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Obama Abdicates US's Role As Superpower
By James G. Wiles, For The Bulletin
In 1916, Field Marshall Ludendorf returned to Berlin after a visit to the front-lines of Germany’s ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His report to the Kaiser and the General Staff was to the point: “we are allied,” he said, “to a corpse.”
Somehow, one doubts that thought occurred to the Leader of the Free World (as American presidents used to be styled) as he and the Mighty Michelle (credit: BBC) winged their way home from their triumphant European tour. In that tour, nothing of benefit to the United States was achieved. Instead, the results of the G-20 meeting might be summarized as follows:
1. America will continue to add more combat troops in Afghanistan, possibly as many as a total of 82,000 by next year, while the Europeans will add no combat troops.
2. Americans will beggar their children and grandchildren by pressing forward with the Obama administration’s “stimulus” package,” while the other G-20 members (wisely) decline to do so.
3. As detailed on The Bulletin’s Op-Ed pages on Monday by columnist Dick Morris, G-20 members have created a new international Board of Financial Stability with potentially controlling oversight over U.S. economic policy and financial institutions.
At the same time, U.S. allies who have fought and bled with us in the War of Sept. 11 (my coinage) or who, like Poland and the Czech Republic, have stepped up to confront a revanchist Russia have been left with nothing but our president’s honeyed words.
Such, such is the scale of American presidential leadership in the world as Barack Obama’s 100 Days draw to a close. And such, too, is the state of most of America’s allies, except what columnist Mark Steyn and others have called the Anglosphere. In particular, we have seen the return — faster even than I had imagined — of the 1970s refrain: “you know, there’s really nothing we can do about [insert international problem of the day here].”
Mr. Obama’s decision to abdicate America’s status as the world’s sole superpower and to acquiesce in the idealistic pacifism of the EU is unprecedented in American and even world history. Where is his Americanism? Hopefully, he is learning fast.
To date, every initiative the president has made to “engage” with America’s enemies or rivals has ended with his pulling back a bloody stump. The North Korean missile launch on Sunday is only the latest example.
In the meantime, it’s a misnomer to speak of the president’s foreign policy as “Wilsonian.” It was President Bush, with his Freedom Agenda, who was the Wilsonian. Woodrow Wilson was an idealist, an American exceptionalist and a believer in the use of force to spread and enforce American ideals. During his eight years in office, the U.S. repeatedly used force, in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and, finally, in 1917-18, when America intervened in the First World War.
Contrast President Wilson’s record with the Obama administration’s response to the North Korean or Iranian nuclear programs, the fecklessness of NATO in Afghanistan or the international community’s failure to deal effectively with international piracy off the Horn of Africa or in the Malacca Straits. This was not always so. Once, it was the Royal Navy that swept the seas free of pirates and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson who sent the U.S. Navy to put an end to the Barbary Pirates.
Similarly, take North Korea. A founding premise of the U.N. Charter was that Member States, which defied the Security Council in the face of a uniting-for-peace resolution, would pay dearly for it. In 1991, the Security Council acted and a multinational coalition drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait. In 2003, Iraqi bribes (among other things) paralyzed the Security Council, so the U.S. and its allies acted unilaterally to enforce prior resolutions of the Council.
Given the prior Security Council resolutions on North Korea, there’s ample precedent for, say, a U.S. air and naval blockade of the North. And, by the way, if we continue to do nothing, why should the Japanese (or the Saudis or the Egyptians or the Poles) continue to count on America’s nuclear guarantee?
Finally, notice how the Obamacans and their soul mates in the EU are profoundly anti-democratic. While the president’s personal standing in the polls remains high (as it, of course, should less than 100 days into office), his policies — including his proposals to socialize large parts of the American economy — are opposed by the voters by margins as high as 70 percent. The Democrats in Congress intend to pass them anyway.
In this, American Democrats are close kin to the politicians and bureaucrats of the European Union. Europeans favor the death penalty; Brussels won’t allow it. In a continent created by Christianity, the EU is aggressively secular. Most Europeans oppose the proposed European Constitution. The Eurocrats are determined to get it ratified anyway.
