President Obama has no foreign policy

[sana8410]

I’ve been hearing this, or a variation of it, quite a bit from my family and others from my hometown which means it has been a popular mantra on both Fox News and/or conservative talk radio. It’s also; from a professional and academic standpoint, completely false.

President Obama is more of a neo-Liberal when it comes to International Relations Theory (in his actions at least), with a tinge of realism which has been so pervasive in our historical domestic foreign policy formulation and discourse. To this end, president Obama tends to favor (with some exceptions as mentioned above) a generally multilateral approach to foreign engagement, he likes to work through international institutions, is a much stronger wielder of soft power, and prefers a more nuanced foreign policy approach than many of his predecessors (especially neoconservatives) who often relied on straightforward / simple, unilateral realist approaches.

This can be seen in most of his foreign relations dealings during his two terms here (save for our Israeli, and to a lesser extent: Egyptian policies, which is where that realist twinge comes into play).

His approach to Libya is a good example, where he went through the UN Security Council, worked with NATO and kept a limited engagement policy, preferring to work with and through other actors including the Arab League.

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[sana8410]

President Obama’s stances represents a less blunt foreign policy, but just because it requires one to pay closer attention and consider more variables does not make it non-existent, incoherent, or inconsistent. Neocons have gotten us too used to direct realist approaches to foreign policy, in an age when realism is waning as a useful practical style of foreign engagement.

Some examples of strong realist countries: Russia, Israel, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia (more or less).

[Balthazar]

He has only one major problem, lack of intellect and political will. Absence of foreign policy is nothing more than consequence.

Is he a socialist or liberal? Nobody cares because ideology doesn't matter when idiot tries to implement it in the real life. Idiot communist, idiot socialist and idiot liberal will have identical results.

[umair127]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

[Rigon]

I imagine he has a policy in mind always, but I have to say it seems inconsistent to me. I can't decide whether I don't have the information, he is over thinking things, or he is incapable of implementing the policy.

[sana8410]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

[sana8410]

Another aspect of conflict is the expansion of markets into rural regions and the natural up rise that we see during such change. This is readily apparent in places like Nigeria, and Mali. Likewise the Central African and South Sudanese issues long predate President Obama's Administration. Blaming him for your personal feelings of insecurity in the world (when in fact we are much likely safer now from terrorism due to the dismantling of most of Al Qaeda Central) isn't very appropriate.

[umair127]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

[scryptasicminer]

Obama is just a sock puppet for something greater than himself.

Imperialism.

[Chef Ramsay]

Obama is just a sock puppet for something greater than himself.

Imperialism.

Yep and unless he's using his executive power to reign in the black ops of the CIA and their arming and training of terrorists in the middle east, then he's no better than the so-called neocons and their unilateral approach. It's like he's setting the table again to set the east on fire and then the neocons can take over and do what they do best. The only man capable of stopping all of this is Rand Paul and hopefully he knows what it takes to get elected President.

[zolace]

I’ve been hearing this, or a variation of it, quite a bit from my family and others from my hometown which means it has been a popular mantra on both Fox News and/or conservative talk radio. It’s also; from a professional and academic standpoint, completely false.

President Obama is more of a neo-Liberal when it comes to International Relations Theory (in his actions at least), with a tinge of realism which has been so pervasive in our historical domestic foreign policy formulation and discourse. To this end, president Obama tends to favor (with some exceptions as mentioned above) a generally multilateral approach to foreign engagement, he likes to work through international institutions, is a much stronger wielder of soft power, and prefers a more nuanced foreign policy approach than many of his predecessors (especially neoconservatives) who often relied on straightforward / simple, unilateral realist approaches.

This can be seen in most of his foreign relations dealings during his two terms here (save for our Israeli, and to a lesser extent: Egyptian policies, which is where that realist twinge comes into play).

His approach to Libya is a good example, where he went through the UN Security Council, worked with NATO and kept a limited engagement policy, preferring to work with and through other actors including the Arab League.

What website do I go to in order to get all this information about what we're doing in the world? If there was a newsletter I would read it often. This stuff is important and it is almost completely unknown to Americans.


Also, while I don't see you advocating it, I wonder how you would address someone who equated neoliberal foreign policy with, not necessarily "nonexistent" foreign policy (which for some reason seems to be a relatively new Fox News trope?) - but maybe a "weak" foreign policy.

To put it a bit differently: is neoliberal foreign policy compatible with American Exceptionalism so to speak? (I think the latter is pretty dangerous, but my feeling is that it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.)

[sana8410]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

[umair127]

Why does Obama take a realist approach towards Israel and Egypt policy, vs a neolib mentality everywhere else?

[sana8410]

Why does Obama take a realist approach towards Israel and Egypt policy, vs a neolib mentality everywhere else?

That's a good question. I think some of it has to do with domestic political interests. We may not agree with Israel's approach in its international dealings, but it's Israel and US political realities has meant that publicly at least we have to support it. Other parts have to do with our security and interests overseas which both countries play a role in (though I would argue less so in Israel's case). Egypt has a lot of strategic interest for us so we are more inclined towards a realpolitik approach there (not the same thing as realism, but one is generally associated with the other).

[sana8410]

To be fair to realists, it HAS been the dominantly employed tactic throughout much of history; I would argue that it has rapidly lost value though as an overarching policy guide with the development of better communications technology, the development of strengthening international institutions, more inter-connectivity through economic cooperation (which makes those international institutions necessary), and the emergence of powerful non-state actors. It has been diminishing over time, with its last big boost in the US being the result of the Cold War and embodied in the Neo-Conservative US political movement and subsequently made incredibly unpopular again via President George W. Bush. Kissinger and Nixon are perhaps a couple of the better US examples of active realism within foreign policy. Reagan as well, and even George HW.

[Daniel91]

Why does Obama take a realist approach towards Israel and Egypt policy, vs a neolib mentality everywhere else?

That's a good question. I think some of it has to do with domestic political interests. We may not agree with Israel's approach in its international dealings, but it's Israel and US political realities has meant that publicly at least we have to support it. Other parts have to do with our security and interests overseas which both countries play a role in (though I would argue less so in Israel's case). Egypt has a lot of strategic interest for us so we are more inclined towards a realpolitik approach there (not the same thing as realism, but one is generally associated with the other).

It seems everything in politics generally, not just foreign policy, is about interest, not justice or ethics.
Nobody want to be involved in any world crisis if there is no benefit to gain like petrol reserve in Iraq for example.
Nobody really cares about simple human suffering and life.
Because of such selfish policy none of the biggest world conflicts are not solved until now (Middle east conflict, south and north Korea, Former USSR area etc.)
It's obvious that President Obama is not different from other politicians.
First interest, and long after that justice and help.

[umair127]

Why does Obama take a realist approach towards Israel and Egypt policy, vs a neolib mentality everywhere else?

That's a good question. I think some of it has to do with domestic political interests. We may not agree with Israel's approach in its international dealings, but it's Israel and US political realities has meant that publicly at least we have to support it. Other parts have to do with our security and interests overseas which both countries play a role in (though I would argue less so in Israel's case). Egypt has a lot of strategic interest for us so we are more inclined towards a realpolitik approach there (not the same thing as realism, but one is generally associated with the other).

It seems everything in politics generally, not just foreign policy, is about interest, not justice or ethics.
Nobody want to be involved in any world crisis if there is no benefit to gain like petrol reserve in Iraq for example.
Nobody really cares about simple human suffering and life.
Because of such selfish policy none of the biggest world conflicts are not solved until now (Middle east conflict, south and north Korea, Former USSR area etc.)
It's obvious that President Obama is not different from other politicians.
First interest, and long after that justice and help.

You're right, Obama is aggressively taking solid action to rectify Syria, the Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and didn't hesitate to act before ISIS got to the gates of Baghdad. He's a real go getter. You're also right about the state of the world. It's never been more harmonious.

[sana8410]

#BringOurGirlsBack
An excellent social media campaign that brought attention to a situation that had been grossly under-reported on for years and one that has lead to a couple of new military operations against Boko Haram and to a region wide coalition between English and French speaking states against the group.

[sana8410]

I’ve been hearing this, or a variation of it, quite a bit from my family and others from my hometown which means it has been a popular mantra on both Fox News and/or conservative talk radio. It’s also; from a professional and academic standpoint, completely false.

President Obama is more of a neo-Liberal when it comes to International Relations Theory (in his actions at least), with a tinge of realism which has been so pervasive in our historical domestic foreign policy formulation and discourse. To this end, president Obama tends to favor (with some exceptions as mentioned above) a generally multilateral approach to foreign engagement, he likes to work through international institutions, is a much stronger wielder of soft power, and prefers a more nuanced foreign policy approach than many of his predecessors (especially neoconservatives) who often relied on straightforward / simple, unilateral realist approaches.

