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December 31, 2009
Nobel notions
The October announcement that Barack Obama would receive the Nobel Peace Prize surprised many. The overwhelming sense was that however promising a figure Obama might be, he hadn't yet accomplished enough to join the ranks of Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, or Nelson Mandela. Obama himself seemed to share similar feelings of surprise and undeservedness, which he expressed both at the original announcement and more recently at his acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway. His speech, however, was notable for more than its modesty. Indeed, it was a strong statement (or re-statement) of his key foreign policy principles, and the global reaction to the speech reflected that.
For one thing, the timing was nearly as remarkable as the speech itself. Earlier that week, Obama had announced the outcome of a months-long review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, in which he revealed his intention to send an additional 30,000 troops to that country. The irony was overwhelming -- Obama received his peace prize only days after announcing the expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. And it was not his only war, as the president duly noted. Although Obama had outlined the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq several months ago, more than 100,000 troops remain stationed in that country. Although the security situation has improved markedly, Iraq remains dangerous and unstable. A recent spate of high-casualty bombings has only served to underscore this fact, along with the Iraqi government's difficulty in passing an elections law that was a necessary precursor to an eventual U.S. withdrawal. Obama's acceptance speech also overlapped with the first week of a major climate change summit in Copenhagen, where the United States (along with other industrialized countries) faced significant criticism regarding their inaction toward addressing the problem. And of course, Obama's quick trip to Oslo fell amidst a bruising domestic debate over health care reform. This didn't add any irony to Obama's speech, but it made its substance and seriousness all the more remarkable, as it fell during period in which one might expect the president's mind to be elsewhere.
Regardless of what Obama said, then, his speech in Oslo came at a tremendously busy time for him. Despite his famed oratorical skills, it would not have been surprising if Obama had given a listless speech of little substance or issued a passing note of defensiveness regarding his recent decision to expand the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he did neither. Obama's speech -- technically a lecture, in Nobel tradition -- was a fully formed, serious articulation of his foreign policy principles. And he did not simply make a passing reference to Afghanistan. He placed Afghanistan almost at the center of his speech, as an example of a "just war" that, he argued, is sometimes necessary to maintain peace. Although embracing the emphasis on love and mutual understanding that had characterized previous winners of the Peace Prize such as King and Mother Teresa, Obama also noted that non-violence would have done nothing to stop the aggression of Nazi Germany. He rejected the false choice between realism and idealism, suggesting that human rights and democracy are important security interests but also observing that countries cannot simply impose their values on others. He underscored the importance of U.S. military force in helping to secure the peace following World War II, and he emphasized the importance of multilateral institutions and global development.
Praise for Obama's speech was remarkably widespread. Many of his supporters, both in the United States and around the world, saw in it glimpses of what drew them to Obama in the first place. It was an intellectually serious speech that spoke both of U.S. modesty but also of the country's traditional belief in the power of international institutions and in practicing its long-uttered but not-always-followed principles of human rights. It recognized the inherent complexity of issues of peace and security and expressed a sharp skepticism about the utility (and ability) of armed force to solve all security challenges. Obama also reiterated the connection between economic development in poorer countries and the national security of richer ones, which is a link emphasized by many left-leaning scholars and advocates. Conservatives, too, seemed unusually glowing in their praise. Political figures such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich reacted favorably to Obama's defense of the U.S. role in underwriting European security during the Cold War.
Obama's Nobel lecture was not without its detractors, however. Despite the fact that Obama directly addressed the irony of a wartime president receiving the Peace Prize, many in the United States and Europe felt that the contradiction undermined the spirit of the prize. They suggested that instead of using the speech to defend the role played by the U.S. military over the decades and to reassert the notion that war is sometimes necessary, Obama should have used the opportunity to rebut more vigorously the policies of his predecessor and announce the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Others suggested that he should have taken advantage of the co-incidence of his speech with (and the geographical proximity to) the climate change summit in Copenhagen. He could have reiterated not only the urgency of climate change, but also his view that it represents a security challenge, as well, and committed the United States to aggressively confronting the threat. Undergirding Obama's entire speech was the notion that the United States is a powerful country, with its own interests, and with the prerogative to defend those interests however they may be defined. As the U.S. president, this is not an extraordinary assertion for Obama to make. But as a Nobel laureate, it is. Any assertion of a privilege or right to use force, or any opinion that violence may be necessary, is anathema to the audience of a peace prize acceptance ceremony.
