THE NOBEL SPEECH: THE OBAMA DOCTRINE?

In my International Relations class I always introduce students to the key theories that help us understand developments over time and around the world. The goal isn't to reaffirm or convince the students of one approach over another. At present - while we must pay attention to certain truths, like the security dilemma - no one approach is superior for understanding international relations.

The idea is to get my students to see that it isn't sufficient in the modern world to say, "We are more civilized and my club is bigger than yours so we will win." The British learned this lesson by the middle of the 20th century. The French learned this lesson too. The Soviet Union learned this lesson in Afghanistan at the end of the 20th century.

At the same time, in the modern world it is not sufficient to embrace the thinking of those with bumper stickers that read, "Won't it be a Great Day When the Navy has to Hold a Bake Sale and Schools Have All the Money they Need?". There are - as President Obama noted during his speech - moments where wars are just and necessary.

The grand chessboard of global politics isn't simply a function of "kicking ass" or turning an island into a parking lot. It's not about seeing who has the most rifles, bombs, and troops. But it's also not about moralizing to the point of embracing the undertones of the Beatles' song "All You Need is Love." Understanding global politics involves knowing how to create and sustain systemic stability with both a sword and a pen. Under the American Peace, or Pax Americana, we've increasingly embraced the pen. This is something to brag about. It's not only what you do during war, but what you do after victory that counts.

Knowing when to employ aggressive strength or strategic restraint is what creates the historic tales of grand masters on the global stage. 

This is why I thoroughly enjoyed President Obama's humble but realistic Nobel Peace Prize speech. While I'm still not convinced about the fuzziness of his Afghanistan policy, it's clear that he gets it when it comes to international relations. The art of global politics involves understanding power and the responsibility that comes with that power. Crafting a policy that threads those two needles is what turns an ordinary politician into a statesman. President Obama looked like a statesman at Oslo.

Addressing the challenges that come with trying to create global security, President Obama reminded the world that more than six decades of stability had been established under an enlightened America that used it's military strength. President Obama seems to understand that if he must operate in a world that doesn't provide black and white answers he must be both a warrior and a statesman.

Embracing these contrasting and seemingly contradictory positions - as Howard Fineman told us - is what's so reassuring about President Obama. In the immortal words of F. Scott Fitzgerald:  

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

If President Obama laid the groundwork for the beginning of an Obama Doctrine, it is his embrace of a rules-based multilateralism, seasoned with this maxim from Machiavelli:

The rule of man is law. The rule of the beast is force. In order to insure the former, you must have access to the latter.

Again, while I'm not thrilled about his rationale for Afghanistan at this point, President Obama's Oslo speech suggests he knows what he's doing.

- Mark

UPDATE: For those of you who agree with my sentiments here, and enjoy reading Reinhold Niebuhr, this post from Dailykos puts my Obama Doctrine suggestion on another, more philosophical, level. For those of you unfamiliar with Niebuhr, you might know him through the serenity prayer ("God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can change, And wisdom to know the difference.").

OBAMA'S AFGHANISTAN SPEECH

I just finished watching President Obama's Afghanistan speech. A couple of days ago I had these three questions.

* What's the mission?
* What's the exit strategy?
* How are we going to pay for this?

After watching the speech I still have the same questions. The closest President Obama came to answering any of these was when he discussed the mission (kind of).

Apparently we're keeping troops in Afghanistan for two reasons. First, to help keep al Qaeda out. In essence we're President Karzai's (and the Saudi's) hired guns. I can't make it any simpler than this. Second, we're in Afghanistan because we're concerned about the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Not only do we have other options here (e.g. the UN or the CIA) but it would be easier if President Obama just made the case that the border region is where we need to be. Explaining Pakistan's nukes falling into al Qaeda's hands is an easier sell.

Still, at the end of the day neither one of these reasons come close to formulating a broad based plan.

Count me as still unconvinced. With what I heard we should be leaving.

- Mark

UPDATE: Former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, chimes in with his observations on putting an additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan. I think he's spot on.

