The Foreign Policy Legacy of Barack Obama

Abstract

Barack Obama finishes his second term with a mixed but positive foreign policy legacy. America’s global standing is much improved from the waning days of the George W. Bush administration eight years ago. Obama’s most notable achievements were the international agreement slowing Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons capability and diplomatic normalisation with Cuba. On the other side of the ledger were his failure to extricate America from military overextension in the greater Mideast and from the global policing mindset that produced that overextension. Also marring his record was his incoherent response to Syria’s deadly civil war and Libya’s collapse into anarchy following the 2011 international intervention.

Keywords:

• Obama
• foreign policy
• transformation
• policing mindset
• Iran
• Cuba

Notes

¹ http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/122074.pdf

² “The First Presidential Debate”, The New York Times, 23 May 2012, http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/first-presidential-debate.html

³ “Transcript of Thursday's Democratic presidential debate”, CNN, 31 January 2008,

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/31/dem.debate.transcript/

⁴ “Remarks By President Barack Obama In Prague As Delivered”, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 5 April 2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered

⁵ “U.S. Nuclear Modernization Programs, Fact Sheets & Briefs”, Arms Control Association, August 2016, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization

⁶ So too, of course, have Washington’s increasingly difficult relations with Israel, Turkey and Pakistan, discussion of which I omit here for reasons of space.

⁷ “Exclusive: President Barack Obama on 'Fox News Sunday'”, FoxNews.com, 10 April 2016, http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/04/10/exclusive-president-barack-obama-on-fox-news-sunday/

⁸ Laughlin, “Bush warns militants in Iraq”, http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/02/sprj.nitop.bush/

⁹ Froomkin, “Second Thoughts About 'Bring 'em On'”, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9092-2005Jan14.html

¹⁰ Bureau of the Census, US Treasury/Federal Reserve.

¹¹ In 2008, NATO’s then Secretary-General said eventual NATO membership for both countries was a matter of when rather than if.

¹² http://www.africom.mil/about-the-command

¹³ http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report

¹⁴ Bump, “U.S. disarmament is slowest since 1980”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/27/obama-calls-for-end-to-nuclear-weapons-but-u-s-disarmament-is-slowest-since-1980/; Broad and Sanger, “U.S. Renewal in Nuclear Arms”, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/us-ramping-up-major-renewal-in-nuclear-arms.html

¹⁵ “President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address”, The White House, 21 January 2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/01/21/president-barack-obamas-inaugural-address

¹⁶ Cassidy, “Eric Holder’s Twisted Logic”, http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/eric-holders-twisted-logic-on-edward-snowden

¹⁷ Unger, The Emergency State.

¹⁸ Zakaria, “Obama pursued transformation”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-transformational-president/2016/04/07/d722a7a4-fce9-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html?utm_term=.6872ffcf20a8