25 responses to “Obama Foreign Policy: It Takes Two To Tango”

1. 

   Clovis

   March 3, 2009 at 4:02 pm

   I don’t think that Sam Adams needs coifing. Didn’t they wear powdered wigs back then?

   Glad you two got together. You have similar snark-fu.
2. 

   Steve Plunk

   March 3, 2009 at 4:03 pm

   That idea of talking things out was a major campaign theme of Obama. His supporters truly believed it would bring a new era in American foreign policy and lead to world harmony.

   For a second time today I’ll say reality bites.
3. 

   Alex Knapp

   March 3, 2009 at 4:28 pm

   It’s not the first shot that counts–it’s the followthrough and rebound attempt. I don’t think anyone seriously expected the first overtures to Russia and Iran to be immediately successful considering their past relations with the United States.
4. 

   Steve Plunk

   March 3, 2009 at 5:02 pm

   Alex, Obama supporters seriously expected success overnight. The campaign spoke of quick success. The media trumpeted a new world attitude in the weeks after the election. It’s too late to downplay those expectations.

   The adults in this world new this was nonsense from the get go. It was a false promise meant to garner votes from wistful liberals.
5. 

   Alex Knapp

   March 3, 2009 at 5:08 pm

   Alex, Obama supporters seriously expected success overnight. The campaign spoke of quick success. The media trumpeted a new world attitude in the weeks after the election. It’s too late to downplay those expectations.

   Funny, I followed the campaign and all I ever heard from Obama was about how it was going to be hard and take a long time…
6. 

   sam

   March 3, 2009 at 5:10 pm

   [T]here’s a certain hubris and naivete in thinking that being willing to talk will necessarily result in a grand change in a major power’s foreign policy positions.

   James, do you have any evidence that Obama and his team think this way? That they are possesed of hubris and naviete re Russia and Iran? Everything I’ve read about the president betokens a cautious man. The list of horribles that Krauthammer retails for us, at least as far as the Russians go, might probabaly be attributed to their capitalizing on it being early days for the administration (he was inaugurated what, five or six weeks ago?) and his plate is kinda full at the moment with other things. The K-man sort of acknowledges that this might be the case when he writes:

   I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e. domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chavez’s president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was “for the most part … a process that was fully consistent with democratic process,” you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.

   But you know he means “I wouldn’t like to think that at all.” What he’d like to think is that Obama’s liberal soul is just not up to the stern, masculine response that Krauthammer counts as the proper foreign policy posture (although he’s silent on just what we could do after the stern, masculine response to change anything right now given the straits we’re in). As for Chavez, maybe Obama and Co. figure that it’s better for now to put him on the rear of the queue and let falling oil prices do him in. And really, given what we facing right now, Hugo Chavez is pretty small mangoes, no?
7. 

   sam

   March 3, 2009 at 5:23 pm

   @Plunk

   Alex, Obama supporters seriously expected success overnight. The campaign spoke of quick success.

   Give us a citation for that, Steve, or admit you’re just waving your arms.
8. 

   tom p

   March 3, 2009 at 5:38 pm

   Funny, as I read at balloon juice this morning where John Cole quotes Drezner:

   On the other hand, it seems though the Obama administration can’t lose. If the Russians say no, then Obama’s hand is strengthened in both Western and Eastern Europe, and Russia loses some leverage in trying to get missile defense out of their backyard.

   And if Russia says yes… Iran is contained.

   Read the whole post.
   I echo Alex’s comment:

   Funny, I followed the campaign and all I ever heard from Obama was about how it was going to be hard and take a long time…

   and look to the long term. Obama is.
9. 

   James Joyner

   March 3, 2009 at 5:47 pm

   Funny, I followed the campaign and all I ever heard from Obama was about how it was going to be hard and take a long time…

   Of course, Bush frequently said that, too, but all we ever heard was about “cake walks.” And, of course, McCain was lambasted for his “hundred years” line.

   But, yes, you were one of the sane ones who took Obama’s pragmatic qualifiers to heart. A ridiculous number of people out there legitimately think that the only thing wrong with US-World relations was that Bush was a big fat meanie who wouldn’t sit down and chat with people.
10. 

