By Adriel Bettelheim CQ Staff
Published: 12-02-08
During his presidential campaign Barack Obama spoke about using diplomacy nation-building and other non-military approaches to promote U.S. interests abroad. According to this world view advancing living standards abroad could enhance security at home.
Yet Obama also displayed a willingness to use force to deal with militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and other hot spots. This apparent embrace of counterinsurgency efforts and “small wars” raised questions about how different Obama’s views really were from those of President Bush.
If the unveiling of Obama’s national security team on Monday didn’t exactly answer those questions it at least signalled that the president-elect is willing to engage in internal debates over hard power and soft power.
“I’m a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions” Obama said at an news conference in Chicago on Monday. He added “I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.”
Obama retained President Bush’s defense secretary Robert M. Gates and selected his more hawkish Democratic primary opponent Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.
Obama also tapped Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to be homeland security secretary Eric Holder to head the Justice Department retired Marine Corps Commandant James L. Jones as national security adviser and policy adviser Susan Rice to be ambassador to the United Nations.
Experts say the selections indicate Obama intends to ensure that diplomacy gets due consideration at every level of foreign policy-making. They predict his administration’s focus will pivot away from the Bush White House’s preoccupation with global threats and concentrate on relieving poverty and political oppression and on improving the United States’ image abroad. The last goal will likely entail an increased commitment to solving problems that transcend borders such as climate change and infectious disease.
“I see less unilateralism and more collaboration” said Stephen J. Wayne a professor of government at Georgetown University. “I don’t think he’s going to try to impose our values on non-western cultures. He’ll try to stem the ride of anti-Americanism and you don’t do that through a unilateral policy.”
Some clues about how the Obama administration might proceed can be found in a recently published Brookings Institution paper on diplomacy in the 21st century that incorporated the views of Jones the incoming national security adviser and former Clinton administration State Department counselor Wendy R. Sherman an adviser to Obama’s transition team.
The paper advocates using new technologies to rally groups for peaceful change noting that activists used the Facebook social networking site to generate public opposition in Colombia to the guerilla group known as FARC.
It also endorses creating a public-private partnership called the USA World Trust that would provide grants and venture capital abroad while promoting more international cooperation.
These image-burnishing efforts will evolve alongside more traditional diplomacy with foreign governments. If confirmed by the Senate Clinton as the nation’s top diplomat will have to confront an aggressive energy-rich Russia and maintain relations with China while applying diplomatic pressure on the Communist regime to document economic and political reform.
But the stickiest questions are in the Middle East where Obama will have to decide whether to fulfill a campaign pledge to remove U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office or stick to a pact negotiated by the Bush administration and Iraqi government that calls for a complete withdrawal by the end of 2011.
Though Obama has vowed to increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan some conservative skeptics say he has yet to detail what their specific mission will be or whether they will need more support from allies and the Afghan government.
Obama also will have to face an Iranian government with nuclear ambitions. Though his presidential opponent Sen. John McCain R-Ariz. took a hard line on stopping the regime from developing weapons Obama has pledged to open a dialogue without saying precisely what would happen if diplomatic efforts fail.
Beyond these challenges experts warn that Obama will have to sell his foreign policy to an American public that’s increasingly wary about interventionism in global affairs and concerned about diverting resources from the ailing economy.
“Beefing up non-military aspects of U.S. diplomacy and soft power is very consistent with the Beltway consensus we need to do more nation building and fixing failed states” said Christopher A. Preble director of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“But most people don’t want us to be the global cops or fighting other people’s wars so there’s a disconnect there. You don’t necessarily have to invest more resources to prove his toughness. It’s also about judgment and wisdom.”
