Obama’s global strategy

By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, 08 Jun, 2010

IT is the obligation of the US president to inform Congress of the strategy his administration is pursuing in international affairs. This is to be done every year but presidents also take this opportunity every few years to present a more comprehensive review.

The last time this was done was in 2002, a few months after the terrorist attack on the United States. As was to be expected, the Bush strategic statement was heavily influenced by 9/11.

Eight years later, President Barack Obama has unveiled his strategy. It couldn’t have been more different from the one followed by his predecessor.

President Bush declared that the United States would be prepared to act unilaterally if it felt that its strategic interests were being hurt by unfriendly actors on the global scene. These could be countries or stateless elements bent upon doing the US harm. The latter was the case with Al Qaeda that had declared its intention to attack American interests whenever and wherever it found the opportunity. Washington under Bush also sent out the signal that it would take action without waiting for a hostile event to occur. It would act preemptively.

That some of the declared intentions violated international law did not seem to bother the Bush administration. In fact, the 2002 strategy statement laid the ground for the attack on Iraq that soon followed. The case for the attack was the basis of the preemptive action. As then Bush’s national security adviser — later secretary of state — Condoleezza Rice famously indicated that to act when the “mushroom cloud” had appeared would be to wait too long. Washington had said that it had credible information that Baghdad was working on weapons of mass destruction, and therefore it was its right to act before the mushroom clouds appeared.

The Bush strategy statement went far in another direction. It said that the US position as the world’s premier power would not be allowed to be challenged. Washington would be prepared to act, peremptorily, whenever it thought that a situation was arising which might result in a serious challenge to its position in world affairs.

President Obama’s thinking is totally different from the one encapsulated in the 2002 statement of the man he succeeded as president. There is no swagger in the way the US presents its position. According to the new statement, officially called the National Security Strategy (NSS) report, the United States must first get its economic house in order if it wants to reinvigorate its global leadership.

In the preface to the 2010 statement President Obama assures the American people as well as those in the world who are comfortable with the idea of America leading the way that his country has been “hardened by wars” and “disciplined by a devastating economic crisis”. These have already taken a heavy toll in terms of lives lost and led to a rise in the rate of unemployment and a decline in real income. The statement emphasises that the nation’s huge national debt, estimated at $13tr, is becoming a major threat to US security and leadership.

The focus on the state of the domestic economy is meant to serve two purposes. It is a call to action by a leader who has been left battle-scarred by his fight to win comprehensive health reform intended to provide cover for tens of millions of uninsured people. His effort to reform the financial system battered by the recession of 2008-09 are also meeting with resistance from the Republican party that is determined to oppose him on every initiative he takes.

The other reason for focus on economic issues in a statement on international affairs is to convince the world that the United States has an administration in place that understands the economic problems the country faces and also has the solutions to address them. The tragedy in Greece is a reminder that governments relying on fiscal deficits to provide for people’s basic needs are standing on shaky ground.

After abandoning President Bush’s unilateralism, the Obama administration declares that it will expand partnership with rising powers like China, India and Russia. It calls these countries the “21st-century centres of influence”. But the US will also look beyond these countries and develop strong relationships with the “increasingly influential nations such as Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia”.

While focusing a great deal of attention and space in the statement on the emerging powers, it reassures Europe that its traditional ties with the continent will remain the cornerstone of US engagement with the world. A couple of weeks before the statement was issued President Obama had involved himself deeply in finding a solution for the Greek financial problem. It was at his urging that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to provide large amounts of financial support to the beleaguered Mediterranean nation.

The most important parts of the statement are the treatment of the threat posed by radical extremism and the opportunities created by the rise of China. The NSS makes it clear that it will not define America’s engagement with the world from the perspective of extremism and terrorism. This is another significant departure from the Bush strategy.

On China, the statement seems to pull back somewhat from the position President Obama had taken during his first official visit to East Asia in November 2009. Then he was working towards an arrangement in which Washington and Beijing would work together to guide the world towards a better economic future. That thought remains but there is now greater focus on China’s military rise. “We will monitor China’s military modernisation programme and prepare accordingly to ensure that US interest and those of its allies, regionally and globally, are not negatively affected.” This is the only place where there is some continuity with regard to the Bush strategy.

How will the new strategy affect Pakistan and its interests? That is the subject for the article in this space next week.