The foreign policy Obama promised

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - 5:20 AM Share

Ezra Klein makes an interesting point regarding the health care plan that will likely emerge from Congress: that it pretty much matches what Obama the candidate promised in his health care plan (hat tip: Sullivan).

I bring this up because when you think about Barack Obama's foreign policy, you come to a very similar conclusion. It's a useful exercise to re-read Obama's July 2007 Foreign Affairs essay, "Renewing American Leadership," and compare it to Obama's first year as foreign policymaker-in-chief. In the essay, he emphasized the following:

A drawdown of forces in Iraq;
An enhanced effort in Afghanistan;
Close cooperation with Russia, paticularly on arms control;
A willingness to talk to adversaries, but not just talking for talking's sake;
Restoring America's standing in the world.

Not everything has been implemented -- his foreign aid pledges won't materialize, and the Middle East peace process remains an oxymoron. It's nevertheless quite striking how much Obama's first year of foreign policy outputs matches the blueprint he sketched out as a candidate. The only exception I can think of is homeland security.

By the by, it's also the case that the issues he didn't emphasize -- like trade, for example -- have pretty much gone nowhere.

Whether you think this is a good thing or not depends on your view of the policy content. Still, one would be hard-pressed to argue that on foreign policy, Obama the president has deviated from what he set out to do as a candidate.

EXPLORE:U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, 2008 CAMPAIGN, FOREIGN POLICY, FOREIGN POLICY COMMUNITY, OBAMA

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BLUE13326

4:54 PM ET

December 22, 2009

I don't disagree, but you

I don't disagree, but you can't separate his foreign policy from his disastrous economic policies, because we're reliant on borrowing so much from foreign sources. Obama campaigned as something of a deficit hawk (alright, no one actually believed that, but maybe that he would at least be somewhat responsible in his spending). Now we know that for the trillion plus dollars we borrowed in 'stimulus' all we got was a measly 3Q 2% growth, nearly of all which was from the colossally stupid 'Cash for Clunkers', which just pushed demand forward. His economic policies have very likely crippled us both domestically and in our foreign policy for a generation, and that's why his disapproval rating is the highest ever for a president at this point in their term.

GRANT

11:16 PM ET

December 22, 2009

'measly 3Q 2% growth'. That's

'measly 3Q 2% growth'. That's a lot more than you think. To start consider the fact that the economic growth in the U.S probably isn't going to rise above say 6% in a good year, and likely less than that. The reason that China and India can have double digit growth (usually 10%) is because they're starting from the bottom. Of course there's going to be more businesses started and jobs created. There's more room to grow in. Second, we're in a recession! Obviously there will be fewer people hired, fewer goods sold, and fewer businesses started.

CARDENAS697

5:24 AM ET

December 23, 2009

with regards to the 8 years of failed foreign policy

This reminds me of the 1st Foreign Policy magazine I purchased, “The Lonesome Cowboy.” With regards to Bush’s failed Foreign Policy.

• Iraq Is Bush’s Only Foreign-Policy Legacy - formation of a U.S.-India military alliance. Under Bush, the United States and India (along with Australia, Japan, and Singapore) have begun joint naval exercises. The United States and India signed a treaty to share nuclear materials in 2007. The United States is offering India fighter planes, warships, and other equipment sales that could total as much as $100 billion during the next 10 years.
• The Iraq War Has Made America Less Safe - In the two decades leading up to Bush’s presidency, the United States and its allies were struck by a rising number of increasingly ambitious, aggressive, and deadly terrorist attacks. The hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985. The Berlin disco bombing in 1986. The Buenos Aires bombings in 1992 and 1994. The assassination of Kurdish exiles in Berlin in 1992. The World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The Paris subway bombings in 1995. The plots to attack New York monuments and Pacific Ocean jetliners in 1995. The Khobar Towers bombing in 1996. The East Africa embassy bombings in 1998. The USS Cole in 2000. 9/11.
• Bush Has Wrecked America’s Alliances - Many have argued that the Bush administration somehow squandered Europe’s goodwill toward America by going it alone in Iraq. Not so. Polls conducted in the weeks after 9/11, well before the Iraq war, showed that only about one sixth to one quarter of Europeans supported the use of force against state sponsors of terrorism. That did not prevent NATO from approving the mission in Afghanistan—the first conflict approved under Article 5 of the NATO charter. It has, however, made it difficult to gain serious commitments for NATO troops from many member countries. And the reason NATO must ask for those extra troops in the first place is that all too many of the European troops already deployed in Afghanistan have been carefully positioned out of harm’s way. Even those allies who have sent troops to Afghanistan often insist on rules of engagement that preclude almost all serious missions.

To say that we had 8 years of failed foreign policy under Bush is a bit of a stretch. My question to everybody is as follows. Now that we have Obama as president of the United States and we have this new good will from Europe. Why is France going to sell modern military transport ship to Russia?