This can be seen in most of his foreign relations dealings during his two terms here (save for our Israeli, and to a lesser extent: Egyptian policies, which is where that realist twinge comes into play).

His approach to Libya is a good example, where he went through the UN Security Council, worked with NATO and kept a limited engagement policy, preferring to work with and through other actors including the Arab League.

What website do I go to in order to get all this information about what we're doing in the world? If there was a newsletter I would read it often. This stuff is important and it is almost completely unknown to Americans.


Also, while I don't see you advocating it, I wonder how you would address someone who equated neoliberal foreign policy with, not necessarily "nonexistent" foreign policy (which for some reason seems to be a relatively new Fox News trope?) - but maybe a "weak" foreign policy.

To put it a bit differently: is neoliberal foreign policy compatible with American Exceptionalism so to speak? (I think the latter is pretty dangerous, but my feeling is that it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.)

Unfortunately isn't one source. A couple that I use though to keep up to date on international affairs are as follows (you can pick and choose):

1.) Reuters: (a decent place to get general overviews of world news, go to their world section and click on the 'more world news' link on the center of the page).

2.) Relief Web: is a UN sponsored news aggregation site that deals with both conflict and natural disasters / disease. you can search by country, or what I do is simply read through their 'Updates' section every day).

3.) Institute for the Study of War: carries updates on Iraq and Syria (including updated maps)

4.) The Long War Journal: Is a bit more neoconservative in its opinions, but posts updates on the global war on terror (so mostly Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). They also report SITE Intelligence findings which is a good way to stay up to date without having to pay hundreds of dollars for the SITE subscription.

5.) IRIN: is linked to the UN and is updated a couple of times per week with in depth humanitarian news.

6.) The Jamestown Foundation: has a couple of publications, a daily one about China, a daily one about Russia / Europe, a weekly one about the Caucuses, a bi monthly one involving terrorism analysis, and a publication on terrorist leader profiles.

7.) Combating Terrorism Center: produces a monthly PDF on reports concerning terrorist theory and activities and the occasional in depth longer report on a specific topic.

8.) Foreign Affairs: The name pretty much speaks for itself. if you register you can get a couple of articles free every month, otherwise you have to pay for it.

9.) Africa Confidential: A publication that the Bureau of African Affairs receives with updates on key issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

10.) International Crisis Group: I mostly read their longer published reports which tend to be quite good.

11.) Human Rights Watch: Humanitarian news updates, I skim them and mostly read their in depth reports / PDFs.

12.) Amnesty International: Same as Human Rights Watch

13.) BBC News: Decent world news source, ok reputation, a little slow sometimes to update though.

14.) Al Jazeera English: Pretty similar to BBC description, only this is influenced by Qatar

15.) Al Arabiya: Saudi Arabia's version of Al Jazeera English

16.) IHS Janes: Security analysis, some stuff free, some requires a subscription.

17.) Economist Intelligence Unit: In depth analysis of different countries, you can usually find some of their material online for free after it's been published for a while, otherwise a subscription is required.

18.) Council on Foreign Relations: General foreign relations content.

19.) Brookings Institute: Same.

20.) Foreign Policy Magazine: Self explanatory, requires a subscription though, like Foreign Affairs you can register for free to read a couple of free articles every month.

21.) UN News: Self explanatory, you can also explore other UN pages.

22.) AllAfrica: African news

22.) Local news sites: Reading local news sites also helps since they tend to report on both the details of what is going on and on how the United states is interacting with them. Some I use include: Radio Dabanga (Sudan), Sudan Tribune, Radio Tamazuj (South Sudan), Radio Okapi (DRC), Daslan Radio (Somalia), Sabahi (Horn of Africa), Shabelle (Somalia), Yemen Times, Bangkok Post (Thailand), Irrawaddy (Burma), Democratic Voice of Burma, Karen News (Burma), Sahara Press Service (Western Sahara), Haaretz (Israel), B'Tselem (Israel), Times of India, etc.

[sana8410]

Also, while I don't see you advocating it, I wonder how you would address someone who equated neoliberal foreign policy with, not necessarily "nonexistent" foreign policy (which for some reason seems to be a relatively new Fox News trope?) - but maybe a "weak" foreign policy.

The "weakness" and "leading from behind" lines have been pretty popular among realists / conservatives as ways to attack President Obama. I'm fine with criticism of President Obama's foreign policy, there are some areas where I am highly critical as well; but these two lines are pretty generic, and they have never really included any specifics. That is to say, they have never been accompanied by a detailed examination of President Obama's foreign policy. Like the lines that I addressed in my first post, they are mostly just thrown out there with rather shallow commentary because they sounds nice and appeal to viewers, but they don't really mean much.

The truth is that President Obama has been tougher on many states than even more hawkish presidents have been. President Obama was FAR tougher on Libya and Gaddafi than Reagan was (and more successful too) yet there President Obama was accused of "leading from behind". We've been far tougher on North Korea as I already mentioned, and on Iran through our sanctions regime, and tougher with China in the South Sea disputes.

Being tough can be useful, but it is completely wasted and downright destructive if that is your only tactic. I'd point to Bush in Iraq as an example, we went in crushed Saddam and then disbanded the Iraqi military and their civil society and forbade Saddam party men from holding office. Tough, but incredibly stupid, and it was at that moment that we lost Iraq. We are still fighting those people and it was the wedge that allowed people like Maliki to create Shia hegemony and groups like the AQI grow and encourage sectarianism. We only saw that get significantly better under a more neo-liberal approach (the surge followed by the Awakening).

The other main "weakness" argument ties into our dealings with Russia and I think it is simply silly. The conservative notion put forth through venues like Fox News, was that Russia saw that we were weak under Obama and took the opportunity to invade another country knowing he didn't have to fear our response. A very realist attitude / bias, and one that completely ignores the fact that Russia did the exact same thing under a very aggressive and "strong" US president: George W. Bush when it attacked Georgia and occupied South Ossetia. And in the current Ukraine scenario we have been much tougher on Russia than any US president since the Cold war.

The evidence for the weakness argument simply isn't there, or at least I have never seen anyone able to actually provide it. Neo-liberalism and constructivism requires a stronger understanding of other international actors in order to understand what is going on (which isn't popular in our media since they prefer to reduce things to sound bytes that viewers are hungry for). So unless you pay close attention I can understand why it might look like "weakness", but if you actually examine the issues in detail I find two things: 1.) Sometimes success and progress is more important than simply acting tough and hawkish. 2.) Neo-liberal approaches can be just as tough, if not tougher (since it tends to be able to utilize a wider range of pressure points) than realist approaches.

[sana8410]

To put it a bit differently: is neoliberal foreign policy compatible with American Exceptionalism so to speak? (I think the latter is pretty dangerous, but my feeling is that it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.)

I think that Secretary Kerry pretty much summed it up when he asserted that he thought that the US was exceptional, but that he recognized that others felt the same way about their country. I also don't understand the need to feel particularly exceptional to the point of pissing everyone else off / talking down to them. I'm not so insecure in myself or my country that I feel the need to put ego stroking ahead of the physical interests of my state and ahead of my own well being. We're already obviously a major superpower and global player, do we really need to feel like we are imposing Pax Americana on the rest of the world on top of that?

[sana8410]

Ironically enough, I stumbled across an article on president Obama's foreign policy and realism while reading through Foreign Policy:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...gin_redirect=0

I agree with much of what the author says concerning realism with Israel, and China; I thought he made a good point concerning the initiation of the events in Ukraine and western alignment of Ukraine closer to the EU (which would be a pretty realist move, though it is also somewhat standard US policy to support such protests), and disagree somewhat with his labeling the ISIS response a full on realist approach (which I think would be better embodied by the opinions of politicians like John McCain). I'd be more inclined to see it more closely linked to President Obama's favoring of limited engagement over large scale unilateral action, even with this limited engagement he has been coalition building with Germany, France, Turkey, and the UK.

