Obama and 'Soft Power'

Although divided as it seldom has been before, the American political elite is united in labeling President Obama’s foreign policy a complete failure. The hasty flight from Iraq, a stark contrast to the plans for an organized withdrawal that the administration had previously discussed, the “zero sum” game with Syria, plus the neurotic attempt to evade Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and the surreal attempt to reach peace in the Middle East, along with the administration’s lack of response to the reckless behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin with respect to Ukraine: Both right- and left-wing Americans cite all of these factors as strategic failures.

Some analysts declare that the problem is due to Obama’s lack of experience in managing his role as president of the United States. Others accuse him of being obsessive and narcissistic, and some even refer to a brutal disconnect between reality and the president’s perception of the world, which he interprets in his own way, a way that amounts to absolute fantasy. I admit that I am among those who adhere to the latter opinion. Nevertheless, given the string of nonsense coming out of the Obama administration, it’s time to contribute some new ideas and reflections.

For example, what if the perception of failure is due to Obama’s refusal to do what the critics — on the right as much as on the left — want the U.S. to do? And what if Obama is succeeding in what he hopes to accomplish?

Let’s look deeper. In the Obama era, the U.S. lost a great deal of its prestige as a superpower committed to a determined vision of the world because of his refusal to assume leadership in defense of this reputation wherever it was threatened. But why is Obama rejecting this vision? Why does he not want the U.S. to exercise global leadership? Has Obama retained the ideas from his years as a student, in which it was fashionable to say that the U.S. was a great imperialist power that intimidated weaker nations in order to impose its will through military force or economic power? If we reflect on these questions, the president’s foreign policy could begin to make sense. In this context, his behavior would not be the result of inexperience or naiveté, but a deliberate strategy to restructure the U.S. and redefine its place in the world.

To be fair to the American president, his desire to make the U.S. “a different place” is no secret. His primary campaign slogan in 2008 was “Change.” And what do you change? There’s no doubt that you change things that you don’t like, and it’s obvious that what Obama doesn’t like is the post-Cold War U.S. model. In those days, after having signed a cooperation agreement with NATO, Putin was asking Washington to provide financial help for Russia. The Middle East was also working to adapt itself to the U.S. “freedom agenda,” and in Tehran, the mullahs were offering their services to Washington in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama’s goal is the re-establishment of the U.S. as a “soft power,” and he has demonstrated this on many occasions. The president abandoned the Bush administration plans for NATO’s expansion in the Caucasus and Central Asia; he rejected plans to maintain the antimissile shield in Central and Eastern Europe in order to placate Russia, and he shut down the smart missile bases in the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe. He didn’t support plans to attract Arab states to NATO, and he cut back the U.S. military presence all over the world, especially in the Middle East. The reduction of troops in Afghanistan, along with the promise to withdraw completely before the end of this year, followed the withdrawal from Iraq. The brutal assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Libya lead to political scrutiny in the administration, which was uncomfortable, but also psychologically important. It demonstrated that with Obama, in terms of punishing enemies, the U.S. had returned to the position it held before commanders William Bainbridge and Stephan Decatur in the early 19th century.

Obama’s determination to shape the U.S. into a “bigger Norway” hasn’t been limited to foreign policy. He has also pushed massive cuts to security and defense spending, which reduced the size of the U.S. Army. Today, U.S. air and naval forces are at their lowest operating point since the World War II. In 2019, when the timeline for the cuts is complete, the U.S. will no longer have the military capacity to wage two wars simultaneously, an ability that has been a key element of U.S. military doctrine since 1980.

Obama’s restructuring strategy also includes the government’s increasing role in the domestic economy, as proposed legislation in economics, labor and social security demonstrates, as well as the participatory acquisition of General Motors, and an avalanche of regulatory legislation that is at the very least foreign to American sensibilities.

Supposing that Obama wants to emulate Nordic social democracies, one has to admit that his foreign policy has been dazzlingly successful, although it promoted a decline in U.S. leadership. Today, after almost two terms of Obama, the number of people who respect and admire the U.S. worldwide has not risen or fallen, but the number of those who fear it has decreased by 60 percent.

As I see it, I would say that instead of mocking Obama’s inexperience or naiveté, his critics should take his ideological choices very seriously. And this is the starting point from which its implications should be explored in order to analyze its potential impact, while inviting Americans to reflect on their president’s vision for his country’s role in the world.