The first year of Obama has seen America retreating on all fronts. The country that once pressed back the Russian bear, has instead pulled up the missile shield and sent the signal to Moscow that the former Soviet Republicans can no longer count on US aid to insure their independence. On China, Obama has switched to a policy of “Strategic Reassurance”, which is a fancy way of retreating and saying “Nice Doggie”, without actually even bothering to hunt for the stick. Not only has Obama become the first President not to meet with the Dalai Lama, but what “Strategic Reassurance” really does is hang out Taiwan and Japan on the line, assuring China that America will not interfere with its expanding sphere of political and military dominance.
Robert Kagan and Dan Blumenthal, two prominent foreign policy analysts, described the policy as follows.
“‘Strategic reassurance’ seems to chart a different course. Senior officials liken the policy to the British accommodation of a rising United States at the end of the 19th century, which entailed ceding the Western Hemisphere to American hegemony. Lingering behind this concept is an assumption of America’s inevitable decline.”
That assumption is of course the engine behind the White House’s policymaking that consists of selling out allies to enemies in the hopes of stability. This was the sum total of British foreign policy before and after WW2, a policy that gave us an Arab Socialist Middle East, a Southeast Asia in turmoil and Africa under the boots of murderous dictators. And Obama is now working to replicate that same policy on a far larger scale.
Obama’s international tour of bowing only highlights his weakness. His global popularity is as shallow as that of any celebrity, and only serves to signal America’s weakness. Each of Obama’s fumbling speeches has failed to achieve any tangible result except to express America’s helplessness and willingness to concede on every front. Buzzwords like “New Relationship”, “Multilateralism” and “Strategic Reassurance” are the ways in which Obama and his foreign policy minions phrase their “New Incompetence”. . . . . .
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