The most uniform characteristic of the responses to Obama's speech did not concern their substantive assessment. Implicit among the reactions, favorable and otherwise, was a remarkable sense of surprise. The surprise stemmed not from the fact that Obama has been awarded the Peace Prize -- that sentiment had peaked at the initial announcement in October -- but that the content of his speech was somehow out of character with his policies or principles. Liberal supporters in the United States and elsewhere wondered how a president who claimed to represent "change" could expand the war in Afghanistan and speak so forcefully about the occasional necessity of violent action. Conservatives were shocked to find the "socialist" darling of the left assert so unequivocally that evil existed in the world and to hear him mount such an impassioned defense of the role of the U.S. military in preserving peace and security during the Cold War.
In reality, Obama's Nobel address was perfectly in character. Substantively, it was remarkably consistent with his foreign policy pronouncements dating back to his time as an Illinois state senator. Although famous for opposing the invasion of Iraq, Obama has always been clear that he did not oppose war on principle, and that he supported the effort in Afghanistan, in particular. As U.S. senator, he did not call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, which upset many of his liberal supporters who projected onto him their own ideologies. Instead, he understood the fundamental complexity of the Iraq conflict, in which the decision to invade relied on an entirely different set of evaluative metrics than the decisions about how to manage the occupation. Obama also had regularly emphasized the connection between the individual security of people in the developing world with the immediate national security interests of those in the developed world. One of the most striking characteristics of Obama's young presidency, and a point that he highlighted in Oslo, was his singular focus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. This was a topic that has animated Obama for years and influenced much of his early work in the U.S. Senate. For any observer familiar with Obama's foreign policy principles, his Nobel speech was remarkable for its consistency and utter lack of surprise.
On a more fundamental level, Obama has long frustrated ideologues of all stripes, including (and perhaps especially) those of his own party. He has made a habit of challenging simplistic characterizations and of focusing sharply on the most pragmatic means for achieving his policy ends. This tendency is reflected in Obama's principles and his oratory, and at its worst, it can come across as too detached or technocratic. At its best, however, it can inspire observers to feel that even if Obama does not quite share their own beliefs, he is at least a rational, thoughtful politician who is open to differing perspectives. Judged by his own criteria, then, Obama's Nobel speech was nothing remarkable at all.
Foreign Policy Association, 31 December 2009
Posted by Daniel Widome at 12:24 AM to Trans-geographical, U. S. Politics | TrackBack (0)
December 05, 2009
New orientation
Between the lofty, untested principles of political candidacy and the urgent and unexpected realities of governance lies something of a middle ground, or an overall orientation that can guide a president's foreign policy and serve as a prism through which he or she can interpret global events. In the first year of his presidency, and especially in the past month, Obama's general foreign policy orientation has begun to emerge.
A convenient way of interpreting such orientations is through political and economic geography. During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy was oriented toward the containment of Communist expansion. This orientation was global in scale, but its geographic emphasis was Europe. Historically, this made sense. Both world wars had erupted in Europe, and the United States had invested significant resources in rebuilding and securing the continent after World War II. The region held a cultural affinity for millions of Americans, and it maintained close economic ties with the United States. Looking forward, the orientation on Europe also made sense. It represented the vanguard of Soviet expansion, with hundreds of thousands of troops in East Germany and the prospect of nuclear conflict representing the most dangerous security challenge in the world. Following the Cold War, the orientation of U.S. foreign policy began to drift, until 2001, when the 9/11 attacks refocused attention on the suppression of global terrorism.
Under President Obama, the suppression of terrorism still remains a paramount objective. But in his tone and his actions, it seems clear that terrorism is not the prism through which he views the world. Likewise, Obama places great value on the U.S. relationship with Europe. He has already paid several visits to the continent, and he is quite popular there. But from the U.S. perspective, the relative importance of Europe has been waning. This reality became increasingly clear in November.
During Obama's first trip to Asia this month, the president paid visits to Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea. At each stop, the importance of Asia as Obama's prevailing foreign policy orientation became increasingly clear. Of all of the countries on his itinerary, it is Japan's relationship with the United States that has most resembled the United States' relationship with Europe. Japan rebuilt itself after World War II under the protection of the United States and developed a political and economic system that was friendly to the United States' Cold War ideology. To this day, Japan houses thousands of U.S. soldiers, and disagreement over the relocation of important U.S. bases on Okinawa dominated much of Obama's discussion with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Obama also used Japan, as the oldest and most reliable U.S. ally on his itinerary, as the venue to deliver a wide-ranging speech on the importance of Asia. He emphasized the importance of long-standing U.S. treaty obligations in the region and the value of cultivating economic “spheres of cooperation, not competing spheres of influence.” Obama also announced that the United States would engage with the Trans Pacific Partnership, a regional Asia-Pacific free trade agreement that currently includes only four countries but could eventually form the basis for a much wider trade bloc.
