“The failure of [the administration’s] foreign policy is now clear to everyone except its architects, and even they must entertain private doubts. . .” So began Jeane Kirkpatrick’s seminal piece excoriating President Carter’s flawed foreign policy and laying the groundwork for a major strategic realignment under President Reagan; but she just as well might have been talking about President Obama as he approaches his final year in office. Rarely has a U.S. president caused so much damage in so many spheres due to such a fundamental failure in foreign policy philosophy.

In a cover story for the Atlantic this month based largely on direct interviews with President Obama, Jeffrey Goldberg lays out the “Obama Doctrine” in significant detail. The article makes clear that Obama’s philosophical failure does indeed bear an uncanny resemblance to that of the Carter administration: Fundamentally, an exaggerated sense of the limitations and constraints on U.S. power. Flowing from this has been an across-the-board unwillingness to shape events, stand up to U.S. adversaries and support U.S. friends. The consequences to U.S. interests and to the U.S. reputation have been profound and interconnected across a wide range of geographies. It is worth cataloging in order to make sure the scope of the fallout is properly understood, and so that the next president can take appropriate countermeasures to reverse the damage.

As a result of the Obama foreign policy, U.S. friends are rattled and U.S. adversaries are emboldened. But if we look for the silver lining, it is this: countries the world over, especially those that sit on the periphery of the major powers, have been given a glimpse into an alternate world in which the United States is no longer willing to provide the security guarantees that for decades have formed the bedrock of the global order. And they have not liked what they saw. The door is thus wide open for the United States to drastically recalibrate its strategic approach and return to a position of global leadership, as it must.

 

Handling Adversaries

Before focusing on to the periphery, it is worth examining the administration’s approach to America’s major power adversaries, China and Russia, as well as to its regional adversary, Iran. Here one finds the root of the administration’s errors, and the best showcase of its inexperience and naïveté.

It may be worth noting at the outset that the term adversary is used loosely here. It does not mean to imply that relations with any of the countries so labeled must necessarily entail conflict. However, these are countries whose national interests frequently do not align with those of the United States, and who harbor ambitions that include, among other things, diminishing the power and influence of the United States in key regions of the world, while enhancing their own. One of the flaws in the Obama administration’s approach to these countries is its refusal to acknowledge this basic reality.

In its dealings with adversaries, the Obama administration from Day One took the view that a reasonable approach would be met with a reasonable response. The underlying psychology is exemplified perhaps most obviously by President Obama’s private comment, famously caught on an active microphone, assuring Russia’s then-President Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” after his election to accommodate certain Russian concerns. The Obama administration relocated missile defense systems from the Czech Republic and Poland, thereby attempting to signal to Russia that the United States was willing to move beyond a Cold War mentality in Eastern Europe. Even when Russia invaded Ukraine, by which time it should have been amply clear to the Obama administration that its Russia strategy had failed completely, the United States still refused to provide lethal equipment to Ukraine’s military. The White House even rejected a request for certain radar capabilities, claiming privately that doing so would only increase tensions in the region and provoke further escalation by Russia. And according to recent reports, even the non-lethal equipment the United States has provided—such as Humvees—has been of such dilapidated quality that it has resulted in morale issues among Ukrainian fighters.

In the context of Ukraine, it is of course worth flagging an added important dimension, which is the Budapest Memorandum. Under this agreement, signed in 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up its entire nuclear weapons stockpile—the third largest in the world at that time—in exchange for the United States and the United Kingdom guaranteeing the country’s territorial integrity. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then, represented not an abstract challenge to general U.S. security commitments, but rather a very specific challenge to a contractual U.S. obligation. And yet the administration abdicated. The response at the time was surprisingly muted, with the most forceful words coming from former Secretary of State George Schultz and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, making clear in the Wall Street Journal that “American negotiators understood that this Memorandum was critical to Ukraine’s decision to give up almost 2,000 nuclear weapons.”

Meanwhile Georgia—the largest non-NATO contributor of forces to the military effort in Afghanistan and the largest contributor, period, on a per capita basis—requested defensive Javelin anti-tank missiles some time ago from the United States as a deterrent to a Russian invasion. Again, the White House blocked the approval on the grounds that doing so would constitute an unnecessary provocation.

