The Obama Doctrine

Eight days ago, the United States laid out a new National Security Strategy. The White House sent a 52-page document to Congress that identified the most serious threats to the future of the superpower and delineated the principal tools it will use to confront them in the middle of the severe economic crisis. After 16 months, the American government presents the “Obama Doctrine.”

The Democrats’ strategy sums up an interesting vision of foreign politics and the ideal international order the United States is looking to construct. This vision differs drastically from that of the previous document, issued by George W. Bush in 2002, just a few months after the attacks of September 11th. One of the most visible differences appears in the use of military force. While in the previous version Washington defended its use as a preventative measure — an argument put forward to invade Iraq — it now recognizes that the army is a “last resort” that should be accompanied by international support. In summary, less unilateralism, less eagerness for war and more room to maneuver for diplomats. Without a doubt, critics are already asking if this desire for “engagement with non-democratic regimes” will translate to a soft hand with Iran, North Korea or Russia, some even including Venezuela.

The “Obama Doctrine” also erases the concept of a “global war on terror.” For the current government, the enemy is not “a religion — Islam, [but a] war with a specific network, al Qaida, and its terrorist affiliates.”* These paragraphs have been interpreted as an olive branch offered to many moderate sectors of the Muslim world that felt stigmatized in the Bush years. At least on paper, the publication of this document marks the end of the maximalist doctrine that led the United States to assert itself in two interminable conflicts (in Iraq and Afghanistan), to institute torture as a valid means of combat, to arbitrarily christen various countries an “axis of evil” and destroy their moral authority as a democratic nation.

For Washington, the war on terror is not the one and only axis of national security — rather, there exists a diverse range of threats ranging from climate change, to nuclear proliferation, to cyber attacks. The strategy also includes public debt, economic prosperity and technological change as fundamentals of security. It is no surprise that in moments of social distress, unemployment, and open war on two fronts, authorities link their future as a superpower to economic stimulus. In spite of the clear breaks contained in the document, Obama’s foreign evaluation talks more of continuity than change.

Narcotrafficking, present in the ’90s as a threat to American security, is conspicuous by its absence, as well as mentions of Colombia in particular. The worries of the government are turning to the border with Mexico and the drugs, arms, and illegal immigrants that cross it daily. It is confirmed yet again the little weight that Latin America and the war on drugs pull in the mental map of White House officials.

America has already found itself obliged to recognize the irrepressible emergence of young powers like Brazil, China and India, and to propose cooperation with them. This is the dose of pragmatic realism with which Obama has replaced the doctrine of expanding American-style democracy at gunpoint that Bush poisoned the planet with for seven years. Today there are still places where that heritage of war is still smoking.

*Editor’s Note: The original National Security Strategy document uses the spelling “al-Qa’ida.”