[umair127]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

And I find it unlikely I would spend the time required to put such an outline together. I just don't have enough continuous time to sit and write it out, and I just never have enough patience to go back to something over and over. I've had a reasonably successful career of making decisions on the best available information, and moving forward. I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks, especially when I know I don't have access to the type of information needed to make anything but a philosophical decision...which is kind of pointless. But for a fairly general idea of why I feel his policies are inconsistent, this is a broad, generalized, albeit thin article:

http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer...oreign-policy/

[zolace]

Interestingly enough concerning these conservative soundbytes, the single strongest and most obvious example of a contradictory and realist general foreign policy within the Obama Administration is our policy towards Israel. After an initial rocky start with the country when we tried a peace process, we've switched over to a majorly realist and conservative one. It is one of the most unilateral and globally alienating policy platforms that we have, and yet when conservative commentaries seek to point to President Obama's 'contradictory' nature they almost never point to our Israel policy unless it is to criticize him for not being supportive of Israel enough (which is laughable, especially relative to other US administrations). This to me seems to indicate that they are less interested in an actual honest analysis of President Obama's foreign policy styles and his consistency and more interested in simply bashing him because it is popular among viewers.

[sana8410]

Umair127,
I can certainly understand that, and thank you for the article. Concerning its contents I had a few qualms. Regarding some of the main points for President Obama's lack of foreign policy:

1.) Drones

The article points to President Obama's use of drones first. A good target to pick given how they've been used, especially in Pakistan. But a couple of things to point out here: 1.) Drone usage was well under way in multiple countries under the Bush administration, it was merely a secret program back then, one which was largely revealed via wikileaks (particularly our drone program in Yemen). Prior to this, the host countries usually took credit for them publicly which makes early drone data highly underestimated. That being said President Obama has escalated the program, and has had to do so publicly unlike his predecessor. But the author suggests that this has all been done unilaterally, which hasn't been the case at all. In fact, in order to carry out drone operations we count on, on the ground local support for the program and most of the time, on governmental support as well.

In Yemen, the government used to take direct responsibility for our strikes and we require Yemeni intelligence reportings to track and pick targets. In Somalia we've had troops on the ground for years assisting, have worked closely with a much stronger Somali government (unlike Bush) and more closely with Kenya (in particular we made sure that pirates could be tried in Kenyan courts), and all done in support of a broader AU mission (AMISOM). Nothing unilateral about that. In Mali we utilized them amidst an international coalition, particularly strong with France but also with the AU (also unheard of during the Bush Administration).

The big shift has been in Pakistan. Through most of our drone operations there we have depended on US paid tribal militias and the support of the Pakistani government; a situation which has only recently changed. But that also comes from a more nuanced understanding of Al Qaeda's roots and a new targeting of the Haqqani Network. We've certainly cut back our drone campaign since then though, especially in Pakistan (which is where most of our drone actions had taken place anyway), much to the criticism of realists, war hawks, neocons, and general conservatives. so far this year we've only carried out seven strikes in Pakistan (compared to our peak of 117 in 2010). At the moment, our primary theater for drone strikes has been in Yemen which has the support of the Yemeni government.

2.) Iraq

The author states that Iraq exposes President Obama's hypocritical foreign policy the best. It's another good area to jab at him, but I disagree with the overall assessment by the author. Or rather, I disagree in the face of a lack of argument from the author. There is no supporting evidence provided by him when it comes to why he finds President Obama's stance on Iraq contradictory and non-existent. He just throws the soundbyte out there like Fox News does.

The only clue he offers is that we "aren't doing enough in the face of vitally threatened US interests). But he never details what those are. As we discussed earlier in another thread when I talked of a containment policy that stemmed from the reality that the ISIS isn't a direct threat to the US or to main US interests at the moment; not as long as it can be contained and that's exactly what President Obama has been doing with our airstrikes and multilateral efforts to support the Kurds while simultaneously working with Gulf States to cut off the group's funding and with Iran to pressure a regime change away from Maliki (which has just taken place). The author simply doesn't provide anything here to suggest what he finds contradictory with this policy, and I haven't heard anyone else formulate an argument for it either.

3.) China:

The only other thing the article talks about is China, but not really in the context of US foreign policy (but I've already mentioned our response to the South Sea disputes and our Pivot Towards Asia).

So in the end the article bases it's entire argument on pretty much only one aspect of President Obama's foreign policy platform: his use of drones; which, even if one were inclined to ignore what I mentioned about them above, it would still account for only a very small fraction of President Obama's foreign policy platform which wouldn't be nearly enough to render him "inconsistent" overall, let alone "non-existent".

[umair127]

Umair127,
I can certainly understand that, and thank you for the article. Concerning its contents I had a few qualms. Regarding some of the main points for President Obama's lack of foreign policy:

1.) Drones

The article points to President Obama's use of drones first. A good target to pick given how they've been used, especially in Pakistan. But a couple of things to point out here: 1.) Drone usage was well under way in multiple countries under the Bush administration, it was merely a secret program back then, one which was largely revealed via wikileaks (particularly our drone program in Yemen). Prior to this, the host countries usually took credit for them publicly which makes early drone data highly underestimated. That being said President Obama has escalated the program, and has had to do so publicly unlike his predecessor. But the author suggests that this has all been done unilaterally, which hasn't been the case at all. In fact, in order to carry out drone operations we count on, on the ground local support for the program and most of the time, on governmental support as well.

In Yemen, the government used to take direct responsibility for our strikes and we require Yemeni intelligence reportings to track and pick targets. In Somalia we've had troops on the ground for years assisting, have worked closely with a much stronger Somali government (unlike Bush) and more closely with Kenya (in particular we made sure that pirates could be tried in Kenyan courts), and all done in support of a broader AU mission (AMISOM). Nothing unilateral about that. In Mali we utilized them amidst an international coalition, particularly strong with France but also with the AU (also unheard of during the Bush Administration).

The big shift has been in Pakistan. Through most of our drone operations there we have depended on US paid tribal militias and the support of the Pakistani government; a situation which has only recently changed. But that also comes from a more nuanced understanding of Al Qaeda's roots and a new targeting of the Haqqani Network. We've certainly cut back our drone campaign since then though, especially in Pakistan (which is where most of our drone actions had taken place anyway), much to the criticism of realists, war hawks, neocons, and general conservatives. so far this year we've only carried out seven strikes in Pakistan (compared to our peak of 117 in 2010). At the moment, our primary theater for drone strikes has been in Yemen which has the support of the Yemeni government.

2.) Iraq

The author states that Iraq exposes President Obama's hypocritical foreign policy the best. It's another good area to jab at him, but I disagree with the overall assessment by the author. Or rather, I disagree in the face of a lack of argument from the author. There is no supporting evidence provided by him when it comes to why he finds President Obama's stance on Iraq contradictory and non-existent. He just throws the soundbyte out there like Fox News does.

The only clue he offers is that we "aren't doing enough in the face of vitally threatened US interests). But he never details what those are. As we discussed earlier in another thread when I talked of a containment policy that stemmed from the reality that the ISIS isn't a direct threat to the US or to main US interests at the moment; not as long as it can be contained and that's exactly what President Obama has been doing with our airstrikes and multilateral efforts to support the Kurds while simultaneously working with Gulf States to cut off the group's funding and with Iran to pressure a regime change away from Maliki (which has just taken place). The author simply doesn't provide anything here to suggest what he finds contradictory with this policy, and I haven't heard anyone else formulate an argument for it either.

3.) China:

The only other thing the article talks about is China, but not really in the context of US foreign policy (but I've already mentioned our response to the South Sea disputes and our Pivot Towards Asia).

So in the end the article bases it's entire argument on pretty much only one aspect of President Obama's foreign policy platform: his use of drones; which, even if one were inclined to ignore what I mentioned about them above, it would still account for only a very small fraction of President Obama's foreign policy platform which wouldn't be nearly enough to render him "inconsistent" overall, let alone "non-existent".

On drones, it's no secret Obama has massively increased the operation, getting into sovereignty violations even Bush was leery of doing.

On the rest, you seem to be suggesting a conservative bias from the author. I don't think that's accurate. It was a short newspaper article that I pointed out in advance was thin. If you really want to see the fleshed out versions, I imagine his books would supply that. He seems to be well respected.

[zolace]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

And I find it unlikely I would spend the time required to put such an outline together. I just don't have enough continuous time to sit and write it out, and I just never have enough patience to go back to something over and over. I've had a reasonably successful career of making decisions on the best available information, and moving forward. I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks, especially when I know I don't have access to the type of information needed to make anything but a philosophical decision...which is kind of pointless. But for a fairly general idea of why I feel his policies are inconsistent, this is a broad, generalized, albeit thin article:

http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer...oreign-policy/

So I'm trying to follow your thinking on this generally.

In my estimation, Sana has provided a wealth of information to anyone who will read it, which demonstrates that Obama has a clear foreign policy with the glaring exception of Israel.