Predictably, all of these examples of accommodation on the part of the Obama administration have had the opposite of their intended effect. They have only emboldened Russia, a country that is in a state of decline both economically and demographically, and yet its foreign policy is now resurgent. Not only in Eastern Europe, but also in Central Asia, where it has stationed more forces near Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to begin reasserting effective control over former Soviet states, and of course also as far afield as the Middle East, with its intervention in Syria.

The Russian encroachment into Syria is perhaps the most shocking. Not since the days of the Cold War has Russia projected power into the Middle East, which is not contiguous with Russian territory. To carry out its Syria operation, Russia positioned aircraft at a base in Latakia, Syria. Its planes regularly flew through Iraqi airspace with the permission of Baghdad, an ostensible U.S. ally in the region. This would have been one thing if Russia’s intervention in Syria were strategically synergistic with U.S. aims in the country, in effect a parallel effort to subvert and destroy ISIS. But during its first week of bombing runs in Syria, Russia made clear that was not the case: rather than hitting ISIS positions, it struck at U.S.-trained rebel forces—to the amazement of many, prompting nothing more than a verbal rebuke from the Obama administration.

The world is fully interconnected. Lessons learned in one region are heeded in others, a fact that, historically, was considered axiomatic by U.S. policymakers. During the Cold War, it was understood that a public show of weakness by the United States in one sphere would undermine U.S. credibility in all spheres, thereby unraveling the entire delicate framework of containment. With this in mind, the United States famously undertook such disparate and far-flung actions as an airlift to mobilize supplies to West Berlin in response to the Soviet Union blockade; sending U.S. troops to Vietnam to back a pro-U.S. government in the South; and supplying lethal arms to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. In these and other instances, the United States was keenly aware that while each individual example may be difficult to justify on cost-benefit grounds, in their totality they sent a powerful signal that, in the immortal words of President Kennedy, the United States would “bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” This posture, in turn, would deter the Soviet Union from undertaking serious challenges anywhere and reduce the overall likelihood of conflict.

Consciously rejecting decades of foreign policy experience (and millennia of accumulated wisdom about human nature), President Obama eschewed the entire logic around signaling—and said as much in his interview with Goldberg. Yet today the importance of careful signaling is perhaps greater than ever, with the threats to U.S. interests more multi-dimensional. Because now, it is not just Russia learning lessons in one part of the world and applying those lessons elsewhere. China, too, has been carefully observing from the sidelines, and it has concluded that the Obama administration lacks seriousness when it comes to standing up for U.S. interests and U.S. allies. In recent years, China has exploited this insight with aplomb.

The Obama years have seen some of the most aggressive claims by China in the South China Sea. China has been constructing islands on reefs at a furious pace, replete with runways, radar and sonar stations, and other infrastructure that will allow China to project force well beyond its historical boundaries. The South China Sea is one of the world’s most critical waterways. Over $5 trillion of goods flow through these waters every year, much of which is destined for U.S. ports. Through its artificially constructed islands, China is now claiming that this sea—which has previously been comprised largely of international waters subject to freedom of navigation—in fact belongs to China and that passage through is subject to Chinese consent. China has also become more aggressive in respect of the Senkaku Islands, an archipelago claimed by both China and Japan, as well as deepening its influence throughout Central Asia and into the Caucasus with its Silk Road strategy.

All of these moves, and the pace at which they have accelerated, have been directly proportional to Obama’s accommodation of Russian aggression. China’s calculus: If the Obama administration will not push back against Russia, then they will not push back against China either. And of course, China has been exactly right.

Despite the Obama administration’s announcement of the Asia Pivot (later rebranded as the Asia Rebalance), there have been very few tangible steps taken by the United States in response to China’s increasingly aggressive behavior. Just like with Russia, the Obama administration’s approach towards China has been to avoid any measures that could be interpreted as provocative or confrontational, in the hopes that China will appreciate U.S. moderation and will respond in kind. In that vein, the United States has generally declined to call out China specifically for its illegal construction of islands in the South China Sea. Defense Secretary Carter, for example, on a trip to Vietnam earlier this year stated that “the United States opposes militarization and the creation of tensions in the South China Sea, even though we are not a claimant to the South China Sea.”

