THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/01/21
Four strategic allies of the United States--Germany, Japan, Israel and Saudi Arabia--have each been saying "no" to the White House. The leaders of those nations have rebuffed President Barack Obama on key policy requests without taking the consequences, which itself illustrates a sharp downturn in global American power.
The United States under Obama's leadership presumes it sits at the head of the global power table, but increasingly, the world sees a once great nation that has fallen, that has traded substantive power for pretense, and which is being seen as impotent because it can't realize it must re-earn its leadership rather than assert illusions.
At the Group of 20 economic summit in London, held while the global economy tilted toward collapse, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Obama engaged in polite but serious debate on fiscal expansionary policies versus fiscal conservatism. Their exchange became the distinctive memory of the gathering as it overshadowed the efforts of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to steal the show. Merkel rebuffed Obama's economic leadership and views, and Obama, swallowing his pride, maintained an image of cordiality and friendship with Merkel--despite her refusal to budge.
Japan, which, like Germany, was defeated by the United States in World War II and then rebuilt via American patronage and stewardship, has undergone significant political change following the Democratic Party of Japan's historic victory over the long-reigning Liberal Democratic Party in the Aug. 30, 2009, Lower House election.
For years, the United States has acted as if the basic "do what we say" dynamic toward Japan would never be challenged--despite a clear struggle within Japan over its emergent national identity. At the same time, Japan grappled with how to adopt healthy nationalism and reposition itself as it marks the 50th anniversary this year of its security alliance with the United States. The rising power of China is a further complication.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is apparently trying to demonstrate that America is trailing history rather than leading it, while the United States defensively clings to protecting an agreement on the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture. That agreement was reached between the environmentally-insensitive and corruption-blind LDP and the U.S. administration headed by George W. Bush.
Hatoyama promised during his campaign that the base deal would not go through. Despite some bludgeoning of Japan's ambassador to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki, by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton over the issue, and direct pressure from Obama, Hatoyama has refused to walk the course the United States has been pushing. This was despite threats by the United States that failing to yield might undermine core tenets of the relationship.
Ultimately, the U.S. obsession with the Futenma arrangement shows weakness rather than strength. This is because the United States needs Japan's economic and military resources as a full partner, not ambivalence, in standing up to China's rise. The United States would be undermining its own security to trade the broad strengths of the U.S.-Japan security relationship with the relatively minor issue of Futenma.
Probably, many people do not recall that Futenma was the very first "deal" Walter Mondale, as U.S. ambassador to Japan, clinched with the late Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. It was signed in the aftermath of the rape of a 12-year old girl in Okinawa Prefecture by three U.S. servicemen. The deal then was to absorb Futenma into Kadena Air Force Base to combine the Air Force and Marine Corps functions into other U.S. military facilities there.
Ultimately, inter-service rivalry on the American side undermined this keystone agreement, which was a major element in revisions for the global realignment of U.S. forces. Obama and Clinton have shown little historic understanding of the roots of the Futenma problem. Instead, they engaged in saber-rattling in a manner that made it look as if the Obama team was threatening something it could not afford to lose, further enhancing the political benefits to Hatoyama of being seen to resist American pressure.
Saudi Arabia is not often acknowledged publicly in Washington as an ally, but in many ways the Saudis for decades have been America's most significant strategic partner in the Middle East, adjusting oil production and supply in patterns that helped Washington's strategic interests.
Most recently, the Saudis used their influence on Pakistan in providing oil at subsidized rates. This was intended to encourage Pakistan to take bolder action against al-Qaida and Taliban groups operating in the Swat valley of North-West Frontier Province.
When George W. Bush was running for president, his father arranged for Prince Bandar al-Sultan, then Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, to secretly tutor him on foreign policy issues while traveling aboard the campaign aircraft.
During the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, the United States was allied with the Saudis in arming and equipping the Mujahadeen, many of whose leaders at the time are now enemies of the United States.
But recently, when Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was asked by Obama to put forward a number of key concessions toward Israel as part of the "opener" in changing the dynamics of antagonism in the Middle East toward Israel, he refused.
The king had already initiated and resurrected a normalization proposal between the Arab League and Israel, first offered in Beirut in 2002, only to see it largely ignored and used occasionally and symbolically by the U.S. administration at moments of political expediency.
Abdullah warned Obama that Benjamin Netanyahu, the new prime minister of Israel, would ultimately embarrass the president as well as those who jumped the gun by trying to raise the ante in restarting the Middle East peace process. Not only did the Saudis rebuff Obama, they proved to be correct, identifying early on that the White House didn't realize that America's superpower status had been punctured badly during the Bush years. The Saudis also correctly surmised that before states would throw their lot behind American leadership, the White House would have to prove it had power to reshape and sculpt global relationships. Being told to trust that Israel would behave responsibly was not a convincing first move by the Obama team toward the Saudis.