If you maintain that the president doesn't really have a foreign policy, one possibility is that you see Sana's information as incomplete and/or not representative of Obama's work. Another possibility is that you don't recognize neoliberal foreign policy as foreign policy at all (though that is sort of absurd). Another is that the Israel inconsistency voids everything else, in which case I'd wonder how inconsistent Obama is, on the whole, respective to other presidents. Then finally I wonder if this is an issue where you've decided and moved on, as you say, in which case I wonder under what circumstance you would revisit a decision when new evidence is provided.

[zolace]

I thought I was doing alright keeping up on things. There are three news e-publications which I read thoroughly, daily, and a few more I read less frequently. That's about to change, thanks to the above recommendation from Sana who evidently reads about 8 times more news than me. But for now, my idea of doing alright seems pretty pedestrian. I wonder if you're in the same boat as me, but are less welcoming to Sana's argument, owing to less of an inclination to appreciate affirmations of the president's successes.

I'm stubborn as shit, I know how this works.

[sana8410]

Umair127,
I can certainly understand that, and thank you for the article. Concerning its contents I had a few qualms. Regarding some of the main points for President Obama's lack of foreign policy:

1.) Drones

The article points to President Obama's use of drones first. A good target to pick given how they've been used, especially in Pakistan. But a couple of things to point out here: 1.) Drone usage was well under way in multiple countries under the Bush administration, it was merely a secret program back then, one which was largely revealed via wikileaks (particularly our drone program in Yemen). Prior to this, the host countries usually took credit for them publicly which makes early drone data highly underestimated. That being said President Obama has escalated the program, and has had to do so publicly unlike his predecessor. But the author suggests that this has all been done unilaterally, which hasn't been the case at all. In fact, in order to carry out drone operations we count on, on the ground local support for the program and most of the time, on governmental support as well.

In Yemen, the government used to take direct responsibility for our strikes and we require Yemeni intelligence reportings to track and pick targets. In Somalia we've had troops on the ground for years assisting, have worked closely with a much stronger Somali government (unlike Bush) and more closely with Kenya (in particular we made sure that pirates could be tried in Kenyan courts), and all done in support of a broader AU mission (AMISOM). Nothing unilateral about that. In Mali we utilized them amidst an international coalition, particularly strong with France but also with the AU (also unheard of during the Bush Administration).

The big shift has been in Pakistan. Through most of our drone operations there we have depended on US paid tribal militias and the support of the Pakistani government; a situation which has only recently changed. But that also comes from a more nuanced understanding of Al Qaeda's roots and a new targeting of the Haqqani Network. We've certainly cut back our drone campaign since then though, especially in Pakistan (which is where most of our drone actions had taken place anyway), much to the criticism of realists, war hawks, neocons, and general conservatives. so far this year we've only carried out seven strikes in Pakistan (compared to our peak of 117 in 2010). At the moment, our primary theater for drone strikes has been in Yemen which has the support of the Yemeni government.

2.) Iraq

The author states that Iraq exposes President Obama's hypocritical foreign policy the best. It's another good area to jab at him, but I disagree with the overall assessment by the author. Or rather, I disagree in the face of a lack of argument from the author. There is no supporting evidence provided by him when it comes to why he finds President Obama's stance on Iraq contradictory and non-existent. He just throws the soundbyte out there like Fox News does.

The only clue he offers is that we "aren't doing enough in the face of vitally threatened US interests). But he never details what those are. As we discussed earlier in another thread when I talked of a containment policy that stemmed from the reality that the ISIS isn't a direct threat to the US or to main US interests at the moment; not as long as it can be contained and that's exactly what President Obama has been doing with our airstrikes and multilateral efforts to support the Kurds while simultaneously working with Gulf States to cut off the group's funding and with Iran to pressure a regime change away from Maliki (which has just taken place). The author simply doesn't provide anything here to suggest what he finds contradictory with this policy, and I haven't heard anyone else formulate an argument for it either.

3.) China:

The only other thing the article talks about is China, but not really in the context of US foreign policy (but I've already mentioned our response to the South Sea disputes and our Pivot Towards Asia).

So in the end the article bases it's entire argument on pretty much only one aspect of President Obama's foreign policy platform: his use of drones; which, even if one were inclined to ignore what I mentioned about them above, it would still account for only a very small fraction of President Obama's foreign policy platform which wouldn't be nearly enough to render him "inconsistent" overall, let alone "non-existent".

On drones, it's no secret Obama has massively increased the operation, getting into sovereignty violations even Bush was leery of doing.

On the rest, you seem to be suggesting a conservative bias from the author. I don't think that's accurate. It was a short newspaper article that I pointed out in advance was thin. If you really want to see the fleshed out versions, I imagine his books would supply that. He seems to be well respected.

Indeed; I stated as much. The author's argument wasn't that he was against drone usage in general, but that it represented a unilateral militant act of Obama's in direct violation of the sovereignty of other states. This of course isn't true for a vast majority of our drone attacks during President Obama's time in office.

[umair127]

As far as I know, he wasn't discussing his own opinion of drones, and drones were were merely an example of inconsistency. I don't believe he actually has a background in journalism. He's a political scientist specializing in political risk. His perspective would be on the consequences of inconsistency.

[sana8410]

As far as I know, he wasn't discussing his own opinion of drones, and drones were were merely an example of inconsistency. I don't believe he actually has a background in journalism. He's a political scientist specializing in political risk. His perspective would be on the consequences of inconsistency.

Right. But he didn't explain how. Or rather he hinged everything on the notion that they were unilateral actions that violated the sovereignty of other countries, which, for the vast majority of our drone strikes, hasn't been the case. He is pointing to only a handful of strikes in Pakistan in a sample size of hundreds, and he wasn't just talking about that small sample either, he was incorrectly making the accusation against the entire program (hence his death figures).

[sana8410]

I don't believe he actually has a background in journalism. He's a political scientist specializing in political risk. His perspective would be on the consequences of inconsistency.

Yeah, I read his bio. He wouldn't have been able to pass his PhD though without adhering to those standards in his thesis (or at least I would hope that he wouldn't). He should know better, so I find it to be a fairly poor standard for an academic as well. I guess it is a blog article, but hell I put more thought than that into some of my anonymous forum posts let alone anything associated with my actual name.

I guess the point is that his argument was poorly supported (almost not at all) and that the entire blog post read more like a soundbyte than an honest attempt at academic or journalistic discourse.

[umair127]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

And I find it unlikely I would spend the time required to put such an outline together. I just don't have enough continuous time to sit and write it out, and I just never have enough patience to go back to something over and over. I've had a reasonably successful career of making decisions on the best available information, and moving forward. I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks, especially when I know I don't have access to the type of information needed to make anything but a philosophical decision...which is kind of pointless. But for a fairly general idea of why I feel his policies are inconsistent, this is a broad, generalized, albeit thin article:

http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer...oreign-policy/

So I'm trying to follow your thinking on this generally.

In my estimation, Sana has provided a wealth of information to anyone who will read it, which demonstrates that Obama has a clear foreign policy with the glaring exception of Israel.

If you maintain that the president doesn't really have a foreign policy, one possibility is that you see Sana's information as incomplete and/or not representative of Obama's work. Another possibility is that you don't recognize neoliberal foreign policy as foreign policy at all (though that is sort of absurd). Another is that the Israel inconsistency voids everything else, in which case I'd wonder how inconsistent Obama is, on the whole, respective to other presidents. Then finally I wonder if this is an issue where you've decided and moved on, as you say, in which case I wonder under what circumstance you would revisit a decision when new evidence is provided.

I have never even suggested that Obama doesn't have a foreign policy. Or at least I never intended that. If I did, point it out and I'll correct it. What I've said is that I find it is inconsistent.

In point of fact, there are aspects of Obama's policies I'm very supportive of, whereas I was pretty much opposed to most of the Bush policies. I'm fairly laissez faire in terms of military adventurism, and I appreciate him being that way in some things. But then he turns around and does stuff that seems totally contrary. Drones are the easiest example, because anyone and everyone in the middle east despise the US for them. It doesn't really fit in with his commentary. Egypt is another example. I could go along with dropping Mubarrak like a hot turd because...well, he was one. But to then turn around and support a military coup over a democratically elected leader is...inconsistent. Now I'm fairly disinterested in the opinion of people in the middle east in reference to drones, but I'm interested in the consistency of policy or lack thereof. Hopefully that made sense to you.

[sana8410]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

And I find it unlikely I would spend the time required to put such an outline together. I just don't have enough continuous time to sit and write it out, and I just never have enough patience to go back to something over and over. I've had a reasonably successful career of making decisions on the best available information, and moving forward. I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks, especially when I know I don't have access to the type of information needed to make anything but a philosophical decision...which is kind of pointless. But for a fairly general idea of why I feel his policies are inconsistent, this is a broad, generalized, albeit thin article:

http://blogs.reuters.com/ian-bremmer...oreign-policy/

So I'm trying to follow your thinking on this generally.

