Obama: A Very Tempered Multilateralism

Ever since Barack Obama’s election, the interpretations of his diplomacy have been numerous. Until now, two have prevailed. The first one took for granted a transition to a multilateral strategy, imposed by both Mr. Bush’s failure and the relative weakening of the United States after the 2008 financial crisis. The second, defended notably by the French government, anticipated the risk of a “Carterization” of American politics; politics with good intentions but very modest results. Today, in hindsight, both these interpretations are showing their limits. American diplomacy is multilateral only by default and Mr. Obama’s quiet strength, which is too quickly confused with indecision, is now starting to bear fruit.

For Mr. Obama, as for Mr. Bush, the goal is still the same: Affirm the primacy of the USA in the world. However, in contrast to his predecessor, who strove to reach that goal by crushing others, Mr. Obama is clearly seeking to make American leadership more legitimate and perhaps even more appealing. But this doesn’t mean in any way that the USA is inclined to share power with others or to accept the rules of multilateralism without conditions.

In reality, Mr. Obama relies on three complimentary methods, in decreasing order of importance: unilateralism in vital situations for the United States, selective bilateralism with all countries that matter to the United States and, finally, residual multilateralism when the first two options are insufficient or unsuitable. The USA’s weak interest in multilateral solutions is obvious in areas of strategic importance for American power: finance and business.

Admittedly, the United States congratulates itself for the creation of the G-20 and ritually expresses its wish to establish new worldwide regulations. But in fact, nothing gets done, simply because the American establishment has not yet reached a consensus about the best possible architecture to do so. The U.S. will probably not truly reactivate the G-20 until they have defined the best solution for themselves. In the meantime, along with the British, they are worried about the European Commission’s wishes to regulate hedge funds.

On the business front, the multilateralism slowdown is even more present. The U.S. has resigned itself to not having a multilateral treaty with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and is more hopeful than ever to promote its commercial interests through bilateral trade. In addition, when dealing with China for example, the revaluation of the Chinese currency seems much more important to the U.S. than the additional expansion of emerging countries’ markets.

The second axis of American diplomacy is bilateral inspiration. It is concentrated on three key countries: Russia, China and Pakistan. Having successfully sought an agreement with Russia on the limitation of nuclear weapons, the Obama administration was pursuing three goals: rationalize an oversized nuclear arsenal, give credibility to the anti-proliferation and disarmament argument (which doesn’t fail to worry many countries, including France) in the eyes of the international community, and obtain Moscow’s political support concerning Iran. In exchange, Washington renounced the useless provocations that are the result of the extension of NATO to the Ukraine and the construction of an anti-missile shield.

With China, the stakes are even more colossal and everything in Washington is now thought of in terms of the inexorable management of the Chinese-American duopoly. Compared to the Soviet-American duopoly, the Chinese-American one shows never before seen characteristics. Indeed, Beijing doesn’t have the ambition to ideologically and militarily dominate the world, as the Soviets did. There is therefore no real Chinese threat, especially with an understanding of the scope of the economic interdependence between China and the United States. On the other hand, the Chinese challenge is much more fearsome because, in contrast to Soviet power — which was only strategic — Chinese power is progressing on many fronts.

In a way, China integrated into the Western model of power: Ensure economic domination before moving on to other means of power. Therefore, Chinese-American competition is real. But the chances that it will deteriorate are extremely slim since the two countries need each other so much.

The third actor on which Washington is strongly betting is Pakistan. At odds with the Bush administration, which had clearly bet on India and had settled on treating Pakistan as an increasingly Islamized lout, the Obama administration is betting on the stabilization of this key country. The die has not yet been cast, but it seems on both sides that the necessity of getting along has taken over the imposing accumulation of misunderstandings and acrimony of the last 20 years. Washington understood that it would be impossible to stabilize Pakistan without granting it space in the Afghan issue or without taking its grievances against India (such as Kashmir) seriously.

In fact, unknowingly, this diplomatic activism leaves little room for multilateralism or those who call for it, like the Europeans do. This is nothing surprising. The United States is not prepared to invest in multilateralism unless it would allow it to move its priorities forward. And, in most of the important cases, multilateralism is a clear set back. The Iranian case, which is extremely strategic for the USA, in reality is only falsely multilateral, as the actors that are really influential are limited in number. In fact, they imposed their own rhythm and ignored French alarmism, not so much by naivety as by strategy.

On climate change, the striking failure of Copenhagen has traumatized Americans much less than Europeans, and for good cause. In Copenhagen, Mr. Obama was first and foremost seeking an agreement with China without worrying in the least about the political absence of the Europeans. Obama’s America offers to the world a face that is much more likeable than that of his predecessor. But it is time for Europe to open her eyes and face the facts: She cannot expect anything from America as long as she has given up expecting anything of herself.