Steven Metz: An Obama Doctrine? (Or: Why the president's speech reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld.)
[Steven Metz is the author of Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy.]
When it came to foreign policy and national security, George W. Bush was a "big idea" president. Whether one agreed or disagreed with them, overarching concepts and a defined perspective on history drove his decisions. So far, Barack Obama has not been a big idea president, at least in foreign and national security policy. His instincts have been more those of a lawyer, charting a careful course through specific challenges and gravitating to a middle path which minimized risk. It has been serial problem-solving rather than big ideas.
This shaped President Obama's initial approach to the Arab Spring as it began in Tunisia, swept away Hosni Mubarak, and spread to Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and Jordan. But the cautious avoidance of grand theory may have ended in the bloody sand of Libya. His Monday speech on the Libyan conflict introduced two big ideas about the nature of world affairs that, if developed further, could eventually develop into something known as the Obama Doctrine.
Granted, much of the speech remained more that of a lawyer than a strategist or an engineer of history. The address began with a careful recounting of the beginning and evolution of the Libyan conflict, Qaddafi's crimes, and the American response. It offered an equally careful explanation of why President Obama rejected both calls for the United States to avoid engagement and to undertake armed regime change on its own, instead choosing a middle path. But the meat came toward the end of the speech—the lawyer's closing argument. There, the two major themes emerged, one explicit, one implicit...
Read entire article at New Republic
When it came to foreign policy and national security, George W. Bush was a "big idea" president. Whether one agreed or disagreed with them, overarching concepts and a defined perspective on history drove his decisions. So far, Barack Obama has not been a big idea president, at least in foreign and national security policy. His instincts have been more those of a lawyer, charting a careful course through specific challenges and gravitating to a middle path which minimized risk. It has been serial problem-solving rather than big ideas.
This shaped President Obama's initial approach to the Arab Spring as it began in Tunisia, swept away Hosni Mubarak, and spread to Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and Jordan. But the cautious avoidance of grand theory may have ended in the bloody sand of Libya. His Monday speech on the Libyan conflict introduced two big ideas about the nature of world affairs that, if developed further, could eventually develop into something known as the Obama Doctrine.
Granted, much of the speech remained more that of a lawyer than a strategist or an engineer of history. The address began with a careful recounting of the beginning and evolution of the Libyan conflict, Qaddafi's crimes, and the American response. It offered an equally careful explanation of why President Obama rejected both calls for the United States to avoid engagement and to undertake armed regime change on its own, instead choosing a middle path. But the meat came toward the end of the speech—the lawyer's closing argument. There, the two major themes emerged, one explicit, one implicit...