Really, it's sad to remember the day when millions of people were killed in Japan because of kamikaze attacks of Pearl Harbor. Not to offend anyone, but the US was not a force to be reckoned with and Japan should have surrendered instead of being selfish and letting all those people die.
If only all of our enemies would surrender when we asked them to!
Also I've got some comments on the brown townysis in general.
Any discussion of Pakistan and Afghanistan should also include more than one sentence on India in the discussion. I think your position on Pakistan keeping India in check is somewhat inaccurate as well, India is an important ally and trading partner of the United States and can serve an important role in the long term stability and peace of the region. Pitting them against each other to keep each other in check is a poor strategy, instead the goal should be the normalization of relations between India and Pakistan so that trade can grow between the two nations, bringing more money and development to both regions. I'd be totally fine with India being a super power or extending its influence into the Middle East.
Israel isn't a magical military power house, despite having one of the best trained and most well equipped nations in the world, a lot of its power in the region stems from the fact that it's allied with the US. If relations between the US and Israel ever soured (which doesn't seem likely anytime soon), they would not be in a very good position. They really don't have any friends in the Middle East at all.
The issue of "Palestinian terrorists vs Israeli Defense Force" isn't quite as clear cut as that, unless you're a conservative leaning foreign policy think-tank in the US. I don't really have much of an opinion on the issue either way beyond they should stop fighting, but if you're going use terms like terrorists or freedom fighters you should examine the history that led up to that point as well as argue why they are or are not terrorists. The other issue with this is that Israel is perpetually fighting a multi-front war even when they're at peace, and going to war with another power in the Middle East would stretch their forces thin across both the internal and external fronts. Unless the US came to their aid, which I can almost guarantee would have happened in a Republican controlled Congress and to be honest would probably also happen in a Democratic controlled Congress, unless the lower house is also controlled by Democrats (the House of Representatives tends to hold more extreme views then the Senate). I'm not sure what the influence of tea-party Republicanism would be though, which range from hawks to anti-war on the basis that it is expensive. In any case it's quite possible that the President would intervene immediately, regardless of Congressional approval or not, since presidents in the past several decades seem to have no problem doing it. In general war in Israel doesn't seem very likely to me but I have not thoroughly researched it.
Regarding China being an island, that's actually an interesting observation. However; it could eventually connect into the Trans-Siberian high speed rail that will theoretically cross the Bearing Strait and allow for direct trade with the US and European markets by train if it ever gets built.
I would also argue that foreign trade in China has nothing to do with the social unrest in China, this has to do entirely with some controversial social policies and corruption in the government which has been increasingly posted to microblogging services like Sina Weibo.
The US doesn't need to strengthen ties with Australia because we already love them and they are contact countries in NATO. Also their main exports are citrus fruit and dangerous animals. We also already have a naval basses in Hawaii, Japan, South Korea, Guam, and the British Indian Ocean Territory. If we ever needed to use Australian naval bases we could probably just make a visiting forces agreement with them, I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't agree to it. It's cheaper than building our own bases over there. I also don't think it's very likely that we'll even need a large offensive military presence in the Pacific. Who are we going to fight?
Your brown townysis of China keeping Japan occupied because it needs to be more aggressive is also odd. Japan has very little in the way of an offensive military, it's almost entirely composed of defensive measures, and the nation is strongly pacifist. Most of it's "territorial disputes" consist "this ocean should be called the sea of japan" and "this
tiny piece of rock in the ocean belongs to us, not you korea." Honestly these arguments are frankly some of the most embarrassing arguments in the entire universe and I have no idea why these countries keep arguing of these stupid loving rocks that have a little over 1 square kilometer of land, none of which is valuable, and are only accessible by boat. All indicators point to Japan trying to remain an industrial and research oriented country, and everything their leaders have said up to the present supports this position. Except those stupid loving rocks. I hope global warming covers them up, although in all likelihood Japan and Korea would probably still argue over rights to the ocean above the islands.
In general I think the entire "pit our rivals against each other so they become weak" is outdated, I think a more modern approach is "foster international cooperation, growth, mutual understanding, and trade so they all become strong."
Another area of interest that I think you could look into is comparing and contrasting the role of the United States and the roll of China currently in development in Africa. You'll probably find it very interesting and probably a little surprising. It's a bit like the proxy wars of the Cold War, except it's being fought entirely economic development, and China's winning, largely because the United State's has scattered and unorganized programs in Africa and they're all on the chopping block because of the current budget and political climate. What exactly we want out of Africa is unclear as well. Less people dying? More trade? Political stability? Meanwhile the Chinese government knows exactly what it wants and how to get it, and they're doing it all through private business and partnerships.
Also for anyone interested in foreign policy I recommend Foreign Policy magazine and Americas Quarterly. If you ever have to write a paper on something it's a good place to start to find some current issues. A library is also a good place to look, I just discovered that my library has an entire book case full of books on the role of water in foreign policy, including two entire shelves about just water in the Middle East.