President Obama, meanwhile, did mention China in particular but only with significant caveats: “It may be that some of [China’s] claims are legitimate, but they shouldn’t just try to establish that based on throwing elbows and pushing people out of the way.” And in October, when the United States undertook its freedom of navigation operation (FONOP), the Obama administration made sure to clarify that the FONOP was not directed at China specifically, as it also also sailed past features claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. In sum, the message heard in Southeast Asia was equivocation and fecklessness.

And as in the case of Ukraine and Georgia’s requests for arms transfers, the Obama administration has been similarly reluctant to support countries around the South China Sea, ostensibly because it does not want to militarize the region. Obama has rejected requests from Vietnam to provide naval capabilities, including ships and over-the-horizon radars, claiming that Vietnam’s human rights record makes it dangerous to sell such technologies for fear that they may use them against their own people. This claim, though admirable in theory, does not withstand close scrutiny as the specific seaborne capabilities that Vietnam needs cannot realistically be used to commit human rights violations on land. The Obama administration has also significantly curtailed weapons transfers to Taiwan well below historic averages and for the past few years has declined to provide new-model F-16s to the country. Indeed, Senators John McCain and Ben Cardin recently sent a letter to the Obama administration expressing concern that “it has now been over four years—the longest period since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979—since the administration has notified Congress of a new arms sale package.” While the Obama administration recently announced that a new package will be forthcoming, the scale is far more modest than its predecessors. The United States has also been slow to respond to requests from the Philippines, which in the meanwhile has sought instead to purchase equipment from Japan. In reality, all of this results from an ideological fixation with appearing respectful, moderate and restrained.

The upshot of this approach is that the South China Sea is still militarizing, but it is doing so in a one-sided way that benefits only China, helping to shift the regional balance of power in Beijing’s favor. The administration’s weak rhetoric, its refusal to provide meaningful support to countries that are bearing the brunt of Chinese aggression, and U.S. softness vis-à-vis Russia, have all signaled to China that it has significant room to maneuver before encountering meaningful pushback from the United States. Predictably, it continues to make ample use of every square inch of that maneuvering room.

Unlike Russia, China is a rising power with a population several-fold that of the United States and an economy that, despite its recent slowdown, continues to expand at a rapid clip. It is to some degree inevitable that China’s foreign policy will grow more ambitious as it becomes a more significant economic power. But many of the predictions about just how militarily strong China will be, and when it will attain that level of strength, are based on overly optimistic scenarios and straight-line prognoses, failing to account for the infinite number of ways in which China may stumble over the coming years. In the interim, it is nothing short of folly for the United States to treat China as though it has already arrived at its desired destination. As of today and indeed for the foreseeable future, the United States has an overwhelming military advantage over China.

China and Russia both respect strength. They will push until they feel resistance. Therefore—contrary to the Obama administration’s deeply held but thoroughly misguided beliefs—it is in fact weakness that provokes China and Russia, creating vacuums that they happily fill, just as water flows naturally into any open space or crevice.

Which brings us to the third country towards which the Obama administration has misguidedly adopted a more accommodating approach—certainly not a major power like China and Russia, but a significant regional one that has the same automatic response to strength and weakness: Iran.

As the Obama administration was negotiating its nuclear accord with Iran, the Iranian leadership was busy testing the limits of U.S. tolerance, both within and without the context of the actual negotiations. At the negotiating table, as the United States waived deadline after deadline thereby revealing its desperation to do a deal, Iranian demands became more and more aggressive—culminating in an agreement that will release up to $150 billion in frozen funds to the Iranian regime which can never be clawed back, even if Iran fails to abide by the terms of the agreement. But elsewhere Iranian brazenness was even more dramatic. In Iraq, Iran swayed the election outcome in 2010, ensuring that Prime Minister Maliki was able to assemble a pro-Iran governing coalition even though his party did not win a plurality of the vote, thereby dragging the entire Iraqi government in a direction hostile to U.S. interests and in the process breathing new life into a Sunni insurgency that, thanks to the Sunni Awakening and the surge, was by then on its last legs. The current chaos in Iraq, including the rise of ISIS, is a direct consequence of the Obama administration looking the other way as Iran helped Maliki steal the 2010 election.

