Obama’s foreign policy

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What I hoped would be characteristic of Obama’s foreign policy went something like this.
1. Be strong where US security is involved.
2. Be reluctant to interfere inside other countries even “for their benefit.” Use all other available means first.
3. If you must go in, then go in carefully and get a lot of other countries to go with you so that it is (and appears to be) a world action.
4. Lay the groundwork for reducing the military budget (I would hope to about 3 % of GDP) AND reducing the military mission by a concomitant amount.
and finally I hoped that he would:
5. Agree with Walter Lippman’s belief that: Foreign Policy is bringing into balance the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power, with a comfortable margin of power in reserve.
Consider that dictum in light of the fact that, in the last 60 years, our GDP has dropped from 50% to 25% of the world’s GDP. Then begin moving us away from the (unsustainable) KATN (kick ass and take names) U S foreign policy and toward the next proper (and sustainable) American role in the world: that of being first among equals.

So how is he doing after 31 months in office? Well, we have some examples. This is very preliminary and therefore subject to change – probably they will not go quite as well as I hope they will. So with that caveat

In the war in Afghanistan he upped the ante and increased American forces. How it will end is not clear. But he has showed himself willing to be quite aggressive in the war widely believed to be justified for American security. As aggressive as, say, Bush 41 was.

When the pirates had Capt. Richard Phillips as a hostage Obama directed the military to take them down directly and totally. They did it with coordinated gunfire that left 3 dead and one captured. I don’t think he checked with Congress about that and I’m glad he didn’t.

In Iran I suppose that he judged that our intervening would not increase the chances of a good outcome. Obama resisted the urge to get us involved in what could easily have become our third simultaneous war with Muslims. In Egypt there was a very strong institution, the Army, which had a positive attitude and appears to be able to handle that transition without any outside help. In both of these examples I think that what Obama understands (and some of his detractors do not) is that if we jump into these situations early in a big way we will cripple the revolutionaries because they will be labeled as U S stooges (= traitors).

In Libya where, again, we could not afford another war, somebody(?) got NATO (usually thought of as an extension of the US military) to undertake a very effective action in that country. That somebody got those folks in France, whom some ridicule as “cheese eating surrender monkeys”, to take a leading role in that action. His detractors call that achievement “leading from behind”. Finally in Syria, Obama waited long time before ordering US sanctions on Syria. Some people thought it was an outlandishly long time. However, the great majority of Syria’s oil is sold to Europe. Obama and Europe have been doing a dance the last few months while they took turns increasing the pressure in Syria. The real potential for pressure in this case lay with the Europeans. Perhaps he is, again, getting the world to take a larger role. It might be appropriate here to recall Harry Truman’s observation that, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

These things are consistent with moving the U S role in the world from KATN toward first among equals.

So I will give him at least a B.

PS Napoleon famously said, “If you set out to take Vienna, then take Vienna.”
Obama’s corollary is: “If you set out to get bin Laden, then get bin Laden.”
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