In my estimation, Sana has provided a wealth of information to anyone who will read it, which demonstrates that Obama has a clear foreign policy with the glaring exception of Israel.

If you maintain that the president doesn't really have a foreign policy, one possibility is that you see Sana's information as incomplete and/or not representative of Obama's work. Another possibility is that you don't recognize neoliberal foreign policy as foreign policy at all (though that is sort of absurd). Another is that the Israel inconsistency voids everything else, in which case I'd wonder how inconsistent Obama is, on the whole, respective to other presidents. Then finally I wonder if this is an issue where you've decided and moved on, as you say, in which case I wonder under what circumstance you would revisit a decision when new evidence is provided.

I have never even suggested that Obama doesn't have a foreign policy. Or at least I never intended that. If I did, point it out and I'll correct it. What I've said is that I find it is inconsistent.

In point of fact, there are aspects of Obama's policies I'm very supportive of, whereas I was pretty much opposed to most of the Bush policies. I'm fairly laissez faire in terms of military adventurism, and I appreciate him being that way in some things. But then he turns around and does stuff that seems totally contrary. Drones are the easiest example, because anyone and everyone in the middle east despise the US for them. It doesn't really fit in with his commentary. Egypt is another example. I could go along with dropping Mubarrak like a hot turd because...well, he was one. But to then turn around and support a military coup over a democratically elected leader is...inconsistent. Now I'm fairly disinterested in the opinion of people in the middle east in reference to drones, but I'm interested in the consistency of policy or lack thereof. Hopefully that made sense to you.

And you've really picked the two areas here that I've really been the most unsure of here with regards to President Obama's foreign policy. Our Drone policy in Mali and Somalia is pretty consistent with his political statements. Yemen and Pakistan though has a different tinge due to the lack of a broader picture (that is to say our major policies there tend to be the drone strikes, more so for Pakistan than Yemen).

I didn't have Pakistan on my earlier list because I haven't been able to figure it out well myself. Out of all of the global terrorist threats to the US and our interests the two most dangerous ones are AQAP in Yemen and the Haqqani Network / remnants of al Qaeda Central in Pakistan. Our drone program had already been established in both of these places when President Obama came into office and to be honest Al Qaeda was "on the run" (at least Al Qaeda Central) under President Bush long before President Obama came into power. The drone campaign, coupled with our invasion of Afghanistan and a freak bit of cooperation from Iran had really damped them.

[umair127]

I thought I was doing alright keeping up on things. There are three news e-publications which I read thoroughly, daily, and a few more I read less frequently. That's about to change, thanks to the above recommendation from Sana who evidently reads about 8 times more news than me. But for now, my idea of doing alright seems pretty pedestrian. I wonder if you're in the same boat as me, but are less welcoming to Sana's argument, owing to less of an inclination to appreciate affirmations of the president's successes.

I'm stubborn as shit, I know how this works.

I've also mentioned several times there may well be lots of information at his fingertips that I'm not privy to that would change my mind. And I keep looking through what Sana8410 posts looking for a pattern or tidbit that would make me say..."ahhhh". But I haven't seen it yet. I'm not terribly partisan unless I'm trying to draw someone out, which I certainly do from time to time. Not so much from Sana8410, as he personally is very consistent.

[umair127]

As far as making a decision and moving on, there would be no purpose in my doing that. I was describing why I wasn't really suited to long posts at this point. I can't make any decisions on the actual subject because I don't have the information to make it. So I remain skeptical. There are only a few people here I pay much attention to here to try and gain perspective. Both you and Sana are amongst those people, as I've received good info from both of you. There are others as well, but only a few. And these are the only reason I still post here at all.

[sana8410]

I thought I was doing alright keeping up on things. There are three news e-publications which I read thoroughly, daily, and a few more I read less frequently. That's about to change, thanks to the above recommendation from Sana who evidently reads about 8 times more news than me. But for now, my idea of doing alright seems pretty pedestrian. I wonder if you're in the same boat as me, but are less welcoming to Sana's argument, owing to less of an inclination to appreciate affirmations of the president's successes.

I'm stubborn as shit, I know how this works.

I've also mentioned several times there may well be lots of information at his fingertips that I'm not privy to that would change my mind. And I keep looking through what Sana8410 posts looking for a pattern or tidbit that would make me say..."ahhhh". But I haven't seen it yet. I'm not terribly partisan unless I'm trying to draw someone out, which I certainly do from time to time. Not so much from Sana8410, as he personally is very consistent.

I am not as familiar with Central Asia so I struggle to find effective alternative policy options for Pakistan in combating that actual threat to us. I'm not sure it's as much a matter of consistency as a matter of not really having any better options other than perhaps inaction (other than maybe manipulating our foreign aid as a lever).

I think the case is similar in Yemen (that I detailed on the last page). Outside of leaning on Saudi Arabia to deal with the Houthis who aren't a major threat to us and try to help with AQAP, we have limited options in how we can combat the threat of AQAP. That being said, President Obama has recently supported Yemen's new offensive which has really hurt AQAP; and Yemen has moved more towards a political solution in federation which we have supported. Unfortunately the northern Houthi rebellion has made a lot of inroads and has threatened to destabilize Yemen, and that is a battle in which we have very little if any real recourse to address. So we are left with helping them against AQAP via drone strikes. Not ideal, but I just don't see many alternative options other than material support and disengagement. Disengagement in either Pakistan or Yemen would be hard to justify domestically here though or politically given the problem that exists in those being the two countries that harbor the most imminent threats to US security.

I'm not a big fan of drone strikes, but I've been on the fence about them because of this.

[sana8410]

Egypt, well Egypt is a bit more realist which I mentioned on the first page as well. We just have too many blunt interests there. It's honestly one of the priority countries in terms of maintaining domestic US support which makes Obama much less inclined towards ideology there and much more inclined to realpolitik maneuvers; which, while not perhaps the most consistent with President Obama's other policy plans, has been pretty routine as far as US dealings the Egypt, the Sudan and Libya region.

[umair127]

I still think his biggest weakness is his inability to use the office's power of persuasion/bully pulpit. He has never really managed to build relationships on the hill. Even Bush jr and Carter were able to do that. I think that partly exaggerates for me any inconsistencies.

And for the record, no matter the rhetoric from the congress, I squarely blame the president for that lack. That's his job, in my opinion. Bush got over being called a loser by Harry Reid. Partisan hackery in congress is always there. The president should be able to find ways around it.

[sana8410]

This is definitely someplace where you both I think have more insight than I. I do read a lot of news as zolace commented on (IR news), but it rather crowds out a lot of domestic news consumption which makes me a bit of a one trick pony. So my foreign policy analysis isn't really influenced at all by his domestic policy and politicking because I am not very familiar with it.

[zolace]

I’ve been hearing this, or a variation of it, quite a bit from my family and others from my hometown which means it has been a popular mantra on both Fox News and/or conservative talk radio. It’s also; from a professional and academic standpoint, completely false.

President Obama is more of a neo-Liberal when it comes to International Relations Theory (in his actions at least), with a tinge of realism which has been so pervasive in our historical domestic foreign policy formulation and discourse. To this end, president Obama tends to favor (with some exceptions as mentioned above) a generally multilateral approach to foreign engagement, he likes to work through international institutions, is a much stronger wielder of soft power, and prefers a more nuanced foreign policy approach than many of his predecessors (especially neoconservatives) who often relied on straightforward / simple, unilateral realist approaches.

This can be seen in most of his foreign relations dealings during his two terms here (save for our Israeli, and to a lesser extent: Egyptian policies, which is where that realist twinge comes into play).

His approach to Libya is a good example, where he went through the UN Security Council, worked with NATO and kept a limited engagement policy, preferring to work with and through other actors including the Arab League.

What website do I go to in order to get all this information about what we're doing in the world? If there was a newsletter I would read it often. This stuff is important and it is almost completely unknown to Americans.


Also, while I don't see you advocating it, I wonder how you would address someone who equated neoliberal foreign policy with, not necessarily "nonexistent" foreign policy (which for some reason seems to be a relatively new Fox News trope?) - but maybe a "weak" foreign policy.

To put it a bit differently: is neoliberal foreign policy compatible with American Exceptionalism so to speak? (I think the latter is pretty dangerous, but my feeling is that it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.)

Unfortunately isn't one source. A couple that I use though to keep up to date on international affairs are as follows (you can pick and choose):

1.) Reuters: (a decent place to get general overviews of world news, go to their world section and click on the 'more world news' link on the center of the page).