Finally, Israel itself said "no" to the United States and Obama in the loudest and most politically consequential way. As a largely client state of the United States, which is overwhelmingly dependent on U.S. aid and transfer payments as well as an iron-clad security guarantee, Israel's schizophrenic approach to the Palestinian issue and a two-state solution has been one of many frustrating realities of the Middle East peace process. The government under former Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert repeatedly and passionately stated that Israel's only chance at survival as a Jewish state and a functioning democracy was to make a two-state solution work. Netanyahu's government is highly ambivalent at best about the position of the previous government and has done much to undermine progress in negotiations with the Palestinians.
To kick-start the peace process in the aftermath of the Gaza conflict, Obama selected former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, a distinguished peace-forger, to take on the task as his special envoy. The White House decided that to convince the Arab world it was serious, it committed itself to put pressure on Israel to halt all new settlement activity. This raised hopes in the Arab world that Obama was serious, but it raised hackles inside Israel that Obama would ultimately sell out Israel's basic security.
Netanyahu demonstrated his statecraft skills in a high stakes but successful gamble in knocking back Obama. He rebuffed decisively the notion that settlements could be the portal through which Middle East peace talks were restarted. Consequently, the White House, which often internally compares itself to a hybrid of the Lincoln and Kennedy administrations, found that Netanyahu had become what Nikita Khruschev had been to John F. Kennedy.
Netanyahu, an ally, had shown the limits of Obama's power to resculpt Middle East realities--at least until there is some escalating political crisis between Israel and the United States in which Obama reclaims the heavyweight champion ring from Netanyahu.
Each of these episodes has its own distinctive political circumstances and ought to be grouped together only cautiously. But the fact remains that America's allies are rebuffing the United States more regularly and overtly than would have been imagined a decade ago. Global analysts often refer to the troubling behavior of problematic nations like Iran or North Korea or non-allies like China and Russia as yardsticks by which to measure America's weak position in the world.
But it is in the decisions of allies that the absence of what had been long-established equilibriums becomes clear and worrisome.
Despite the global fascination with Obama and his inspiring oratorical sketches of what the world could expect of itself and what nations could collectively do to meet the enormous challenges ahead, doubts remain about America's ability to achieve the objectives it sets out for itself.
The world sees the United States unrealistically threaten Japan with strategic rupture over a minor base issue in Okinawa Prefecture, where the United States maintains 39 military installations. It sees the United States try to convince the Arab world that it is serious about peace between Israel and the Palestinians by promising a settlement freeze and then reversing itself and acquiescing to Israel's recalcitrant prime minister. It sees the long-term, back room-managed U.S.-Saudi relationship contribute nothing to Obama's script for bringing lasting peace to the Middle East. It sees Obama politely humbled and rebuffed by Germany, a global capital surplus nation, at the G-20 summit in London. This happened at a time when Germany's own growth and welfare are tied in part to reflating the U.S. economy, which consumes Germany's exports.
America's current national security objectives are greater than its means, and the White House is demonstrating that it can't juggle all of these challenges at once. American power and leverage are dissipating in the face of too many failed causes.
It is time for America to rethink its national security course and re-prioritize its core goals. If America is to rebuild its power, it must accomplish what it sets out to do. That way, it can gain momentum from each small success. Recognizing the constraints on American power today, Obama nonetheless can reinvent America's position by scoring well-thought out victories. This would require Obama to defy conventional wisdom and not give in to countervailing forces.
Restarting a credible Russia-U.S. effort to reduce stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear materials, which the Obama team may yet pull off, would be one such positive gain. Pushing ahead with talks to normalize relations between Syria and Israel comes to mind. Ending the restrictions on American citizens travel to Cuba and finally ending an anachronistic Cold War 90 miles (144 kilometers) from U.S. shores would also buy Obama global credits.
The White House can overcome the structural collapse of American power brought on by the Bush years by convincing its allies through prudent actions that America is worth backing again. Renewed and refocused momentum in the U.S. foreign policy agenda may convince foes that America's considerable assets would be more shrewdly used to help lead the world into a more stable and reorganized equilibrium.
Only this kind of progressive realist path will secure a positive foreign policy legacy for Obama and assure that the United States re-earns admission to global leadership from its current position as an anachronistic, reactive power falling behind events rather than leading them.
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The author directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute, and publishes the political blog The Washington Note.
