approach is evident in his reaction to Vladimir Putin, as it is in his foreign policy generally. Obama regards Putin’s behavior with a combination of condescension and naiveté: “Mr. Putin’s decisions aren’t just bad for Ukraine,” he says. “Over the long term, they’re going to be bad for Russia.”46 He fails to consider that from Putin’s perspective, aggression in Ukraine makes good strategic sense. In seizing Crimea, Putin has “acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars,” William J. Broad detailed in the New York Times.47 Obama also conveniently overlooks Russian success in turning more nations in Eurasia against the open, democratic Western model. According to a new report from Freedom House: “Ten years ago, one in five people in Eurasia lived under Consolidated Authoritarian rule, as defined in the report. Today, it’s nearly four in five, and the trend is accelerating.”48
Set against those real-world gains, why would Putin lose any sleep over Obama’s haughty disapproval? Indeed, as Putin himself said of Obama recently: “Who is he to judge, seriously?”49
Obama’s detachment has long distressed champions of American power, who often reside right of center on the political spectrum. The president’s supporters dismiss those critiques, but it’s not so easy to shrug off the criticism coming from two former Obama defense secretaries: Panetta (who also served as CIA chief) and Robert Gates.
“When the president of the United States draws a red line, the credibility of this country is dependent on him backing up his word,” Panetta said last year, after Obama had backed down from confronting Syria at the 11th hour.50 In his memoir, published early in 2014, Gates harshly criticized the commander in chief, particularly for what he saw as Obama’s failed leadership and commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Obama, “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his,” Gates wrote. “For him, it’s all about getting out.”51
As Obama’s international failures become more manifest and more consequential, it isn’t just the Right or the neocons who are speaking out. Critics on the Left are worried, too. “What’s frustrating to me sometimes about Obama is that the world seems to disappoint him,” said New Yorker editor David Remnick—an Obama biographer and admirer—on the MSNBC program Morning Joe.52 “Under Obama, the United States has suffered some real reputational damage,” David Ignatius wrote at the Washington Post. “I say that as someone who sympathizes with many of Obama’s foreign-policy goals. This damage, unfortunately, has largely been self-inflicted by an administration that focuses too much on short-term messaging.”53 And Foreign Policy editor David Rothkopf wrote in September 2013: “Even the most charitable of interpretations by the president’s most loyal supporters (and I voted for him twice, so I count myself in that group) would have to rank the past couple of months as among the worst of his administration in terms of national-security policy mismanagement.”54
It’s no wonder that the United States has been outflanked at every turn by strong leaders such as Putin and Xi. They believe in what they’re doing, and they have clear strategies and specific initiatives in the military, political, economic, and international realms that they purse with vigor and principle. At the present time, nothing like this can be said for the United States. Our paralysis and weakness have broad-ranging effects—clearing a path for our adversaries to advance their interests, while leaving our allies puzzled, angry, and vulnerable.
EMBOLDENED ADVERSARIES, WEAKENED ALLIES
When red lines are crossed in Syria, when Libya deteriorates, when Crimea is taken effortlessly in the face of clear U.S. treaty obligations, our allies around the world lose confidence and faith in our policies, in our commitments, and in us. The evidence is everywhere.
We are losing what allies we had in the Middle East. Consider: Saudi Arabia, one of America’s key partners in the region, was elected to a seat on the UN Security Council in 2013—and declined to accept it. The Saudis cited the inability of the UN to put a stop to Iran’s nuclear program and blamed the UN for allowing Syria “to kill its own people with chemical weapons . . . without confronting it or imposing any deterrent sanctions.”55 When our own allies have no faith in international security mechanisms such as the UNSC, it signals a crisis of confidence in the international system, the system so long backed by the confidence and authority of the United States.
We have no relationship to speak of with Egypt, for generations a staunch American ally. That country is in undeniably worse shape than before the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak. New Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is no friend of the United States; in fact, he has a strong and deepening relationship with Putin. Egypt is planning to buy Russia’s cutting-edge MiG-35 fighter jet, and the two countries have agreed to hold joint military exercises. Russia is engaging in “arms-supply diplomacy” across the Middle East in an effort to take advantage of the power vacuum left by America’s pullback from the region.56
Another formerly close American ally, Turkey, has been blaming Washington for months for its domestic unrest. Under the increasingly autocratic leadership of Recep Erdogan, Turkey is moving away from the United States. Erdogan even filed an extradition request for Fethullah Gulen, a political rival living in Pennsylvania. Erdogan knows that America will deny this request, but the rebuff will set the stage for Erdogan to take advantage of rising anti-Americanism as he goes into upcoming presidential elections.57 Like other Middle Eastern leaders, Erdogan has calculated that siding with America may no longer be a winning strategy.
In Afghanistan, where America spent an unfathomable sum in blood and treasure to defeat the Taliban, the current government is eager to distance itself from America’s faltering global leadership. This past March, Hamid Karzai, who owes his presidency to America’s efforts to promote democracy in that country, endorsed Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.58 Brazenly, Karzai chose to announce his position at a meeting with an American congressional delegation.59
Even Iraq, the country that America sought to remake, at enormous human, financial, and political cost to ourselves, is moving away from the U.S.—and toward a closer strategic alliance with Iran. The two countries concluded a sale of arms worth roughly $200 million in February 2014, the latest sign of a deepening relationship between the two majority-Shiite countries. Iraq might even be permitting Iranian shipments of weapons to Syria, directly undermining American efforts to support moderate anti-Assad rebels.60 (Of course, all bets are off if ISIS, made up of Sunni rebels and al-Qaeda fighters, continues its gains and winds up toppling the Maliki government. That will present different problems, perhaps even worse ones, for the U.S.)
Indeed, the carnage in Syria continues unabated, and the international community is powerless to put a stop to it. The United States, devoted to staying out, is not exerting meaningful leadership to sway an outcome. The Syrian conflict has become a proxy for Iranian power, as Tehran has recruited and paid impoverished Shiite Afghanis to fight for Assad.61 The Syrians have violated the chemical-weapons accord numerous times, including by using chlorine against rebels and civilians. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said publicly that the United States, Britain, and France were wrong to call off airstrikes against Assad in August 2013. Fabius says that he has evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons 14 times since September 2013. Damascus has missed the deadlines for disgorging the chemical weapons it still possesses, and it may be hiding other stockpiles.62
We have offered no credible threat that would curtail the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran. China continues to defend and support the murderous regime in Pyongyang, whose sickening crimes against its own citizens were detailed in a chilling United Nations report in February 2014.63 North Korea continues to expand its nuclear arsenal and threatens to provoke a nuclear arms race in East Asia.64
Our