2.) Relief Web: is a UN sponsored news aggregation site that deals with both conflict and natural disasters / disease. you can search by country, or what I do is simply read through their 'Updates' section every day).

3.) Institute for the Study of War: carries updates on Iraq and Syria (including updated maps)

4.) The Long War Journal: Is a bit more neoconservative in its opinions, but posts updates on the global war on terror (so mostly Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). They also report SITE Intelligence findings which is a good way to stay up to date without having to pay hundreds of dollars for the SITE subscription.

5.) IRIN: is linked to the UN and is updated a couple of times per week with in depth humanitarian news.

6.) The Jamestown Foundation: has a couple of publications, a daily one about China, a daily one about Russia / Europe, a weekly one about the Caucuses, a bi monthly one involving terrorism analysis, and a publication on terrorist leader profiles.

7.) Combating Terrorism Center: produces a monthly PDF on reports concerning terrorist theory and activities and the occasional in depth longer report on a specific topic.

8.) Foreign Affairs: The name pretty much speaks for itself. if you register you can get a couple of articles free every month, otherwise you have to pay for it.

9.) Africa Confidential: A publication that the Bureau of African Affairs receives with updates on key issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

10.) International Crisis Group: I mostly read their longer published reports which tend to be quite good.

11.) Human Rights Watch: Humanitarian news updates, I skim them and mostly read their in depth reports / PDFs.

12.) Amnesty International: Same as Human Rights Watch

13.) BBC News: Decent world news source, ok reputation, a little slow sometimes to update though.

14.) Al Jazeera English: Pretty similar to BBC description, only this is influenced by Qatar

15.) Al Arabiya: Saudi Arabia's version of Al Jazeera English

16.) IHS Janes: Security analysis, some stuff free, some requires a subscription.

17.) Economist Intelligence Unit: In depth analysis of different countries, you can usually find some of their material online for free after it's been published for a while, otherwise a subscription is required.

18.) Council on Foreign Relations: General foreign relations content.

19.) Brookings Institute: Same.

20.) Foreign Policy Magazine: Self explanatory, requires a subscription though, like Foreign Affairs you can register for free to read a couple of free articles every month.

21.) UN News: Self explanatory, you can also explore other UN pages.

22.) AllAfrica: African news

22.) Local news sites: Reading local news sites also helps since they tend to report on both the details of what is going on and on how the United states is interacting with them. Some I use include: Radio Dabanga (Sudan), Sudan Tribune, Radio Tamazuj (South Sudan), Radio Okapi (DRC), Daslan Radio (Somalia), Sabahi (Horn of Africa), Shabelle (Somalia), Yemen Times, Bangkok Post (Thailand), Irrawaddy (Burma), Democratic Voice of Burma, Karen News (Burma), Sahara Press Service (Western Sahara), Haaretz (Israel), B'Tselem (Israel), Times of India, etc.

I added a bunch of your recommendations to my read list on Google Play Newsstand. It's been good reading so far. I appreciate the list good sir.

[umair127]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

No denying that Obama has a consistent foreign policy. But I'm going to disagree that it's particularly effective or conducted in the best interests of the US.

I'm also going to deny that Neo-liberalism is better as a means of engagement than realism. Especially for a powerful country. A realist response to Syria, based around letting Russia support Bashar Assad while providing occasional intelligence to assist Syrian government forces to target extremist groups would have been much more effective and beneficial to US interests.

[umair127]

Similarly, the approach to Russia has been idiotic. NATO is essentially irrelevant insofar as US geopolitical interests are concerned, so it would have made far more sense to allow Russia a sphere of influence over the former Soviet Union, especially since both America and Russia have a shared interest in containing China. Confronting Russia over Ukraine forced Russia to align with China against the US.

[sana8410]

Similarly, the approach to Russia has been idiotic. NATO is essentially irrelevant insofar as US geopolitical interests are concerned, so it would have made far more sense to allow Russia a sphere of influence over the former Soviet Union, especially since both America and Russia have a shared interest in containing China. Confronting Russia over Ukraine forced Russia to align with China against the US.

America and China have an equal interest in containing Russia. There won't be any long term alignment between any of those three countries, just whatever works at the moment.

[sana8410]

I wouldn't say Obama doesn't have a foreign policy... I'd say his policy is in direct opposition to the general welfare of the United States. I'd also say the world is more dangerous now that it was when he took office.


Wasn't that long ago he was talking about how safe the world had become. Perhaps what he meant is that it is now safe for the Islamic Extremist to resume operations.

This is one popular belief, and I think it stems from some sort of faulty insistence that the United States and president Obama caused the Arab Spring, which was, in reality, a phenomenon that experts had been long awaiting and predicting. Indeed, if anything, it was overdue in its coming (a testament to how well authoritarian governments can suppress a population.

i'm wondering if it isn't more likely that he has the same policy across the board, but that we are missing information that he is privy to being that he's the president of the US.

We've had this conversation a bit before, and I've never really seen you put together an outline of these inconsistencies in much detail, outside of pointing to Egypt and maybe Syria (which isn't inconsistent with traditional US foreign policy dealings with regards to Egypt). Israel I think is both one of his largest failures and one of his greatest inconsistencies, but that was always expected since our policy has pretty much always been a "realist" approach to Israel since Israel is such a realist state.

But let's take a look at some of his major foreign policy decisions and see how they fit together under the ideological framework that I established in the first post:

1.) Iran: true to multilateral neoliberal form President Obama was both open to talking directly to Iran, and preferred to operate through international cooperation with Iran. As soon as he came into office he ended the Bush era practice of funding Sunni terrorist organizations in Iran such as Jundallah (a more classical realist approach to pressure mechanisms) and instead took a more multilateral approach through the utilization of both Russia, and Azerbaijan to put pressure on Iran (and to good effect) rather than following Israel's war drums and bombing the country. Likewise later on when Iran resurfaced as an issue his administration worked through international means to place very strict sanctions on Iran that lead to political change during the elections and remains a leverage tool. so engagement with Iran = pretty consistent.

2.) Somalia: one of President Obama's first policy moves overseas was to crack down on Somali piracy and Al Shabaab (al Shabaab of course being created during the employment of Bush era policies in the 2006 bombing and US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the destruction of the ICU: another very realist approach). Instead, with President Obama in Somalia we see a more multilateral approach again. We've leaned less on Ethiopia, and have brought Kenya and the African Union into the mix and have employed US forces in a limited engagement capacity in the region too with drones and US soldiers being used in small numbers to assist both the fight against Al-Shabaab and the fight against piracy, and both the Somali government and the issue of Somali piracy have improved under our engagement in the area. So Somalia = mostly consistent

3.) Libya: here is a great example of President Obama's foreign policy style. Very multilateral, very inclusive of international organizations, and coupled with limited military engagement from the US. We supported a domestic movement against an old US enemy (one who Reagan tried to assassinate), and we did it through both the UN Security Council, NATO, and the utilization of the Arab League, all with some engagement by the US but not nearly as heavy as what was seen in Afghanistan and Iraq under his predecessor. since then we have worked with successive new governments to help disarm militias and engage in state building with locals taking the lead (instead of the US since it wasn't under occupation). So Libya = mostly consistent.

4.) Mali: Our initial response to the coup was standard US pressure mechanisms, halting of AGOA eligibility, suspension of our MCC Compact, and heavy diplomatic pressure, and vocal opposition through international mechanisms: particularly the UN (which had the desired effects). The subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of the country (something we've seen happen multiple times) was a bit of a situational game changer as was the eventual inclusion of Salafi Jihadi groups and their hijacking of the rebellion (which is actually the very thing that caused it to fail). We worked through international and multilateral actors (particularly the AU and France) to combat this incursion with again US involvement on a limited scale. And it worked, a peace deal is ongoing (with our encouragement), though it is likely to remain unstable for some time; one of the important things to note though was US cooperation with France which was largely absent under the Bush Administration and reflects a broader US counter terror strategy in the Sahel and Maghreb that has never been stronger. So Mali = consistent.

5.)The DR Congo: One of President Obama's first acts and major focuses in office in foreign affairs was this conflict. President Bush had actually already paved the way for President Obama through the use of more neo-liberal tactics (which President Bush became more fond of towards the very end of his administration). To that end. President Bush worked through partners on the ground and utilized limited direct US engagement support to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army through Operation Lightning Thunder. This was happening as he was transitioning out of office and as President Obama was coming into office. President Obama seized on this framework and enhanced / strengthened it working with the Central African Republic the DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan (countries not necessarily inclined towards one another, particularly Uganda and the DRC) to launch another wave of crackdowns that was ultimately successful in severely reducing the LRA presence in all areas except South Sudan (and now due to the increased civil war in the CAR, the LRA has regained stronger operational grounds there as well).

