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A lot of my criticism of Obama's foreign policy (or really either party's foreign policy as of late) is that it has no semblance of a plan. I think Hillary hit the nail on the head when she said that "don't do stupid poo poo" does not constitute a plan, and the fact that Obama got mad at her for saying that reveals how limited his view or thinking on foreign policy is. To me, foreign policy (FP) is not a play book, it is not a list of actions you take for a given set of circumstances. Our nation's FP should be more like a chess game, where we plan our moves out in advance, yet alter what we do in response to the actions of others to meet the needs of the situation. Not sticking our junk into the hornet's nest that is Syria: smart move, and it constitutes "not doing stupid poo poo." However, Obama had no follow up after that, he simply watched passively from the sidelines as things spiraled out of control with no contingency plans. Our reliance on Turkey (a rather unsavory and unreliable "ally" at best) and a reluctance to actually make use of some of the few capable players on the ground (the KRG and YPG) is laughable. In short, Obama has no end-game, no exit strategy for Syria - he simply is hoping the pot doesn't boil over all over himself. Now, if this is something where you never plan on getting involved with in any form, whatsoever (e.g. if the Syrian war was, say, an Uzbek civil war) then fine. However, US FP history clearly shows that we can practically never walk away from a war in the Middle East for some reason. Therefore, letting the Syrian mess spill over was incredibly short-sighted, as eventually we'd have to wade in even if we didn't want to. That doesn't even begin to start with the fact that he had no long-term international plans. For being the first black president, I would have thought this was a perfect opportunity to try and engage with Africa on a diplomatic and economic front. China is moving in on the continent (or was) with unquestioned zeal, and I'm surprised we didn't even try to compete. Likewise, he didn't use any of his fame and goodwill when he started his first term to accomplish much of anything. With that kind of political capital, you'd think he'd want to try and get something, anything done just to not waste it. The Eurozone crisis? He sits back passively and makes an occasional phone call, never mind that the economic viability of a huge trade partner is on the line. The Ukraine crisis? John Kerry get's played by the Russian foreign minister like a fiddle. The Iran-Saudi rivalry? His inaction on all the other issues causes the Saudis to decide that they are better off making their own coalition of Sunni states, leading to Yemen's war and added proxy war tension in Syria. Essentially Obama was first and foremost a domestic affairs president. Not necessarily a bad thing, considering where we were in 2008, but to claim that he had anything even approaching an adequate or active foreign policy is a joke.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:17
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WMain00 posted:As for a foreign policy philosophy - I don't think such a thing can be created. Foreign policy changes dynamically depending on the situation currently going on in the world. Today's enemy is tomorrows ally. True, but you can at least set goals that you work to achieve. One might be "decrease US economic and diplomatic dependence on the Middle East." That might mean the use of fracking in the US to reduce oil imports and even start oil and NG exports to Europe to cut them off of ME oil. That also might mean (covertly) stoking regional rivalries or encouraging cooperation to decrease ME hostility to the US so we can quietly back out of the region. Or you might have the goal of "improving ties to Latin America and the reduction of strong-man countries." Whatever the case, the only foreign policy goal I see from Obama is "hope nothing bad happens to me." When you give up the initiative on every front, you lose the ability to dictate the terms of the diplomatic battlefield.
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Mar 10, 2016 18:11
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Main Paineframe posted:Syria would have been another Iraq or Vietnam for sure - there was simply no way any intervention could have had any real effect, short of an all-out military invasion which would find itself facing a permanent insurgency and unable to establish a strong and stable puppet government. There's no realistic "exit strategy" for sticking our noses into a civil war where we don't like any of the participants and don't want any of them to win. Obama's problem in Syria wasn't that he was too non-interventionist, as his administration is trying to portray it. The reason he's been burned so badly by Syria is because, even though he realized the ultimate futility of intervening in the Syria conflict, he couldn't resist involving the US anyway. Since he realized it was a bad idea with a lot to lose and basically nothing to gain, he tried to compensate for that by restricting the scope to throwaway efforts so we could cut our losses and bail if needed rather than escalating into yet another Middle East quagmire. Instead, the resulting vague, non-committal involvement ended up looking worse than just pretending the conflict didn't exist in the first place. That's kind of my point though. If you know something is a lost cause, you cut it off and don't get involved at all. If Syria was to note a shift in US policy to the Middle East as part of a greater "I regret that I have but no shits to give" and we wash our hands of the affair, great, and that is something I agree with. Being in Syria solves nothing. However, Obama didn't want to walk away entirely, as he still wanted the option to soap box and posture on the world stage about it. The problem was, everyone knew he didn't have any skin in the game, so his "red line" was a bluff that he got called on. Then we start doing this poorly thought out garbage like arming the "moderate rebels" which nets us 6 fighters for $500 million. We fund the SDF, which is really just an umbrella group of the YPG so we have plausible deniability about arming the Kurds, all the while using Turkish airspace and acting like Turkey is in any way a positive influence in the whole mess - effectively we're in a proxy war with a NATO member. All this makes us look weak and indecisive to other countries in the region (like KSA, Jordan, etc) who are now going it alone. When Iran ultimately restarts their nuclear program (if they haven't already) we have next to zero credibility to keep the Saudis from starting their own, if they aren't already. It's one thing to hold up our hand at Syria and say "bitch, please, I'm not interested." We've done it countless times (Darfur, Rwanda, pretty much anywhere in Africa). It's entirely another thing to pout, posture, and pontificate, waste money, and ultimately achieve nothing (what we've been doing in Syria). Diplomatic deterrence is about predictability, perception, expectations; if people know that if America says we're going to do something we come in full-bore to the hilt, then they will be very careful to listen to us. If we talk tough and then walk away after a little bit of slap fighting, they'll know that they can push us around a certain amount without retaliation (see Russia with the EU).