They think they know better.
One lesson of history is that they almost certainly do not.
James G. Wiles can be reached at jwiles@thebulletin.us
Somehow, one doubts that thought occurred to the Leader of the Free World (as American presidents used to be styled) as he and the Mighty Michelle (credit: BBC) winged their way home from their triumphant European tour. In that tour, nothing of benefit to the United States was achieved. Instead, the results of the G-20 meeting might be summarized as follows:
1. America will continue to add more combat troops in Afghanistan, possibly as many as a total of 82,000 by next year, while the Europeans will add no combat troops.
2. Americans will beggar their children and grandchildren by pressing forward with the Obama administration’s “stimulus” package,” while the other G-20 members (wisely) decline to do so.
3. As detailed on The Bulletin’s Op-Ed pages on Monday by columnist Dick Morris, G-20 members have created a new international Board of Financial Stability with potentially controlling oversight over U.S. economic policy and financial institutions.
At the same time, U.S. allies who have fought and bled with us in the War of Sept. 11 (my coinage) or who, like Poland and the Czech Republic, have stepped up to confront a revanchist Russia have been left with nothing but our president’s honeyed words.
Such, such is the scale of American presidential leadership in the world as Barack Obama’s 100 Days draw to a close. And such, too, is the state of most of America’s allies, except what columnist Mark Steyn and others have called the Anglosphere. In particular, we have seen the return — faster even than I had imagined — of the 1970s refrain: “you know, there’s really nothing we can do about [insert international problem of the day here].”
Mr. Obama’s decision to abdicate America’s status as the world’s sole superpower and to acquiesce in the idealistic pacifism of the EU is unprecedented in American and even world history. Where is his Americanism? Hopefully, he is learning fast.
To date, every initiative the president has made to “engage” with America’s enemies or rivals has ended with his pulling back a bloody stump. The North Korean missile launch on Sunday is only the latest example.
In the meantime, it’s a misnomer to speak of the president’s foreign policy as “Wilsonian.” It was President Bush, with his Freedom Agenda, who was the Wilsonian. Woodrow Wilson was an idealist, an American exceptionalist and a believer in the use of force to spread and enforce American ideals. During his eight years in office, the U.S. repeatedly used force, in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and, finally, in 1917-18, when America intervened in the First World War.
Contrast President Wilson’s record with the Obama administration’s response to the North Korean or Iranian nuclear programs, the fecklessness of NATO in Afghanistan or the international community’s failure to deal effectively with international piracy off the Horn of Africa or in the Malacca Straits. This was not always so. Once, it was the Royal Navy that swept the seas free of pirates and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson who sent the U.S. Navy to put an end to the Barbary Pirates.
Similarly, take North Korea. A founding premise of the U.N. Charter was that Member States, which defied the Security Council in the face of a uniting-for-peace resolution, would pay dearly for it. In 1991, the Security Council acted and a multinational coalition drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait. In 2003, Iraqi bribes (among other things) paralyzed the Security Council, so the U.S. and its allies acted unilaterally to enforce prior resolutions of the Council.
Given the prior Security Council resolutions on North Korea, there’s ample precedent for, say, a U.S. air and naval blockade of the North. And, by the way, if we continue to do nothing, why should the Japanese (or the Saudis or the Egyptians or the Poles) continue to count on America’s nuclear guarantee?
Finally, notice how the Obamacans and their soul mates in the EU are profoundly anti-democratic. While the president’s personal standing in the polls remains high (as it, of course, should less than 100 days into office), his policies — including his proposals to socialize large parts of the American economy — are opposed by the voters by margins as high as 70 percent. The Democrats in Congress intend to pass them anyway.
In this, American Democrats are close kin to the politicians and bureaucrats of the European Union. Europeans favor the death penalty; Brussels won’t allow it. In a continent created by Christianity, the EU is aggressively secular. Most Europeans oppose the proposed European Constitution. The Eurocrats are determined to get it ratified anyway.
They think they know better.
One lesson of history is that they almost certainly do not.
James G. Wiles can be reached at jwiles@thebulletin.us
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