In his first 100 days in office, President Barack Obama
completed two whirlwind tours of Europe and Latin America. His
message on both continents was simple: America has made many
mistakes in the past, but we're ready now to listen to others and
be more flexible. It was a hugely popular message that brought him
thunderous applause, particularly when he criticized or apologized
for America--to an extent that no other sitting American President
had done before on foreign soil.
The question is whether the President's personal popularity
abroad is translating into concrete results for the United States.
So far it has not. There has been no outpouring of foreign support
for U.S. priorities and initiatives. Moreover, on almost every
issue, he has raised expectations of great change in U.S. policy
but then pulled back when it became apparent that he could not meet
his promises. His trips have largely been gestures focused more on
his person than on policy, and the jury is still out as to whether
this is merely a conceit carried over from the presidential
campaign or an intentional strategy to redefine the nature of
American leadership.
The problem with promoting the person of the President as a
stand-in for U.S. interests is that it leaves America vulnerable to
the priorities of others. It is not all that difficult to get
applause from foreign audiences when you embrace their priorities
and criticize your own country. The hard part of leadership is
getting others to follow when they are reluctant to do so. Except
for some minor instances--or when Obama simply embraced already
existing policies of foreign governments--he has gotten precious
little for his efforts.
That is the main lesson from the first 100 days: It is time for
President Obama to begin focusing on the hard work of protecting
America and asserting U.S. leadership, not by trying to enhance his
personal popularity abroad, but by cashing in on that popularity
for the benefit of his country. He should stop pretending that our
interests always coincide with others--as if America were merely
the chairman of the board of international consensus--and start
discerning more astutely when they do and when they do not. He is
the President of all Americans, and he should start acting that
way.
Lost Opportunities
President Obama's personal appeal was obvious at every stop in
Europe and Latin America. No matter where he went, political
leaders rushed to shake his hand and have their pictures taken with
him.
Yet behind the scenes, Obama was not receiving the respect you
might expect from someone who was obviously trying so hard to
ingratiate himself with his foreign hosts. French President
Nickolas Sarkozy, for example, told some parliament members that he
found the new American President indecisive, inexperienced, and
clueless about Europe's plans on climate change.[1] Czech Prime Minister
Mirek Topolanek, then president of the European Union, called
Obama's request for others to follow his lead and increase their
own economic stimulus packages "a way to hell" that would
"undermine the stability of the global financial market."[2]
Much of Obama's foreign policy agenda in his first 100 days has
been to reach out to those who have been most critical of America,
like France, and to some of its most determined adversaries, such
as Iran and Russia. He gave his very first televised interview, in
fact, to an Arab television network, saying to his Muslim audiences
that "all too often the United States starts by dictating."[3]In a
video to the Iranian people, he made no mention of human rights,
instead focusing on a "shared hope" for peace.[4] Shortly into his
first term as President, we found out that Obama had sent a secret
letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev indicating that he
would consider foregoing missile defenses in Europe if Russia
helped the U.S. convince Iran to forego its nuclear program.
Yet even those efforts gained little for the U.S. Iran's
Ayatollah Khameiniresponded in a televised address by saying that
the U.S. is "hated in the world," that we should stop interfering
in other countries' affairs, and if America didn't change her ways,
"divine customs and nations" would soon "change her."[5]
Medvedev replied by acknowledging that he got Obama's secret
letter, but roundly rejected any such linkages between Iran and
missile defenses.[6] And while NATO allies did agree to a modest
increase of personnel to Afghanistan, they did not give Obama the
combat troops that he claimed he needed--and which he promised
during the campaign that he would deliver.
At the same time he reached out to U.S. critics, he played down
the interests and concerns of some of our best allies. When Obama
visited the Czech Republic, whose leaders supported our efforts to
deploy missile defenses for Europe, he acknowledged the growing
need for such defenses. Yet he then turned around and undermined
that message by saying he would not proceed with deployment unless
missile defenses are "proven" to work.[7] As anyone familiar with the Technology of these systems knows, that is a false issue; the
missile defense interceptors that could be deployed in Europe are
largely the same as the ones already operational in Alaska.
President Obama took much the same approach at the G-20 meeting.
Though he had the ears of the world, he chose not to defend America
or its free-market system and capitalism, which has helped to lift
more people out of poverty than any other economic system in
history. Instead, he agreed with foreign complaints that America
bears most of the blame for the wrongdoings that brought down the
global financial system. Little of merit was accomplished at the
meetings, which Sarkozy later characterized as a defeat for "the
Anglo-Saxon financial model."[8]
In Latin America, Obama again lost opportunities to explain and
defend American interests. He shook hands three different times
with the deeply anti-American Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and
smilingly accepted his gift of a decades-old book riddled with
anti-American arguments. He did not use the opportunity to discuss
either the Venezuelan troops stationed along Colombia's border or
the FARC rebels hiding with them, or the diesel-powered submarines
and arms that Chavez is buying from Russia.[9] He also listened
politely to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's almost hour-long
tirade primarily against America.