Likewise we sent 100 US troops over to increase our military support initiated under Bush (and which Rush Limbaugh strongly criticized Obama for since we were sending soldiers over there to "kill Christians"). We also worked through the UN to strengthen and radically alter the UN mandate in eastern DRC. For the first time in Africa now the UN operation in the DRC was allowed to form an offensive unit to actively attack remaining rebel groups, which it did and the M23 rebel collapsed (the FDLR are next). This was coupled with strong US pressure against Rwanda and Uganda to reduce their material support for said rebels, and with a reform to conflict resource legislation here in the US to address economic factors of violence. The DRC still has a fair share of fighting ongoing, but it is far quieter now than it probably ever have been since independence. So DRC = Consistent

6.) Yemen: Largely a continuation and escalation of Bush era strategies with more attention placed on central government and institution building and federalization of Yemen. So Yemen = slightly less consistent. I think this rating though is the result of limited US options in Yemen in the face of our expenditure of political capital (both domestic and international) on other issues. AKA we've had to pick some of our battles and Yemen wasn't really one we chose.

7.) Central African Republic: we've responded with soft power pressures and support for AU and French operations while employing the use of sanctions on our end and pushing for a peace process (which is ongoing). CAR = consistent

8.) Nigeria: We've aided in Nigerian government capacity building, and helped (with France) to form a broader coalition of states against Boko Haram and related militias that has never existed before with unprecedented cooperation from both Chad and Cameroon, while maintaining a critical eye on Nigerian governmental abuses and while utilizing, once again, a limited US military engagement to support domestic efforts. Nigeria = consistent.

9.) South Sudan: Similar story, using regional and local actors to cobble together attempted peace processes while pressuring major actors through the use of sanctions and the international community. South Sudan = consistent, but also an area where we haven't expended the most political capital and attention.

10.) Israel: pretty straightforward power politics with a strong military twist, we've downplayed the nuances of the conflict while ramping up military spending and action. Very old school and very inconsistent with President Obama's normal foreign policy approaches, but fairly consistent with US traditional approaches to Israel. Israel= inconsistent.

11.) Egypt: We've been willing to engage for talks Egyptian political opposition groups like never before, which was a sharp break from President Bush's standing policy and is more neo-liberal, as was our adjustment of stances as local actors changed political entities within Egypt during the uprising. Which also happens to be pretty consistent with historical US policy in the region. where he takes a more classical approach is in the muted response to the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequent working relations with the Sisi government, a more realist and classical approach, but also one which is reflective of our priorities in the region which simply reflect working relations with Egypt at all costs (same as they are for Israel) due to their role in Israel / Palestine, international counter terrorism, Libya and Sudan, and the Suez Canal. All considered vital American strategic interests. that being said, we haven't been particularly warm with Egypt in the face of this forced tract. So Egypt = somewhat consistent / somewhat inconsistent but for good reason.

12.) Syria: Here president Obama tried to utilize his normal policy styles. He built a political coalition with France, Turkey and the UK (among others), but our action was talked down in congress, just as British action was talked down in their legislature. With the loss of our direct support and British support, French support dried up as well. Political capital via the Arab League had been expended in Libya and fatigue concerning such interventions had set in. So tactics had to change and that’s where the red line and the war drum beating came into play, a bit more of a realist style threat (a popular tactic in Israel for example) but it wasn’t taken too far, only to the point of encouraging Russian intervention and the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons, with some non-lethal aid and eventually some small arms munitions for chosen rebel groups. So once again, limited engagement, if not in exactly the way that President Obama wanted and while we did work through international and partner countries it once again, wasn’t in the way we wanted. Syria fell at a tough time for foreign policy execution and the complexities of it present a challenging point from which to engage in Syria now that it has lasted some time. Syria is also one of those conflicts where there are a lot of behind the scenes factors. So Syria = semi consistent (particularly at first), though limited.

13.) Iraq: A much more tricky country to analyze. President Obama inherited this mess (and it was / is a mess) from a previous administration that had relied upon not only a poorly constructed, but heavily damaging policy approach to occupation. As with some of Bush’s other policies though, he (and more specifically our generals such as General Petraeus) came to realize that the status quo wasn’t working and they skillfully developed the surge package which President Obama ended up utilizing. It was a much better piece of policy creation and while it increased troop numbers the major change was in our tactics. This surge represented a more neoliberal approach to Iraq and focused a lot on domestic actors and hearts and minds. Something which I think President Obama was more comfortable with but Iraq was also a war he had campaigned on to end despite the policy shift. The surge helped spark the Awakening which all but destroyed AQI, but the civil war in Syria coupled by the politically corrupt Maliki in office saved it. After our pullout, President Obama went back to the tactics that he was more comfortable with: international engagement and mechanism and pressures for reform within Iraq’s central government and institutions. Now we see a similar tactic being used in Iraq as we have seen in other conflict areas that President Obama has responded to, international engagement (particularly in pressuring regional countries like Saudi Arabia to target actors supporting the ISIS and Al Nusra) coupled with air strikes and limited ground support to supplement local actors while helping with containment through the utilization of Kurds and simultaneously pushing hard for Maliki to step down (which he eventually did). So Iraq: Somewhat consistent

14.) Russia: Pretty straight forward. President Obama has responded to this like many other conflict situations, high pressure through international institutions, the reliance on regional blocs like the EU through which we have expended a lot of political capital, and the enforcement of sanctions which has been the most up front we’ve been in opposing Russian interests since the Cold War (certainly a much stronger response than was seen in Russia’s war with Georgia). Before the Ukraine conflict we were happy to partner with Russia in nuclear arms reductions and successfully utilize Russian spheres of influence to pressure Iran. So our Russian policy = consistent.

16.) Burma: Burma’s opening up to the west I think has more to do with timing than anything else, never-the-less we have played it fairly well even if it has currently taken a back seat in our foreign policy focus. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is part of a more open government now, the country is working on a widespread national ceasefire and peace treaty with multiple armed groups, is looking to federation which would represent additional governmental reforms, and has turned more away from China. The big disappointment is the loss in momentum concerning the domestic treatment of Rohingya, which after initial criticisms and pressure, we’ve quieted about considerably (though the violence has reduced as well). So Burma = Neutral in consistency

17.) China: I’m not extremely well versed in our China foreign policy and our overall ‘Pivot to Asia’ which has been a major foreign policy focus of President Obama’s non-conflict related foreign relations platform so I can’t comment too well on it outside of what I’ve seen in the south China Sea territory dispute where we have been very stern with China (by engaging in symbolism such as flying our unarmed bombers through disputed airspace that China insists is theirs, maintaining dialogue about these disputes, particularly as they relate to Japan and Philippines (I am less well versed in how we have been responding to China’s recent spat with Thailand). We saw this dedication in part during our hurricane relief efforts with the Philippines which made China look bad. China has always been one of those interesting and special cases in the foreign policy world. The language of the pivot seems pretty consistent with President Obama’s policy trends though, So China =

18.) North Korea: North Korea is a hard state to engage with. President Bush was slightly more open to working things out internationally with North Korea and then promptly ended those talks with his public “Axis of Evil” declaration (a huge international relations blunder that occurred in the midst of sensitive policy talks). That being said, President Obama has had to deal with a new North Korean regime and I’ve seen him deal quite well with it, if not in the way I think he would prefer to have engaged North Korea (but alas many of those options were taken off of the table before he stepped into office). That said, during the routine flare up in hostile language and action by North Korea, President Obama broke from US tradition of bribes and called Un’s bluff which forced him to back down after a period of making a show about it (the temporary closure of the joint North / South Korean manufacturing plant). So North Korea = neutral but well handled.

19.) Economic statecraft: The entire primary basis of President Obama’s first presidential term revolved around the new policy of economic statecraft which is straight out of the neo-liberal playbook and has been widely utilized in our engagement overseas, particularly in Africa and Asia. So very consistent.

No denying that Obama has a consistent foreign policy. But I'm going to disagree that it's particularly effective or conducted in the best interests of the US.

I'm also going to deny that Neo-liberalism is better as a means of engagement than realism. Especially for a powerful country. A realist response to Syria, based around letting Russia support Bashar Assad while providing occasional intelligence to assist Syrian government forces to target extremist groups would have been much more effective and beneficial to US interests.

I think this scenario of yours rather ignores that the Assad administration has been one of the largest state government sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East, and has been an enemy to us in Iraq and to our allies in Israel. A realist response would have been to bomb the hell out of Assad's government as soon as the rebellion began. Or to encourage the civil war to be drawn out as long as possible in order to allow our enemies to focus on and kill each other. Letting Russia support Assad isn't in our interests.

