To merit the world’s respect, Obama’s effort to neutralize al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan has to show progress. He’s doing the right thing in pledging $1.5 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan and trying to get other nations to provide more.
But it’s not a good sign that NATO allies did not answer his call for more troops for Afghanistan. They will provide 5,000 trainers, but no more combat forces...
While he was overseas, North Korea fired off an intercontinental ballistic missile. Prior to that, Obama declared that, referring to United Nations resolutions against Pyongyang, “rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.”
But North Korea went ahead. And the U.N. Security Council did nothing because the United States could not persuade China or Russia to impose sanctions, or even make a menacing statement. That’s not a good sign of respect.
I've had a feeling for a while now, a rather unsettling feeling, that world leaders across the board were beginning to recognize that the wave of popularity that Obama rode into the White House coupled with his relative novice as a Commander-in-Chief could lend itself to potential strategic opportunities for their respective countries. I think a brief chronology (just a few) of the events since Obama took over could help contextualize this idea:
1. January 20, 2009 - Barack Obama becomes 44th President of the United States (POTUS)
2. February 2, 2009 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Pres. of Iran announces the first Iranian satellite-Omid-was launched into orbit on an Iranian-made rocket.
3. March 14, 2009 - Russia announces the possibility that both Venezuela and Cuba could play host to fleets of Russian Bombers.
4. March 23, 2009 - China's central bank call for new reserve currency other than the US dollar.
5. April 5, 2009 - North Korea launches multistage rocket despite worldwide condemnation the day before Obama made his call for nuclear disarmament.
All first-term presidents are new to the role of Commander-in-Chief. But Obama is new to both governing and foreign policy (he comes from a more domestic policy background); he is a genuine rookie. National Review had a number that the McCain campaign didn't seize upon luckily for Obama: the Senate was in session for 140 some-odd days before Obama announced that he was running for president.On his first overseas trip, Obama really got no love from our European allies at all. On two fronts now, the global economic crisis and the GWOT, the EU believes that it can free ride on the backs of Americans. What the EU got from Bush (post-Rumsfeld's "Old Europe" boo-boo) was tough love. Some might say that European leaders took to that approach quite well (think Merkel and Sarkozy). Obama's approach thus far has been to apologize to Europe for our "arrogance," and to back down from tough questions. It doesn't look like apologies are working well, yet.
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I tend to see relations with Western Europe as completely peripheral to more central concerns in the region, such as build-up of NATO and its encroachment on former Soviet territory. If NATO is our foreign policy instrument in the region and the means by which we're supposed to keep Russia at bay and preserve the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, then everything else kind of falls short.
ReplyDeleteIn this regard, Obama can probably do little to change foreign policy, nor, conversely, can it say much about him. The policies of deterrence, in the making since the Cold War and forever developing, will remain in place. Since the doctrine only deals between nations with tactical/strategical nuclear advantages, North Korea's little hiccup of a rocket will probably remain insubstantial to foreign policy. Therefore his reproaches, to me, are simply rhetorical. We lead the world in strategic warheads (falling short of Russia in tactical warheads), and unless North Korea suddenly acquires a thousand warheads, then we shouldn't concede a diplomatic inch to that rogue regime.
I think if Obama does actually want to change things, he'll change NATO itself by reversing Bush's policy of NATO enlargement, thus reducing the amount of members that consume security and provide none, while also appeasing Russia and tempering their nationalistic tendencies. We don't have the resources to aggress Russia and control the former Soviet bloc.
I love your blog, Pat. Keep posting!