What President Obama should have done at the Summit of the
Americas is call a meeting on the side with our trading partners
and allies in the region--with Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and
Peru. It would have been an excellent platform from which the
leader of the world's most productive economy could have championed
the merits of open trade, highlighted best practices for addressing
some of the recent stresses to global economies, and discussed
shared concerns.
Pandering Begets Disrespect--and
Worse
The problem with the type of "engagement" we've seen thus far is
that, at some point, foreign leaders begin to see it (correctly) as
pandering. In the hard world of international policies, respect is
prized more highly than affection, personal or otherwise. President
Obama's apologies for U.S. policies are interpreted in North Korea,
Iran, and Venezuela not as an honest act of attrition that should
elicit reciprocity from them, but rather as an apology demanding
more concessions from the United States.
Such an approach has already backfired. After announcing that
his Administration would now actively participate in international
talks with Iran over its nuclear program, even if Iran did not
first suspend its uranium enrichment activities as the U.N.
Security Council resolutions on Iran demand, Iran openly
inaugurated its first nuclear fuel production complex.[10]This will allow it to produce uranium fuel
for its heavy-water reactor in Arak. But it also could enable Iran
to eventually produce the plutonium and highly-enriched uranium it
needs for nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran is a fearsome
possibility, and intelligence sources have said we may actually be
just months away from that reality.[11]
Adding insult to affront, that same day, Iran charged an
American freelance journalist, Roxana Saberi, with spying.[12]
Her case is being described as little more than a bargaining chip
for Iran in future negotiations with the West. Ahmadinejad dangled
prospects for her release as a kind of quid pro quo for our
help in securing the release of five Iranians jailed in Iraq.[13]
The Obama Administration has responded by threatening more serious
sanctions.
Matters did not go much better with North Korea. After the Obama
Administration unrealistically raised expectations that the change
in U.S. leadership would lead North Korea to become more
accommodating, Pyongyang escalated tensions by testing a long-range
ballistic missile in violation of U.N. Security Council
resolutions. Facing a test of whether his actions would match his
rhetoric, Obama fell back on threatening sanctions at the United
Nations. When the U.N. Security Council responded with a weak,
nonbinding statement criticizing the launch, the North Koreans
promptly announced that they would not only abandon the Six Party
Talks, but also resume reprocessing plutonium for additional
nuclear weapons. With less than 85 days in office, Obama faced the
growing sense that Pyongyang's belligerence is not merely a
negotiating ploy but is instead designed to secure North Korea's
recognition as a nuclear weapons state.
Even better known than the North Korea issue is the famous
effort to "reset" relations with Russia. At the G-20, President
Medvedev called President Obama a "comrade" who is "totally
different" from his predecessor. But so far, it has been a one-way
street from Washington to Moscow. Russia has done precious little
to pressure the Iranians, but it did pressure Kyrgyzstan to evict
the U.S. military from the Manas Air Base, a key cargo hub for NATO
and U.S. troops going to and coming from Afghanistan.[14]
Moscow also announced the construction of five new military bases
in the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia[15]
and sent up to 5,000 troops to each region.These deployments
violate the spirit and the letter of the cease-fire between Georgia
and Russia[16] and pose a threat
to the East-West energy and transportation corridor.[17]
For years, Moscow has wanted to restart strategic arms
negotiations, mainly to focus future cuts on U.S. bombers and other
strategic systems in which Russia thinks America has an advantage.
In an age when Cold War-style arms talks between Washington and
Moscow are but a sideshow to the larger issue of nuclear
proliferation to terrorists and rogue states, Obama's biggest
nuclear arms initiative so far has been to restart these talks with
Russia. Despite this gift to Moscow, the Russians announced that
the current economic crisis will not derail its plans to modernize
its nuclear forces and anti-satellite capabilities.[18]
They also insisted that they would not put tactical nuclear
weapons--the very systems most threatening to our allies in
Europe--on the table.
What is worse, the Russians now have an opportunity to link
deployment of U.S. missile defense sites in Europe not only to
progress on these arms talks, but also to other geopolitical
issues, such as pressuring Georgia, which Moscow has been doing all
year long. Now if Russia invades Georgia, we will have to choose
between shutting down these arms talks, which some will say is
necessary for U.S. security, or criticizing Russia's intervention
in Georgia. This would be tantamount to checkmate for Moscow.
The Great Spending Spree Exception:
National Defense
Despite spending trillions of dollars on domestic programs,
President Obama is proposing to cut the defense budget. The budget
cuts would cap the F-22 fighter fleet at some 60 aircraft less than
the Air Force last fall said it needed to maintain America's air
superiority against Russian and Chinese fighters. He also plans to
delay the Navy's next-generation cruiser, a step that could leave
the U.S. military's forward bases vulnerable to emerging air and
ballistic missile threats. And he wants to slash the very
capabilities that we will need to defend against future long-range
missiles fielded by Iran and North Korea.