In Singapore, Obama both reiterated a long-standing commitment in the region and began a new one. He participated in the meeting of leaders from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries, which U.S. presidents have made a habit of doing in recent years. But Obama also participated in a summit with leaders from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). This was the first time a U.S. president had met with ASEAN leaders in a formal summit, and the act carried significant symbolic value. Paving the way for the joint summit was Obama's willingness to meet with a leader from Burma, an ASEAN member but also a notoriously repressive state. Obama's meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein was the first time a U.S. president had directly interacted with a Burmese leader in over 40 years, and it was a reflection of his new strategy of trying to engage with the military regime there in the hope of encouraging reform. Obama's meeting yielded little in the way of specific concessions, but the fact that he valued deeper engagement in the region over a long-standing refusal to meet with Burmese leaders was an important shift in U.S. policy.
Obama's visit to China could be considered the heart of his trip to Asia. He held a town hall meeting with students in Shanghai and met with President Hu Jintao in Beiing. Critics have suggested that Obama left China with few concessions from the Communist regime. They note that he was unable to secure wider broadcast of his town hall meeting in Shanghai or convince the government to modify its currency policy or support a tougher approach toward Iran. On these points, the critics are correct. Whether that necessarily represents a failure, however, is not as clear. The reality is that the United States cannot dictate to China as it once could, or as it might wish to today. Not only is its economy large and growing, China also holds $800 billion in U.S. debt. It plays a significant role in financing the U.S. economy, and it has assumed a greater stake in a wider range of U.S. domestic policy than it ever has before. China has become increasingly concerned, for example, with the effect that health care reform legislation will have on the U.S. budget deficit. This is not to suggest that China can now dictate terms to the United States. But the economic and political realities have shifted such that the United States and China must now engage each other on more equal terms.
Obama's tour of Asia coincided with important developments on the other side of the United States, in Europe. In October, the European Union cleared the final hurdles toward ratifying the Lisbon Treaty (for more, see The Water's Edge, October 2009). Among the treaty's most important reforms was the creation of the posts of president of the European Council and of high representative for foreign and security policy (essentially an EU foreign minister). These positions could potentially strengthen the collective voice of the EU on the international stage. At a meeting of EU heads of government this month, Europe's leaders selected Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be president of the European Council and EU Trade Commissioner Lady Ashton of the United Kingdom as the high representative for foreign and security policy. By all accounts, these were sound selections. But neither individual has the stature of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was rumored to be in the running for the Council presidency. By selecting such obscure personalities to fill these new positions, the leaders of the EU's individual member states took a deliberately cautious approach. Instead of taking advantage of the Lisbon Treaty to create a stronger international presence for the EU, Europe's leaders sought to prolong the status quo, in which foreign policy is largely directed from the 27 national capitals of the separate EU member states. In other words, serious change was deferred.
That Obama's trip to Asia overlapped with the EU's selection of new leaders was purely coincidental. But it underscored the shifting orientation of U.S. foreign policy. Where Asia presented a series of genuine challenges to a once pre-eminent United States, Europe deferred action that would have seriously increased its global stature. This is not to say that Europe will become any less important to U.S. interests or to suggest that any other issue (such as terrorism) will fade from the U.S. agenda. Nor is the shift of attention entirely due to any conscious decision, by Obama or anyone else. Instead, geographical and political reality has coincided with the term of a new U.S. president who is eager to conduct foreign policy in a fundamentally different manner than his predecessor. Compared to the historical emphasis placed on Europe, the relative importance of Asia for both U.S. domestic and foreign policy is increasing at a dramatic rate. Meanwhile, during George Bush's presidency, many Asian leaders felt ignored by a United States preoccupied with foreign wars. During his tour of the region, Obama hoped to send the message that “the United States is back.” This is the clearest indication yet that U.S. foreign policy will become increasingly oriented toward Asia, during Obama's presidency and beyond.
Foreign Policy Association, 3 December 2009
Posted by Daniel Widome at 01:59 AM to Asia, Europe, Trans-geographical | TrackBack (0)
