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It’s a cruel world out there: What will be Obama foreign policy legacy?

It’s a cruel world out there: What will be Obama foreign policy legacy?

Inevitably scholars, politicians, partisans and journalists are already starting to dissect the Obama foreign policy legacy, this while there is still a year and a half left to go in the president’s second term of office. J. BROOKS SPECTOR takes a look at some of the arguments.

Earlier this week, the writer reviewed US President Barack Obama’s week of victories, largely in domestic politics. Suddenly, from the becoming the irrelevant political vanishing act Obama was held to be, by virtue of his congressional victory on gaining TransPacific Trade Pact fast track negotiating authority, two Supreme Court decisions bolstering his political stance and securing the future of Obamacare, and that astonishing podium performance in his eulogy in Charleston, South Carolina after the tragedy there, Obama has, miraculously, been transformed into – at least temporarily – something of a sudden and mighty political colossus and a pacesetter.

Of course politics can be a particularly fickle mistress, and much could still change, driving him back into the political doldrums – or much worse – by the end of his second term. But for that final judgment, we must wait until 20 January 2016.

Most US presidents, if they gain a second four-year term, eventually head off to seek victories (or at least seeming wins) in foreign policy. The troubles of domestic politics and the usual squabbling with an independent Congress that detects weakness in a president and that dread disease of ‘lameduckness’ has usually meant a chief executive seeks solace in negotiating with other international figures, rather than Congress. At least in that environment, a president can feel he is treating with equals (or perhaps subordinates), allies and even antagonists, who similarly understand the sorrows of leadership.

One paradox of Barack Obama’s presidency seems to have been that some of his biggest foreign policy triumphs came in his early years in the White House. He was able to draw down combat forces in Iraq to near zero, to wind down the American role in the fighting in Afghanistan (following that unexpected “surge”), and to have had US special operations forces track down and dispatch al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden. All of these seemed to indicate the US was finally exiting those costly, draining engagements his predecessor had thrust the country into, all those years before.

In the middle years of his presidency, it seemed that in the international context, Obama had developed what some analysts called “constrainment” as a way of thinking of the international environment. This concept, effectively, was a choice to aim at a lessened global profile that acknowledged the link between the country’s lessened resources available for national security, the acceptance of the rise of China as a resurgent power, and his administration’s decreased willingness to commit boots-on-the-ground resources in what it had determined were strategic “loss leaders”.

Rather, the Obama administration had hoped to focus more on building a new relationship with Africa based on the power of investment and trade to grow and stabilise the continent’s many nations as opposed to aid and recognitions of failure. There was also an embrace of trade liberalisation more generally as the way forward in a world in dealing with rapidly industrialising nations from China to Chile. And all of this took place as the country remained focused on reviving an economy that had been bludgeoned by the financial crisis of 2008-9. Now, with an increasingly revived national economy featuring steady if not spectacular job growth and unemployment levels now dipping downward to 5.3%, and, not incidentally, with the Obama team’s realisation there were no more elections for them to fight, there seems to have been a new sense of possibility in international affairs again.

Within the past year, however, even as it increasingly seemed angry partisan politics had stalled his domestic goals, there was a rebirth of attention towards foreign affairs. Quiet negotiations had begun with Cuba, a nation that had been in the deep freeze as far as the US was concerned for over half a century, in order to re-establish diplomatic relations and to rebuild economic and other ties with that island. As Obama had said, standing in the Rose Garden on 1 July when he announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba, “This is what change looks like.”

After many false starts and not a few detours, the administration moved into higher gear with negotiations for a broad free trade zone spanning the Pacific Ocean littoral and including 12 major trading nations (albeit not China). The administration put down a big marker on its initial interest in Africa and on trade as the game, with a virtually all-African leaders summit focusing strongly on investment and trade rather than aid – presumably as a counter to greater Chinese involvement on the continent. And the Obama administration began to ramp up the process of reaching an agreement with Iran in order to rein in that country’s presumed intentions to establish a nuclear weapons capability, in tandem with the other P5 + 1 countries.

