, has responded by strengthening its military presence in the region. The U.S. just recently signed a pact with Australia during Obama's visit to that country that allows it to station more than 2000 Marines in the north of Australia. This proved to be yet another irritant for China and worked to increase China's suspicion of American intentions in the region.

The American designation of the Asia-Pacific region as a geo-strategic priority area was evident during Obama's visit to Australia. He hit out at China on a number of issues and requested it to act as a "grown-up" and make good on its responsibilities as a responsible member of the global community.

In his speech to the Australian Parliament, he criticized China for maintaining an "unfair" economic advantage through manipulating its currency's exchange rate. The list of America's economic grievances is long and with the economic outlook in the U.S. grim, the U.S. and its band of live-wire senators and politicians are quick in pointing towards China and blaming it for many economic ills of the U.S.

Many speculate that an eventual military conflict between the U.S. and China is inevitable given these two countries' divergence of perceived national interests in the Asia-Pacific region and the fact that neither China nor the U.S. seem to be willing to compromise on them.

A brief glimpse into the history of previous wars including both the World Wars confirms this hypothesis. Major conflicts have always arisen on account of an emerging power's perceived and expanding national interests impinging on that of another global power.

In the case of China and the U.S., this makes many commentators speculate about an eventual conflict between the two countries. However, at the current juncture, one cannot speculate so with any measure of certainty. There are many factors that go into making a military conflict possible and as yet, we do not know them in entirety.

At any given stage, it is possible for both China and the U.S. to accommodate one another's interests. At present, neither of the countries and governments wants any military confrontation. On the other hand, the U.S. and China are intimately inter-dependent economically.

This inter-dependence is only set to grow further in coming years. The U.S. is a massive consumption market for the consumer goods produced by China and exported to the U.S. On the other hand, the U.S. is a major debtor to China. Some $800 billion of American debt instruments such as the Treasury bills and Notes are bought by China. China is the largest creditor of the U.S.