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Obama’s Foreign Policy

Obama’s Foreign Policy. Week of September 17, 2012. Obama: Renewing American Leadership. Note significance of title: Renewal Leadership Foundations for rethinking renewal and leadership:

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Obama’s Foreign Policy

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  1. Obama’s Foreign Policy Week of September 17, 2012

  2. Obama: Renewing American Leadership • Note significance of title: • Renewal • Leadership • Foundations for rethinking renewal and leadership: • Go beyond merely chasing security and using the military to deal with events: require a vision that includes spreading freedom, prosperity, modernization. These are good for pragmatic reasons as well as expressive of US identity and values. • Understanding that contemporary threats to US and to world order are more complex than in the past. Come not only from states. • But recognizing the complexity of and difficulties presented by these threats doesn’t mean retreating into isolationism; thus the need for an activist vision.

  3. Specifics of Vision • Go back to what was common in previous administrations regarding an activist role for the US in the world based on US interdependence on and embeddedness in the world (not just a leader standing above the world) • Part of embeddedness is that US security is caught up in the overall peace and prosperity of the world outside the US. US cannot be secure unless world is, and the US must help attain that larger security– it won’t happen spontaneously nor be accomplished by other countries without US leadership.

  4. Specific Policies • Get out of Iraq and focus on the larger Middle East • Support Israel but also work towards creation of a 2-state solution. • Use diplomacy to deal with Syria and Iran • Use force unilaterally if necessary to protect the US, but do so in concert with other powers when possible. • Enforce non-proliferation measures, get support for a comprehensive test ban treaty, cancel new generation of nuclear weapons, prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear program.

  5. More policies • Go after terrorists wherever they are • Foster modernizationin the Islamic world, including democracy and economic development • Rebuild alliances, partnerships, international institutions • Cooperate and compete with the PRC as needed • Increase support for democracy, economic development and health around the world

  6. Drezner: Does Obama Have a Strategy? • Poses the question of whether a grand strategy is necessary and what amount of harm would be incurred by not having one. • Posits that one advantage of having one is that, if announced, it reinforces the effects of actions. Therefore, if one is to have a grand strategy, it is best that it be articulated. • For Obama: • Initially had a well-articulated strategy that did not work well • Has pivoted to a different strategy that is working well, but it is not well articulated.

  7. Grand Strategies in General • Are the attempts to articulate national interests and to join that discussion with a discussion of how operational plans will further those interests. • Are generally difficult to change • Good grand strategies are not necessary for powerful countries because it is their power, not their strategies, that count most. An adequate strategy is good enough. • Are usually most helpful during times of uncertainty. • Now is a time of uncertainty

  8. Obama’s Strategies • Initial strategy was one of Multilateral Retrenchment: • Depend more on multilateral channels, including more cooperation with Russia and China • Pull back from commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, forward deployment in War on Terror. • Assessment: • Increased US standing in the world but did not increase policy leverage. This result was due to • Fact that soft power not as effective when there appears to be a lack of willingness to use hard power • Neither China nor Russia saw themselves as partners of the US • Other countries did not see Obama’s attempt at using multi-lateral means as anything less than self-serving: saw it as US attempts to get those other countries to help it provide for public goods, whereas US had been supplying those good by itself previously.

  9. Strategies • Second strategy was one of forceful response, or “Counterpunching”: • Entails a more assertive policy in which the administration responds energetically to challenges by competitors and allies • More assertive balancing against threats (pivot to Asia) • Reassurance to allies that the US will not revert to isolationism • Reassertion of American exceptionalism • Emphasis on rebuilding domestic strength to provide the means for meeting international challenges.

  10. Problems with Reset Strategy While more successful than the first strategy, the Counterpunching strategy does have difficulties: • In cases such as the Middle East, it makes the US look like a revisionist power challenging the status quo (for example, support for the Arab Spring) • Focusing on domestic strength runs the risk of legitimizing the introduction of partisan politics into what is otherwise been understood as the bipartisan realm of foreign policy.

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