But on the latter, the president’s team has persistently been chivvied about by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the company of most Republicans in Congress, as well as some Democrats – all of whom are wary the Obama-driven plan provides insufficient safeguards, should the Iranians ultimately choose to circumvent the goal of the agreement. Moreover, Netanyahu’s domination of Israel’s political world continues to stymie the Obama administration’s rather less-than-aggressive efforts towards attaining a more comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement, exacerbated further by the most recent Gaza conflict.

Moreover, the president’s vision (and that of many others) of the contemporary world’s real Weltanschauung as an increasingly peaceful, pacific trading world had been rather thoroughly shaken by the steady growth of Chinese military capabilities and its carrying out of problematic testing actions. The gradual militarisation of a whole slew of tiny islets and reefs in the South China Sea has created an opportunity for actual military hostilities, if the various parties there are not extremely careful to rein in things. While there have been no hostilities between the two largest nations, there has been increasing numbers of low-level feints in cyber-conflict to keep things off balance. Then, of course, there is always North Korea and its nuclear ambitions and the vagaries of its national leadership, just to keep things hopping.

As if all this were not enough to scramble the ideas of a trade-focused constrainment-style strategic vision, too there have also been Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies aimed at recapturing strategic command of what Russia terms its “near abroad”, thereby provoking western economic and financial sanctions and a general worsening of tensions between Nato and Russia. And of course the biggest shock of all has been the catastrophic, continuing decay of order across a wide swathe of the Middle East. This has meant the unravelling of the hopes that came out of the Arab Spring – thus leading to the collapse of civil order in Yemen as well as Libya, Syria, Iraq – and, potentially, Egypt as well. Much of this downward spiral in the Middle East initially took the Obama administration by surprise. It continues to leave it uncertain of just what it must do in order to keep things from getting worse, as national structures are ground to dust and the hordes of refugees and victims continue to mount up relentlessly.

Still, in judging the Obama foreign policy record, on balance, analyst and policy strategist for several presidents, David Rothkopf, argued the other day, “Obama has been frustrated throughout his presidency by a dysfunctional Congress, by global circumstances that have confounded his own aspirations for his presidency, and by a seemingly endless series of self-inflicted wounds. For one of the luckiest men alive (and one can hardly ascend to the heights he has ascended without some luck), he has had plenty of bad breaks. And for one of the smartest and most talented presidents America has ever had, he has undeniably made his share of mistakes.

Inheriting two wars and a historic economic crisis, an obstructionist Congress, and a uniquely nasty array of bad actors (Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), it is amazing that the president got anything done at all. Further, Obama was not given the political gifts or ease of interaction with his adversaries or allies that many of his less talented predecessors had. Sometimes, it seemed this president wasn’t even trying to address the problems he faced. From Syria to congressional budget battles, he would often retreat into rationalisation and analysis paralysis. (That’s the corollary of the perfect being the enemy of the good, in which complexity real, perceived, or asserted becomes the enemy of action.)

But when Obama did try when he really marshalled the full resources of his administration or when those around him helped with the heavy lifting as it turned out, he got what he needed. He got the stimulus and the economic bailout the United States needed to lead all other developed nations in climbing out of the crisis of 2008-2009. He got Obamacare enacted and validated by the courts. He got a modicum of financial-services reform in place. He made serious moves to address global warming at home and abroad. Belatedly, he even began to take steps to reform America’s broken immigration system. Further, on the international front, where he has struggled in the past week, he crossed a major legislative hurdle that makes successful completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the biggest the United States has been a part of in a decade much more likely. And there is an Iran nuclear deal looming. And in December in Paris, it is likely there will be further and meaningful global progress on combating climate change.”

