Stimson in the News

Commentary On M. Krepon’s Op-Ed On Ambitious Foreign Policy Is Published In Foreign Policy

In China

This week, the Stimson Center’s Michael Krepon posted a sharp critique of Barack Obama’s foreign policy, accusing his administration of “lack of ambition.” And that was before Obama’s tepid response to the brutal military crackdown in Egypt. Here’s Krepon’s lede:

“Remember when American presidents set out to do big things in the world?

That was when denizens of the Oval Office had one powerful attribute: ambition. And that’s exactly what President Barack Obama is lacking today: a desire to shape world events to America’s liking, and a willingness to take big risks to make that happen.

No wonder he is making little progress on the enormous foreign policy and national security challenges facing the United States. The less ambition an administration has, the harder achieving anything becomes.”

Krepon is a smart, sensible guy, and getting to know him was one of the high points of the year I spent at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace back in the 1980s. He has written a lot of wise things over the years, and he is certainly correct that Obama’s foreign-policy team can claim few real successes over the past five-plus years.

But is the problem really “lack of ambition”? After all, consider some of the goals that Obama has set forth since becoming president. He was going to get a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was going to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. He greatly expanded the U.S. effort to kill suspected terrorists with drones and special operations forces, thereby inserting the United States directly into the internal politics of several unstable countries. He also pledged to lead the world to a new climate change agreement and take big steps toward a world without nuclear weapons. And he was going to “reset” with Russia, “pivot” to Asia, nurture the democratic roots of the “Arab spring,” and rebalance U.S. foreign policy toward greater emphasis on “development and diplomacy.” Or so he and his minions said.

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