Crisis without World Police

When George W. Bush moved into the White House in January 2001, he had no clue about foreign policy. Not until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 the same year did the inexperienced ex-governor of Texas become the president who marched his troops first into Afghanistan and later into Iraq. Bush availed himself of a military doctrine that had been in force since the time of the Vietnam War: Whoever provokes the U.S. should reckon with an invasion. So it was in Panama and in Grenada, so it was in the first Gulf War. The only new thing under Bush was the impudence with which the U.S. government lied and constructed a reason, under false pretenses, for the overthrow of Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein.

When Barack Obama moved into the White House in January 2009, he also had no clue about foreign policy. In contrast to Bush, however, the former senator from Illinois was honest from the beginning. Prompted by the belief that the American populace was tired of the wars, Obama promised to end the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the long term, the U.S. should also give up its role as solitary global police officer. And for a couple of years it seemed as if Obama would do exactly what those disappointed by Bush had longed for: consultation instead of going it alone, diplomacy instead of conflict.

Not to be misunderstood: Bush was a nasty hawk, not out of conviction, but rather driven by his neoconservative advisers. However, Obama is also no nice little dove of peace, and that actually is out of conviction. He reserves the right to decide which suspected terrorists are killed with unmanned drones. And that’s worldwide. War is also for Obama, in principle, an instrument of politics. He only conducts it differently than Bush — in the dark, in secret. Whether that’s better than an open battlefield remains to be seen. The number of civilians killed is in any case smaller.

The U.S. president wants to establish a new U.S. foreign policy for the 21st century, because the Americans are war-weary. They, like Obama, do not want their soldiers to have to fight a war in some faraway spot. They want “nation building” in their own country, whose infrastructure in some areas can hardly be distinguished from that of a developing country.

The U.S. Does Not Interfere Everywhere Anymore

Obama’s course is thoroughly popular in the U.S., which is why he was re-elected as president. However, the crisis in Ukraine is now revealing his limits. More than ever one must say, Obama oriented himself more on his fantasy than on reality. The Washington Post put it in a nutshell: Not everyone involved has received the memo on 21st century behavior.

In the last year, the Syrian ruler Bashar Assad did not care when Obama drew a “red line,” which would lead to an American military intervention if crossed. It didn’t come, because Obama for good reason avoided a solo intervention. Assad could have figured that out when he first heard the threat from Washington.

So a couple of weeks ago when Obama demanded that Viktor Yanukovych, then president of Ukraine, not order shots to be fired at the demonstrators in Kiev, the opposite happened. Yanukovych knew that he did not have to fear any sanctions from the U.S.

Russian president Vladimir Putin also did not have any worries about the attitude of the U.S. when he decided to reach for Crimea. Obama’s reaction would certainly remain controllable. The more so, as not even the most quixotic of the Republican rabble-rousers in the U.S. are seriously calling for a military answer to the provocation from Moscow. Little will come from Washington besides a few economic sanctions, which will cause more worries to the Europeans, if anyone, than the Americans.

In principle, Obama wants the right thing with his foreign policy. Only he cannot succeed at it. As long as the Putins of this world pursue gunboat politics in the style of the late 19th century, Obama’s foreign policy for the 21st century is doomed to failure.

At least we are looking today at the preliminary result of a development that we wished for in Bush’s time: The U.S. does not interfere everywhere anymore. It’s just that the international community has not yet learned how to handle that.