Rothkopf concluded, “Transitions like the one that has taken place in our own view of ourselves over the past six years sometimes come so slowly that we hardly notice them. And America’s economic vitality and greatness are a symphony of coast-to-coast, public-private accomplishments for which the credit hardly accrues to any one politician. But these changes have happened on Obama’s watch. He did play a vital role in stabilising a crashing economy (with considerable credit to his predecessor’s team, with which Obama worked in unprecedentedly close co-ordination during George W. Bush’s last months in office). America is not all the way back. It is not what it can be. But it is a far cry from what it was, and the transformation of the past six years is really rather breathtaking, especially when seen in the light of Europe’s continuing serious problems or the challenges that dog the Chinese, Japanese, Brazilians, and others.”

At a conference convened by Rothkopf, and demurring over this largely positive grade, another analyst, Robert Kagan, argued that the Obama administration has allowed deep cuts in the country’s overall defence posture and that “If not reversed, the deep cuts looming in defence will go a long way to undermining the US position in the world. They will even undercut the Obama administration’s efforts to make the United States a more reliable player in Asia, despite its unconvincing protestations to the contrary”.

By contrast, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former Obama administration senior staffer in the state department, argued at that same conference, “The president has repositioned the United States to be a far more nimble, flexible, responsive and effective leader in world affairs. He is systematically divesting the burdens that weigh us down (two major wars), expanding the range of tools at our disposal (diplomatic, economic, developmental, environmental. and energy e.g. a new energy bureau at the state department), and reorganising and consolidating the parts that work (see his proposal for the commerce department and associated small agencies and the reorganisation taking place at state).” But she gives the Obama administration a much lower grade in triangulating power relations between China and Europe.

Meanwhile nuclear strategy analyst Joseph Cirincione said, “Barack Obama came out early and strong on nuclear policy, with initiatives that worked. A new treaty cut US and Russian arsenals and restored critical, mutual inspections. Scores of nations agreed to lock up and even eliminate uranium and plutonium that terrorists could use to build weapons. Dozens of countries co-operated to pressure Iran and North Korea, slowing the nuclear programmes of both. All strengthened US national security. But the Iranian and North Korean programmes have not stopped; the materials are not yet secured; and US and Russian arsenals still number in the thousands, with no new agreement in sight. The combination of competing crises, a resistant bureaucracy, political opposition, and reluctant partners has slowed progress to a crawl.”

But Danielle Pletka, a Republican foreign policy stalwart, added, “But at the heart of what must, by the standards the president set for himself, be judged a failure, is what seems to be Obama’s worst sin: The president’s foreign policy lacks a guiding set of principles.”

Seemingly summing up the discussion, David Aaron Miller, foreign policy historian at the Wilson Centre think tank, concluded, “On balance, Obama has been credible and able in foreign policy, but neither the brilliant foreign transformer nor transactional negotiator and crisis manager he wanted to be. He shouldn’t take it personally; it’s a cruel world out there.”

Still, the Obama administration has a year and a half left to consolidate a foreign policy legacy – or to have it all unravel on him suddenly. The Ukraine situation could come thoroughly unstuck; the global economy may take a major hit from the unravelling of Greece’s increasingly poisonous relationship with the EU, the European Central Bank and other debt holders; there could be real trouble over one of those barely visible, fly speck islets in the South China Sea; or something even more horrible could erupt in the Middle East than has already happened. And if any of those should occur, there may be little talk of legacies by the time things have played themselves out. Just as Miller says, “it’s a cruel world out there,” but that’s only one Obama and the rest of us have to work with. DM

Photo: US President Barack Obama looks on during an investiture ceremony for Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC, USA, 17 June 2015. Lynch become the 83rd Attorney General of the United States. EPA/OLIVIER DOULIERY / POOL

Read more:

  • Obama shows you can struggle at foreign policy and still succeed as president at Foreign Policy

  • Grading Obama’s Foreign Policy – Nine experts rate the president’s performance so far, a symposium at Foreign Policy

  • In his presidential homestretch, Obama regains the momentum, a column by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post

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