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Mar 10, 2016 22:08
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Stultus Maximus posted:Obama has made some mistakes but I think he's set the correct path to go on. It's not an easy path and there will be a lot of points where it seems like a bad idea, but I think he's on the correct path of internationalism. I know this is from the first page, but I think this poster captures the sentiment of a lot of posters in the thread when pointing out the futility of intervention in Syria. Let me also line up and say that I agree with that sentiment: Syria is a money/blood pit. While other posters have given good reasons why earlier intervention could have worked, I personally don't think that sad sack of sand is worth shedding American blood for (ditto with Iraq by the way). My problem with Obama's foreign policy isn't that he didn't intervene or not, but that he tried to not choose between the two. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too, and that is terrible foreign policy. The nature of a democracy half the world away from most international crises means that we have only a limited national will to engage in costly endeavors. If there is a reason for America to be involved, we'll go in and get the job done, and the country will unify to see it through. For a certain amount of time only, as we saw with the Second Iraq War. Therefore, national will to fight should be jealously shepherded by the Executive Office as much of a resource as food, water, oil, or tanks. GWB failed to understand this, and to me was a defining failure of his foreign policy. Now Obama's failure is the corollary to the above: you do not claim or posture to use military force unless you are actually willing to use it. You bluff too many times, and someone will call you on it, and on the world stage, when people's lives are on the line, your word must mean something. Teddy Roosevelt referred to it as "speak softly and carry a big stick." You want to peacefully engage in diplomacy where ever possible, but when you pull out military force as an option, you do it fully and thoroughly and leave no room for doubt in anyone's mind that America means what it says. That is the crime of Obama's red line, and of his posturing about "Assad must go, eh... nevermind." It means what the US says can be ignored; it means that when we say "NO" to someone, they can try waiting us out. It means now for subsequent leaders in subsequent crises, opposing countries will wonder "do they really mean it?" That means where one tyrant might have backed down from the threat of confrontation with the US prior to Obama, now he might call the threat, and then force must be used and people die. If America rattles its saber, it better drat well be because we're drawing it, ready to cut someone. Essentially, do paraphrase Yoda, do it, or don't do it - don't fumble with half-rear end measures. What compounds Obama's red line failure even more is because it was on the subject of WMDs (chemical weapons). To quote Dr. Strangelove, "deterrence is the art of creating, in the mind of the enemy, the FEAR to attack." What made that movie so darkly funny is the truth of many lines like that in the movie. It is the certainty of consequences and US response that protects us from hostile use of WMDs on us. There are only hazy lines separating chemical and biological weapons from nuclear weapons, and thus US policy on all WMD use must be crystal clear. Nuclear weapons are terrible things and should have never been developed, but sadly Pandora's box has been opened. The only thing keeping it from spewing all its contents on the world is a giant pile of US/Russian bombs on the lid of the box with a note that says "Mutually Assured Destruction." Nuclear deterrence only holds if everyone knows that those holding the button are ready and willing to press it should someone step out of line. That is why for Obama to declare a red line on chemical weapon use and then fail to act in ANY way is so dangerous. "Hey, but it was just some gas attacks" you might say, but then it starts the slippery slope into some fanatic in Iran/KSA/Pakistan/India/NK saying "but it's just one tactical nuclear bomb on a military target." The fact that Obama has now put America's determination and willingness to hold the line on WMDs into question is probably one of the more dangerous mistakes of his presidency (in magnitude of the consequences, although not in probability of it occurring). There are some things in foreign policy where you must be clear, unequivocal, and firm - WMDs are one. Do not say something if you do not mean it, because there are many more things than just the issue at hand at stake.
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Mar 11, 2016 18:00
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Majorian posted:Getting Assad to turn over the vast majority of his chemical weapons arsenal doesn't strike me as a refusal to intervene. Except Obama did nothing to get Assad to turn over the chemical weapons, that was all Russia done for the sake of making the US look like a bunch of tools. Do you realize what you're saying? You are trumpeting the fact that Obama drew a red line on WMD use, failed to hold the line, and then relied on Syrian promises to give all their chemical weapons to Russia (verified by Russian inspectors) all on the "honor" system. The only reason Syria gave up what we think are all of their chemical weapons is because it benefited Putin for them to do so. As for not intervening in Syria, I would agree with that simply because I don't think we can solve the problem that is the Middle East. Call it a stunning lack of faith in humanity, but I think that part of the world is a lost cause for now. At the very least, it is not worth the US going it alone. If the EU wanted our help in taking care of it to prevent the migrant crisis, sure, we'd help our allies. One of the few things Obama got right was his realization that we can't solve every problem all the time - we have to choose our fights carefully.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:16
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Majorian posted:That's totally untrue. The U.S. was one of the key parties to the agreement, along with Russia and Syria, and the U.S. is the one carrying out the destruction of the weapons. And I'm sure Assad and Putin are entirely trustworthy in all things and they have never lied or misled anyone about anything. Right. Also, just the fact that the US was one of the key parties to the agreement has nothing to do with the core impetus for the agreement's existence. Obama drew a red line, Assad crossed it, then Obama did nothing. So please tell me how anything the US has said to Assad has shaped his actions in the last 5 years, and why Assad would call Obama's bluff, suffer no consequences, and then all of a sudden - out of the goodness of his heart - decide to disarm of all chemical weapons. You are naive if you think we had anything to do with it; it was Russia 100%.
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Mar 11, 2016 21:51
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