But that was only the beginning. Iran subsequently used the rise of ISIS as an excuse to insert Revolutionary Guard units into Iraq. These units, along with pro-Iran Shia militias, now control large swaths of Iraq including much of Baghdad. Iran continued its spread of influence through Iraq and into Syria, where it is deeply engaged—now together with Russia—in providing support for Assad, in part also with the help of Shia militias. Through Hezbollah, Iran has continued to extend its influence into Lebanon as well as into Syria, and in Yemen Iran has jumped into a full-on proxy war by supporting the Houthis and other Shi’a rebels against a recently ousted Saudi-backed government.

Domestically, meanwhile, Iran has also stepped up its aggression against its own people as well as foreigners. Many analysts predicted that Iran would moderate its behavior following the conclusion of the nuclear talks. But throughout the talks, Iran showed no intention of easing its stance towards political prisoners, in fact increasing the rate of executions. After the talks ended, Iran cracked down even harder, imprisoning in particular foreign visitors with U.S. passports. Feeling no resistance from Washington on any front, the regime knew it had carte blanche at home as well.

On a recent visit to the United Arab Emirates, a local friend who has been involved in foreign policy at a high level for over a decade shared an insight as simple as it was profound: “Every capital city east of Berlin views concessions as weakness.” This point, evidence of which I have seen personally through my dealings across different parts of Asia, the Middle East and eastern Europe goes a long way towards explaining the predicament in which the United States presently finds itself. And so the pattern is clear and unmistakable. Russia, China and Iran have each observed U.S. responses to the others. Sensing weakness, they have decided to prod and, in the face of concessions and in the absence of any meaningful pushback, they have prodded further, resulting in a significant expansion of power along all of their peripheries and beyond.

 

The Periphery

And now we turn to the all-important periphery, by which is meant the areas along the borders of the major powers. Traditionally these areas are often referred to as spheres of influence, and it is clear that President Obama subscribes to this thinking—indeed, in his interview with Goldberg, Obama says that there is nothing more the U.S. could have done to prevent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because the two countries share a border. But in the modern era that view is a misconception. Geographic proximity does not by necessity translate into influence. There are now so many levers of influence, such as the power of commerce and the power of culture, that are not in any way limited by the distance between two countries. Meanwhile, even hard power does not cleanly yield to geographic realities. The United States, in particular, has an unrivaled ability to project force globally, not to mention that it can make available weapon systems to friendly countries, thereby transferring its hard power to them.

So the periphery is a more appropriate characterization than a sphere of influence—and it is the periphery which should be America’s focus. Major powers like China and Russia are set in their strategic goals. The United States can only decide whether to give them a large or small amount of maneuvering room. Of course, there will always be specific instances where U.S. interests will overlap with those of Russia and China, in which case cooperation will occur. But irrespective of what the United States does, Russia and China seek a greater degree of global power and influence. Whatever space the United States provides, they will use in furtherance of that aim.

The periphery, by contrast, is a far more dynamic environment. It consists of dozens of smaller nations that are nevertheless very important commercially and strategically, lining the borders of countries like Russia and China or situated within their near abroad. These countries generally seek larger patrons to help guarantee their security against a variety of threats and to provide access to larger markets for trade and investment. Their principal options are the United States, China and Russia, and they choose among those based on a multitude of factors including history, cultural affinity, economic interests, and security considerations.

Today, thanks to the Obama administration’s mishandling of Russia, China and Iran, the United States has lost tremendous ground throughout the periphery and has increased the risk of smaller countries bandwagoning—grudgingly, but still—with Russia and China for fear that they lack better options. What’s more, the periphery is in a more volatile and chaotic state than at any point in recent memory.

In Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, there are significant concerns that Russia’s appetite is not yet satiated and that it may seek to further test the limits of what outrages the Obama administration might tolerate. In that vein, speculation is rife as to what country might next find itself in Russia’s crosshairs. Will Russia push into the Baltics? Will it want to see what happens if it hits directly at an EU member state like Poland? Will it attempt to force its way even deeper into Ukraine, making another more concerted run at Kiev?