[sana8410]

It has been standard operating procedure within the United states to encourage popular protests for reform in countries with poor institutions. Ukraine was one such country. We supported the protests, but they were largely domestically created. that's largely how we work. When a domestic base is formed and acts, then we reinforce that. Either way, Ukraine was facing political tumult. I guess you are suggesting that we would be better served to have let Russia keep it a pawn / satellite. But I ask you this: Why? The US isn't hurting at all in this conflict and even half of Ukraine strengthens our position in the area and gives us a strong pressure mechanism on Russia. We reap benefits (perhaps long run benefits) and Europe and Russia shoulder the bulk of the costs.

[sana8410]

Confronting Russia over Ukraine forced Russia to align with China against the US.

Suggesting that China is aligned against us is to ignore their economic dependence on us. It's Russia which is becoming increasingly isolated and irrelevant. In fact, if they didn't have a veto in the security council the country would be about as important as India.

[umair127]

Confronting Russia over Ukraine forced Russia to align with China against the US.

Suggesting that China is aligned against us is to ignore their economic dependence on us. It's Russia which is becoming increasingly isolated and irrelevant. In fact, if they didn't have a veto in the security council the country would be about as important as India.

I would look at Russia as being more similar to Pakistan. Both countries are driven by severe paranoia, and they both have nukes.

[sana8410]

I’ve been hearing this, or a variation of it, quite a bit from my family and others from my hometown which means it has been a popular mantra on both Fox News and/or conservative talk radio. It’s also; from a professional and academic standpoint, completely false.

President Obama is more of a neo-Liberal when it comes to International Relations Theory (in his actions at least), with a tinge of realism which has been so pervasive in our historical domestic foreign policy formulation and discourse. To this end, president Obama tends to favor (with some exceptions as mentioned above) a generally multilateral approach to foreign engagement, he likes to work through international institutions, is a much stronger wielder of soft power, and prefers a more nuanced foreign policy approach than many of his predecessors (especially neoconservatives) who often relied on straightforward / simple, unilateral realist approaches.

This can be seen in most of his foreign relations dealings during his two terms here (save for our Israeli, and to a lesser extent: Egyptian policies, which is where that realist twinge comes into play).

His approach to Libya is a good example, where he went through the UN Security Council, worked with NATO and kept a limited engagement policy, preferring to work with and through other actors including the Arab League.

What website do I go to in order to get all this information about what we're doing in the world? If there was a newsletter I would read it often. This stuff is important and it is almost completely unknown to Americans.


Also, while I don't see you advocating it, I wonder how you would address someone who equated neoliberal foreign policy with, not necessarily "nonexistent" foreign policy (which for some reason seems to be a relatively new Fox News trope?) - but maybe a "weak" foreign policy.

To put it a bit differently: is neoliberal foreign policy compatible with American Exceptionalism so to speak? (I think the latter is pretty dangerous, but my feeling is that it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.)

Unfortunately isn't one source. A couple that I use though to keep up to date on international affairs are as follows (you can pick and choose):

1.) Reuters: (a decent place to get general overviews of world news, go to their world section and click on the 'more world news' link on the center of the page).

2.) Relief Web: is a UN sponsored news aggregation site that deals with both conflict and natural disasters / disease. you can search by country, or what I do is simply read through their 'Updates' section every day).

3.) Institute for the Study of War: carries updates on Iraq and Syria (including updated maps)

4.) The Long War Journal: Is a bit more neoconservative in its opinions, but posts updates on the global war on terror (so mostly Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). They also report SITE Intelligence findings which is a good way to stay up to date without having to pay hundreds of dollars for the SITE subscription.

5.) IRIN: is linked to the UN and is updated a couple of times per week with in depth humanitarian news.

6.) The Jamestown Foundation: has a couple of publications, a daily one about China, a daily one about Russia / Europe, a weekly one about the Caucuses, a bi monthly one involving terrorism analysis, and a publication on terrorist leader profiles.

7.) Combating Terrorism Center: produces a monthly PDF on reports concerning terrorist theory and activities and the occasional in depth longer report on a specific topic.

8.) Foreign Affairs: The name pretty much speaks for itself. if you register you can get a couple of articles free every month, otherwise you have to pay for it.

9.) Africa Confidential: A publication that the Bureau of African Affairs receives with updates on key issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

10.) International Crisis Group: I mostly read their longer published reports which tend to be quite good.

11.) Human Rights Watch: Humanitarian news updates, I skim them and mostly read their in depth reports / PDFs.

12.) Amnesty International: Same as Human Rights Watch

13.) BBC News: Decent world news source, ok reputation, a little slow sometimes to update though.

14.) Al Jazeera English: Pretty similar to BBC description, only this is influenced by Qatar

15.) Al Arabiya: Saudi Arabia's version of Al Jazeera English

16.) IHS Janes: Security analysis, some stuff free, some requires a subscription.

17.) Economist Intelligence Unit: In depth analysis of different countries, you can usually find some of their material online for free after it's been published for a while, otherwise a subscription is required.

18.) Council on Foreign Relations: General foreign relations content.

19.) Brookings Institute: Same.

20.) Foreign Policy Magazine: Self explanatory, requires a subscription though, like Foreign Affairs you can register for free to read a couple of free articles every month.

21.) UN News: Self explanatory, you can also explore other UN pages.

22.) AllAfrica: African news

22.) Local news sites: Reading local news sites also helps since they tend to report on both the details of what is going on and on how the United states is interacting with them. Some I use include: Radio Dabanga (Sudan), Sudan Tribune, Radio Tamazuj (South Sudan), Radio Okapi (DRC), Daslan Radio (Somalia), Sabahi (Horn of Africa), Shabelle (Somalia), Yemen Times, Bangkok Post (Thailand), Irrawaddy (Burma), Democratic Voice of Burma, Karen News (Burma), Sahara Press Service (Western Sahara), Haaretz (Israel), B'Tselem (Israel), Times of India, etc.

I added a bunch of your recommendations to my read list on Google Play Newsstand. It's been good reading so far. I appreciate the list good sir.

Hope you enjoy them! It is a lot of material, but sometimes just taking the time to read the headlines and skim the articles helps.

I also tend to stay away from opinion pieces on most news sites, like Al Jazeera, and regional news places. I prefer the opinions expressed in the longer files obtained from places like the CTC, and Jamestown, occasionally I'll read some opinion pieces from FP Magazine too. Of course one also has to keep in mind the influences behind these sources as well (something I am sure you do). The Institute for the Study of War is conservative, the Long War Journal is neoconservative, the CTC is out of West Point and al Arabiya has a strong Saudi POV, while B'Tselem is more liberal. Let me know if you have any questions or seek any clarifications!

Happy Reading!

[sana8410]

Confronting Russia over Ukraine forced Russia to align with China against the US.

Suggesting that China is aligned against us is to ignore their economic dependence on us. It's Russia which is becoming increasingly isolated and irrelevant. In fact, if they didn't have a veto in the security council the country would be about as important as India.

I would look at Russia as being more similar to Pakistan. Both countries are driven by severe paranoia, and they both have nukes.

A decent enough analogy too, both have trouble regions. I chose India because it was a BRIC country as Russia is and also has nukes but is a bit more stable than Pakistan is. But yes, Russia is driven by fairly deep paranoia. It's part of the Realist parcel.

[DhaniBoy]

Actually president Obama has foreign policy, but the policies are always pro-US policy, If the policy does not benefit the United States, then the United States will cancel the policy, this is what makes other countries, especially developing countries become less comfortable against the policies made ​​by the government of US, hopefullu US goverment can make US government can make policies more fair to other countries ...

[DrG]

Actually president Obama has foreign policy, but the policies are always pro-US policy, If the policy does not benefit the United States, then the United States will cancel the policy, this is what makes other countries, especially developing countries become less comfortable against the policies made ​​by the government of US, hopefullu US goverment can make US government can make policies more fair to other countries ...

Haha, how can you say that with a straight face.  Even Clinton is biting her tongue for the next 2 years.  She would have Obama thrown in Gitmo if she was in office - now that's pro-US.  Obama is the antithesis of previous US policies.  180s = chaos.

[unpure]

Actually president Obama has foreign policy, but the policies are always pro-US policy, If the policy does not benefit the United States, then the United States will cancel the policy, this is what makes other countries, especially developing countries become less comfortable against the policies made ​​by the government of US, hopefullu US goverment can make US government can make policies more fair to other countries ...

Yes.

And he is just a sock puppet to show the rest of the world anyone can be president in the US. Even a black and a Muslim.