History shows that the United States can afford to spend about 4
percent of its gross domestic output on defense. Yet Obama's core
defense budget for 2010 would come in below that amount by some $27
billion. Even worse, it would continue to fall to some 3.3 percent
of GDP by 2014. In fact, defense cuts for these years could be even
deeper as the Administration folds war costs into the regular
budget instead of supplemental budgets.
When, even by President Obama's admission, the world is still a
very dangerous place, why he would decide to show budget austerity
in this one area of national defense is puzzling indeed. It surely
cannot be because he feels there is not enough money for it. The
$5.5 billion real reduction Obama would make in total defense
spending from fiscal year 2009 to FY 2010 is less than the amount
he approved last month to spend on the more than 8,000 earmarks in
the spending bill.[19] The only reliable conclusion one can draw
is that he simply believes national defense is not a priority.
Consider missile defenses. The same week North Korea tested a
long-range missile, the Pentagon announced a $1.4 billion cut in
America's missile-defense budget. Under the knife would be programs
that could defend against long-range missile attacks from North
Korea as well as Iran--both regimes that are overtly hostile to
America. Defenses against short-range missiles are fine, but
short-range missiles are not the ones that could most threaten the
United States. Those include the Taepodong-2 missile that North
Korea tested on April 5. When it is fully deployed, it could reach
Alaska and California.
Programs also facing cuts include Ground-Based Interceptors
(GBI), Airborne Lasers (ABL), Multiple Kill Vehicles (MKV), and the
Space Tracking and Surveillance System (SSTS) sensor program. The
GBI system is the only operational one capable of destroying a
Taepodong-2 missile as it approaches the U.S. mainland.
Shorter-range missiles that we fire from our Aegis ships could
defend Japan, Guam, and perhaps Hawaii; but currently, they can do
nothing to stop a missile that is on a trajectory to hit Alaska or
California. We have 33 GBIs already deployed or soon to be deployed
in Alaska and California, and the military already had approval to
deploy up to a total of 44 by 2011. But Obama's budget would hold
that at 33.
Even less understandable is the decision to cut the Multiple
Kill Vehicle program. The MKV is designed to destroy not only
missile stages, but multiple warheads deployed in space. It is not
yet fully developed, but there are no discernable problems that
would account for a delay in development. The same is true for the
SSTS program, which would enable us to distinguish between real
warheads and decoys released in space to confuse our interceptors.
Both programs could mean the difference in defending against an
enemy's effort to overwhelm our missile defense system with
countermeasures. It would be understandable if we could not afford
such missile defenses, but the $1.4 billion cut from the missile
defense budget alone is only 0.04 percent of the overall proposed
federal budget.
Hide That Continuity
Strangely enough, where President Obama has done best in foreign
policy is precisely in those areas where he continued President
Bush's policies. Obama's strategy in Afghanistan is not all that
different from what Bush would have done; in fact, the strategies
were largely designed by General David Petraeus, who was appointed
by Bush. The same is true in Iraq.
Except for some minor changes on Cuba, the same is even true
with respect to Latin America. After all the hypercriticism of
Guantanamo Bay during the campaign, President Obama postponed
shutting it down for a year. Knowing full well that this will not
make him popular with his liberal base, he goes out of his way to
hide the fact that he's continuing Bush's policies. But this
doesn't change the fact he's doing best in policies that were
largely crafted by someone else.
Endearment Is Not Leadership
It may be that President Obama believes he can talk his way out
of international conflict, perhaps to enable him better to focus on
his domestic agenda, but international politics abhors an American
vacuum--and make no mistake, that is how President Obama's
"endearment" strategy will eventually be interpreted even in the
capitals of Europe. There is only one thing that worries our allies
abroad more than an overly assertive U.S. strategy, and that is
when America appears to be weak and vacillating.
Foreign policy is not ultimately about good intentions. Yes,
symbolism and gestures are not unimportant. And, yes, we should
always strive to explain ourselves adequately to foreign audiences.
And, yes, it is true that brute force without smart diplomacy is
not always effective. But we should never confuse engagement with
pandering. At some point, even the Europeans will tire of Obama's
mea culpas, particularly if they perceive them to be an
excuse for pulling back from the responsibilities of American
leadership.
It is too early to tell whether these mistakes are the result of
inexperience or an intentional strategy. We can only hope the
former and not the latter. Otherwise, we may be in for a wild
international ride of the sort we have not seen since the Carter
years.
Kim R.
Holmes, Ph.D., is Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy
Studies and Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis
Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation and
author of Liberty's Best Hope: American Leadership for the 21st
Century
(