And if these risks exist, would countries in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus be better off tilting eastward, pursuing détente with Russia so as to preempt falling victim to Russian aggression? Many in this part of the world are asking themselves that very question. Georgia, for example, has for years been pursuing deeper integration with the EU and with NATO, and in 2014 the country signed a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU. But now, as a result of the issues that have been raised through the Obama administration’s actions (or inactions), the country’s pro-U.S. government is under pressure from pro-Russian political groups arguing that the United States cannot be relied upon to back Georgia if it sticks its neck out in pursuit of closer ties with the West. In that context, the Obama White House’s refusal to allow the sale of Javelin missiles to Georgia, a country whose troops are sacrificing alongside Americans in the mountains of Afghanistan, has given the pro-Russia factions significant ammunition with which to press their anti-American agenda.

In Southeast Asia, virtually all countries are bearing the brunt of Chinese aggression—though of course some more than others. Vietnam and the Philippines, for example, have had direct confrontations with the Chinese navy, in which Chinese ships have rammed Vietnamese and Filipino fishing boats in asserting China’s territorial claims. And in the case of Vietnam, China placed an oil drilling rig within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, ignoring Vietnam’s repeated protests. Such provocations have become commonplace, and they are triggering outbreaks of anti-Chinese nationalism in countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which have long histories of contending with Chinese bullying on land and at sea. But even so, everybody is currently hedging their bets. What if U.S. commitments to Southeast Asia are not serious? What if countries openly support more U.S. involvement and then the U.S. decides to yield to an ascendant China, which will then vengefully punish them for having earlier shown favor to the United States?

In the Middle East, the shockwaves have been especially severe. Partly because the underlying dynamics are inherently more prone to volatility; partly because the U.S. security guarantees have historically been an even greater factor in holding together an already very precarious regional stability; and partly because macroeconomic challenges, in particular plummeting oil prices, have accentuated preexisting vulnerabilities.

In this context, the fact that the United States has given way to both a regional power in the form Iran and a major power in the form of Russia has sent the Middle East spiraling into a state of near-total dysfunction.

Saudi Arabia, one of America’s longest standing friends in the region, was consulted only intermittently as the United States pursued its nuclear negotiations with Iran—a stunning oversight given the profound implications of those negotiations for Saudi Arabia and for U.S.-Saudi relations. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is left waging lonely battles against an ever-expanding Iranian onslaught. Together with the UAE, it is sending money and troops to Yemen to fight the Iran-backed rebels, a conflict that grows bloodier and costlier by the month. It is also pumping money and weapons into Syria. And, increasingly uncertain of its relationship with the United States due to what might generously be referred to as the Obama administration’s mixed signals, it has reluctantly reached out to Russia to explore possible areas of cooperation. (On the other hand, in one of the few—and certainly unintended—positive developments to flow from President Obama’s foolhardy policies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has also been exploring deeper cooperation with Israel to counter common threats.) Egypt, incidentally, is also flirting with Russian rapprochement after decades in the U.S. camp.

In Jordan, a now familiar story: The Obama administration has been reticent to provide the country with the weapon systems it has requested in order to fight ISIS effectively, despite the fact that Jordan has for years been a reliable partner on a variety of fronts—including in the fight against terrorism, the welcoming of Syrian and Iraqi refugees, and in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Iraq has been perhaps the greatest blunder of all. In its rush for the exits and its refusal to prevent the Iranian takeover of the country for fear of derailing the nuclear talks, the Obama administration has thrust Iraq into a state of virtual anarchy. The Kurds now control the north, Turkey comfortably makes incursions all the way into Mosul, Iran operates with impunity, and ISIS controls large portions of the country. Adding insult to injury, Iraq recently agreed to a joint intelligence-sharing arrangement with Russia, Iran and Syria.

Speaking of Syria, it should now be obvious to any neutral observer that Obama’s complete failure to stand up to Assad has produced a maelstrom in that country. Assad has inflicted unspeakable horrors on his own people, thereby handing ISIS a pool of ready recruits. As elsewhere, regional powers have filled the vacuum resulting from Obama’s abdication, with Russia, Iran and Turkey all engaged in the conflict – in some cases too close to each other for comfort, as seen when Turkey shot down a Russian jet that had encroached on its airspace.