    Anderson

    March 3, 2009 at 6:12 pm

    although we both agree that there’s a certain hubris and naivete in thinking that being willing to talk will necessarily result in a grand change in a major power’s foreign policy positions

    Why, yes, people *are* funny when you reduce them to caricatures and ignore what they really say and mean.

    But I would have thought that “being willing to talk” was a prerequisite to “foreign policy,” at least, the kind that isn’t conducted by bombs and landing craft.
11. 

    Steve Plunk

    March 3, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    sam, You are correct. The campaign did not make those claims. Many Obama supporters I know personally made those claims and I mistakenly assumed it was based upon his campaign claims. There is no doubt however that the expectations post election were for a quick change in world attitudes toward the United States. That has not happened.

    I am waving my arms as everyone should while this debacle is unfolding before our eyes.
12. 

    Stan

    March 3, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    “A ridiculous number of people out there legitimately think that the only thing wrong with US-World relations was that Bush was a big fat meanie who wouldn’t sit down and chat with people.”

    I think the main thing wrong with US-World relations is that Bush was stupid. In Iran and Iraq we had two countries who hated us and who hated each other. For no good reason that I can see, we attacked the weaker of the two countries, thus strengthening our most dangerous enemy in the Mideast. It’s as if we reacted to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union by giving aid to Germany, or as if Nixon had encouraged the Soviet Union to attack China. As I’ve said earlier, Joyner ought to give some evidence that learned something during his graduate education.
13. 

    Bernard Finel

    March 3, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    There is no doubt however that the expectations post election were for a quick change in world attitudes toward the United States. That has not happened.

    How do you know? There have been precious few polls on this at all. Obama’s only been in office for six weeks, which is tight for getting polls into the field. What polling has been out showed — in the Nov-Dec timeframe — a great deal of optimism. In the Muslim world, at least, the whole Gaza thing clearly seemed to put a damper on that, but that data is really incomplete.

    Can we maybe, maybe, just give it six months? Even that isn’t much time, but really how can we make judgments about Obama’s diplomacy… or his economic policies for that matter… in just a few weeks.

    I know the blogosphere operates in 3hr time-cycles, but come on.

    Argue all you want that you think his policies will be failures, but I think it is premature to argue that they already are.
14. 

    anjin-san

    March 3, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    sam, You are correct. The campaign did not make those claims. Many Obama supporters I know personally made those claims and I mistakenly assumed it was based upon his campaign claims.

    Nice work Einstein. Why exactly should we take you seriously again?
15. 

    Dave Schuler

    March 3, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    James, I don’t so much think that the Obama Administration or Obama supporters thought that great powers would change their policies merely due to a new willingness to talk on our part so much as they believed that great powers were taking the positions they were due to a lack of willingness to talk on our part. It’s still naive but it’s a different sort of naivete.
16. 

    Mike P

    March 4, 2009 at 12:42 am

    Dave, I agree with you but think the administration is a little more realist than some of its most fervent supporters. Obama, Clinton, and the rest of his foreign policy team seem to be realist and pragmatic, not starry eyed idealists. I don’t think they’re advertising quick fixes and so I’m not bothered by Iran or Russia doing a little dance while they figure out what their next moves are. The mere fact that they’re being directly engaged after years of nothing probably sent them back to the drawing board.
17. 

    nice strategy

    March 4, 2009 at 12:54 am

    Nice strawman! World Peace hasn’t broken out in 6 weeks so obviously diplomacy is a failure. Let’s go back to saber rattling straightaway.

    Obama’s foreign policy is constrained by a serious lack of resources and goodwill. It’s a rebuilding year. Talking smack and making demands when you hold a pair of sixes just isn’t smart.

    Given the worldwide leadership vacuum, Obama’s reaching out doesn’t cost anything and starts a process that might yield something down the line. It doesn’t have to be grand change to helpful to our interests and therefore worth the effort.

    This effort to reach out need not garner immediate results if the underlying dynamic changes. Undermining the demonization of the US is good policy, even if macho Republican wanna-bes are lost in news cycle tactics and not comprehending a foreign policy that uses an understanding of interdependence to align common interests. Elite policy breakthroughs will not always lead foreign public opinion, and Obama’s election gave the US a 5-10 point bump of global political capital. I suppose some will argue that this should be or is irrelevant. They are still fighting the Cold War. Get over it already.
18. 

