Obama, Inside and Outside

The world is worried about the United States. I am not speaking just about their card-carrying enemies, but of their allies. They are apprehensive about the Obama government, a government that disengages itself from the world in a deliberate manner and when it decides to act, does so in a clumsy way.

The American retreat is natural. There is an imperial fatigue, and Obama reflects the state of the national mood, in particular the cost — in every sense — of the contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the trademarks of the Bush administration. Obama prefers to use smoother terms, such as recalibration and pivot. Essentially, it is a turn inward — a domestic turn — although accompanied by the promise of more geopolitical and geo-economic investments in the Asia-Pacific region.

The pivots are clumsy however. This Tuesday, the president is initiating a trip to the Asia-Pacific region, with stopovers in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia. (It was supposed to have been in October, but was postponed because of Washington’s partial shutdown.) Obama wants to calm U.S. allies with this visit, as China is increasingly assertive in the region and involved in various disputes about territorial waters. One concrete example is the expected announcement of the largest U.S. access to Philippine naval bases since the devolution of the vast complex of Subic Bay in 1992.

There is apprehension among the allies of [the prospect of] an American pullback, such as in the Syrian crisis, when Obama drew a red line that should not be crossed by dictator Bashar al-Assad regarding the use of chemical weapons and retreated when they were used. The message was not lost on the Russians, the great beneficiaries of the vacillations and amateurism of American foreign policy. Just look at the “invasion/noninvasion” of Ukraine — performed professionally.

And here, let us make clear that the diplomatic flaccidity of the U.S. gives a green light to a domestic public opinion that is indifferent to international trouble and desolation, whether in Syria or Ukraine. The Republican opposition, already divided between war-like and isolationistic wings, acts in an essentially opportunistic way — shooting left and right at the White House.

In this context of the White House’s miscalculations, the indifference of the American public and dysfunction in Washington, it is natural that allies such as Japan have doubts as to whether they can really count on the United States, a superpower now averse to confrontation in case of an attack, if its interests are not directly affected. And the government of Shinzo Abe does not help much with his hypernationalistic posture and even insensitivity to the cruel role of Japan in World War II. Happily, in recent weeks, Abe has given a recalibration, so as not to embarrass both the allied and American protectors.

And the promises of American commitment are badly sold. In fact, Obama exaggerated the dose with his recalibration for the Asia-Pacific. How will he concretize the job of directing 60 percent of the military activity of the U.S. toward the region by 2020? The American superpower cuts Pentagon spending, and at the same time, has commitments to being the most important policeman in the world order.

America neglected Europe like it was a museum, but it is there that the Russian dinosaur is now taking vigorous and forceful action to exert its will. And what is Obama’s essential response? There is a fusillade of rhetoric against Putin, in addition to cosmetic sanctions, while the American president dismisses the use of military force in Ukraine. It is there that we see proof of Obama’s awkward actions: neither effective diplomacy nor convincing dissuasion. As on the Pacific Ocean, American allies on the Baltic Sea question if they can count on the United States.

On this coming journey, Obama will need to calm his allies — especially the Japanese — while not infuriating the Chinese, with whom the Americans have a complex ballet of cooperation and competition. American foreign policy could end up in the worst of worlds: aggravating relations with Russia and China (without containing their advances), and at the same time, leaving U.S. allies even more apprehensive.