MORE TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN

President Obama has decided to put more troops in Afghanistan. This decision is not a surprise. We have been hearing about this decision for weeks now. While the White House is making it clear that this is not an open-ended commitment I don't know that this is going to make things better. What's the mission? What's the exit strategy? How are we going to pay for this?

Without answering these questions, or at leat addressing them, more troops will only serve to transfer President Bush's Blundering Wars Project on to President Obama. We should be leaving Afghanistan rather than - as John McCain might put it - "muddling through." I don't like this.

- Mark

REALITY SHOT: LOBBYING, JOBS & AFGHANISTAN

It appears that lobbyists and members of Congress got caught making each other's job much easier. Statements made by House members during the health care debate were written either in part or entirely by lobbyists from Genentech, one of the world's largest biotech companies.

No surprise here.

Members of Congress have been writing favorable legislation and doing industry business for some time now (the dergulation of the financial sector is just one example). Still, it's interesting that the NY Times actually got a hold of e-mails confirming what most of us already know: Lobbyists are writing legislation, and they're also telling our members of Congress what to think.

Also in the news ... As I've been arguing for some time now, it appears that things will get worse on the job front rather than better.

Economist Nouriel Roubini, who was one of several people telling the world that the market was going to collapse in 2008, says the worst is not over. The result of our job's picture isn't good. According to Roubini:

... we can expect weak recovery of consumption and economic growth; larger budget deficits; greater delinquencies in residential and commercial real estate and greater fall in home and commercial real estate prices; greater losses for banks and financial institutions on residential and commercial real estate mortgages, and in credit cards, auto loans and student loans and thus a greater rate of failures of banks; and greater protectionist pressures.

Those of you who read this blog regularly know why I agree with this assessment. I'll be posting some graphs by the end of the month showing why things will get worse, rather than better.

Finally, on the war front (with a hat tip to Dogan). We have former Marine (who served in Iraq) and U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, Mathew Hoh, discussing why we need to leave Afghanistan. 




Hoh - who resigned his diplomatic post recently - has been hearing from active military who see no end in sight, and who don't have any real sense what the mission is now. This is not good. Still, I'm sure, the military crazies in this country we cry foul if we don't stay, in the process propping up a corrupt and kleptocratic regime that only wants us to stay to help keep them in power.

- Mark

OBAMA TO REJECT OPTIONS IN AFGHANISTAN

While I have become a bit disappointed in President Obama's handling of Wall Street's corruption, his lackluster effort in pushing for a real Public Option, and his continued embrace of President Bush's Blundering Wars Project, this bit of news is both stunning and promising.

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government.

It turns out that "forceful reservations" from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, may have had an impact on President Obama. Ambassador Ikenberry, a former military commander in the region, simply doesn't trust President Karzai. With this in mind, and because of his concerns over an open-ended commitment, President Obama appears ready to "reject all Aghanistan options" currently being prepared (all of which involve more troops and no withdrawal timelines).

If true, this is very good news. As I noted in the previous post, the reasons for leaving Afghanistan are many:

* We have no money and are breaking the bank.
* The Afghanis are not afraid of us.
* The Afghanis now see us as occupiers.

Throw in the fact that the people we're really after, al Qaeda, are in Pakistan and the reasons for staying in  Afghanistan are weak at best.

Apart from a lack of withdrawal timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai, President Obama could also be looking at these developments: Current military spending is now increasing unemployment and reducing economic growth in our nation at a faster rate than previously projected, while the Iraq war alone is projected to cost our nation $3-5 trillion.

At the end of the day - and apart from appeasing the War Crazies - it's clear that there are few reasons to up the ante in Afghanistan. We need to put some distance between the policies of a president who once thought reducing troop levels in Afghanistan was a good idea because he naively believed (as Senator John McCain famously put it) we could "muddle through" in Afghanistan.

Now if we can just get President Obama to alter his policy course and become more aggressive when it comes to Wall Street and the Public Option.

- Mark