    Arcs

    March 4, 2009 at 6:25 am

    It’s still naive but it’s a different sort of naivete.

    Sort of like being a different sort of stupid, no?

    Undermining the demonization of the US is good policy. . .

    Swapping past foreign policy for a new Hope and Change foreign policy that, so far, appears to be threateningly naive ain’t necessarily a good thing.
19. 

    sam

    March 4, 2009 at 6:42 am

    Swapping past foreign policy for a new Hope and Change foreign policy that, so far, appears to be threateningly naive ain’t necessarily a good thing.

    Care to list some instances of that “threateningly naive” foreign policy given the exchange between JJ and Alex above…or did you not read that?
20. 

    Arcs

    March 4, 2009 at 7:50 am

    Sam said:

    The list of horribles that Krauthammer retails for us, at least as far as the Russians go, might probabaly be attributed to their capitalizing on it being early days for the administration (he was inaugurated what, five or six weeks ago?) and his plate is kinda full at the moment with other things.

    Threateningly naive is any President having their plate so full of “other things” that their foreign policy consists of a waving of the arms and saying, “I’ll give you a bag of my marbles if you’ll palaver with me.” If, as you said, the Russians are merely trying to take advantage of the early days of the current administration, why the pre-emptive offering of no missile shield?
21. 

    sam

    March 4, 2009 at 9:22 am

    If, as you said, the Russians are merely trying to take advantage of the early days of the current administration, why the pre-emptive offering of no missile shield?

    Evidently you’ve not followed the story:

    Obama seeks Russian help on Iran but denies deal
    
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he wanted to work with Russia to resolve a nuclear stand-off with Iran but denied reports he had offered to slow deployment of a missile defense shield in exchange for Moscow’s help.

    The New York Times reported that Obama had sent a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggesting he would back off deploying a system in eastern Europe to intercept and destroy missiles, a move Russia sees as a military threat, if Moscow helped stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.

    “What I said in the letter is what I have said publicly, which is that the missile defense that we have talked about deploying is directed toward, not Russia, but Iran,” Obama said after meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

    “And what I said … was that, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for a missile defense system,” he said.

    Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, said Washington wanted to reopen dialogue with Moscow on Iran. There were two options, he said — to work together to persuade Iran not to go ahead with their ballistic missile program, or make Russia a “full partner” in the defense shield.

    Try and keep up, OK?
22. 

    Arcs

    March 4, 2009 at 9:59 am

    The article you cite reinforces my statement that our new Hope and Change foreign policy appears threateningly naive.

    From your Rueters cite:

    Putin’s successor, Medvedev, told a news conference that Moscow was willing to talk to Washington about the shield but that it saw Iran’s nuclear program as a separate issue.

    Sounds to me like we’re throwing the missile shield onto the negotiation table before we even know if anyone else is going to sit at the table with us. Threateningly naive, that.

    Now, if you have something to say that illustrates the wisdom of our young President’s plate-otherwise-too-full foreign policy, I’ll read it. Otherwise, I’m tired of playing with you.
23. 

    Davebo

    March 4, 2009 at 10:40 am

    “A ridiculous number of people out there legitimately think that the only thing wrong with US-World relations was that Bush was a big fat meanie who wouldn’t sit down and chat with people.”

    Axis of Evil…..

    Yeah, tell us about it James.

    “Sounds to me like we’re throwing the missile shield onto the negotiation table before we even know if anyone else is going to sit at the table with us. ”

    Is it naive to point out that we don’t actually have a functional missile shield to throw on the table?
24. 

    Bithead

    March 4, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    But I would have thought that “being willing to talk” was a prerequisite to “foreign policy,” at least, the kind that isn’t conducted by bombs and landing craft.

    So, there’s nothing between these two stages? Gee. Seems to lack a certain ability for nuance in foriegn relations that was so much the rage when Kerry was running.
25. 

    sam

    March 4, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    @Archie

    I’m tired of playing with you.

    I can live with that.