Behind closed doors, senior officials speak openly about the fact that the United States might no longer be a reliable partner, accusing the Obama administration of kowtowing to its adversaries and neglecting its friends. Via social media, Middle Eastern elites circulate mocking images of Obama on a bicycle wearing a helmet juxtaposed against Putin, shirtless and hunting rifle in hand.

So how does the United States regain its footing amidst such a bleak set of circumstances?

 

The Open Door

Countries throughout the periphery have suddenly been reminded of just how vulnerable they are in the absence of a robust U.S. security umbrella. And despite the damage done by President Obama to U.S. prestige, the reality is that the vast majority of countries in the periphery still strongly prefer a U.S. partnership to a tie-up with Russia or China. The United States is perceived as far more benign, less likely to exploit its relative strength and take advantage of smaller countries. Investment from the United States is considered more appealing; the American private sector has more caché and brings with it better technology as well as superior business practices. To the extent geography plays a role, it works somewhat in America’s favor: countries often trust the far power more than the near power, since the near power may have more nefarious motives.

And indeed, the entire periphery has a deep distrust of Russian and Chinese motives. Most periphery countries believe that Russia and China harbor grand designs to dominate the countries along their borders. Particularly on the part of China, every move—even those that seem more commercially oriented on their face—is perceived as part of a larger political plan, meant to strengthen China’s leverage and control. The speed with which Russia, China and indeed Iran have exploited the Obama administration’s weakness in order to bully countries like Ukraine, assert dominance over the South China Sea, or start spreading wings across the Middle East, has only confirmed the distrust felt towards these countries.

Mainly behind closed doors, but in some cases also out in public, periphery countries have begun to signal what they would be willing to do in order to entice the United States to meaningfully reengage with their respective regions. Vietnam has indicated that it would consider granting the U.S. Navy access to Cam Ranh Bay, a strategically located deep water bay that could host everything from aircraft carriers to submarines. The Philippines is already in discussions to provide the United States with access to several of its military bases. The Saudis and the Emiratis are willing to deepen cooperation with Israel, and the Saudis in particular would consider rolling back their support for Sunni extremist groups and spearheading much-needed domestic reforms. Countries throughout the Persian Gulf and Jordan would be willing to do more both financially and militarily to stabilize the situation in Iraq and Syria, and Iraq itself would welcome greater U.S. engagement. (Despite how things may seem at the moment, Iraq has no desire to become a puppet of Iran.) Sri Lanka and Georgia would also welcome closer defense cooperation with the United States, including in respect of critical infrastructure like deep-sea ports.

All of these things are possible—indeed, they are explicitly on the table.

But they will require a renewed sense within the periphery that the United States is ready to do a complete U-turn. Leaders have been through a traumatic set of years. It will take considerable effort to convince them that the United States is again serious about standing up to China and Russia, and that it will abide by its security commitments.

The Carter administration overreacted to the Vietnam War, concluding that the United States ought no longer try to shape events in far-flung parts of the globe. In Carter’s view, defeating the Soviet Union was neither a sensible nor an attainable goal. Better to understand the limits of U.S. power and influence, and, in the words of Jeane Kirkpatrick, “to align [itself] with history, hoping to contribute a bit of stability along the way.”

Obama’s foreign policy has been a similar overreaction, in his case to the Iraq War. Again, the conclusion had to do with the limits of U.S. power. Let us not forget the iconic image of President Obama on the campaign trail carrying a book titled “The Post-American World”, which argued that the rise of rival powers like China is inevitable and that the United States must scale back its foreign policy ambitions to accommodate that reality. Obama has conducted his foreign policy as though “The Post-American World” were not the title of a book but rather an accepted fact of life.

Carter was wrong, of course, and President Reagan was able to undertake a wholesale course correction returning the United States to a position of global leadership. Obama, too, is wrong. Nothing in this world is inevitable. Countries like China may succeed or they may stumble. Alliances may form that favor the United States, or that favor its adversaries. The United States has the power, perhaps not to determine, but certainly to shape and influence, all of these outcomes.

For the United States to get back on track under the leadership of a new president, it will need to work from multiple angles.

First, the United States must make clear that its commitments to these periphery regions—whether the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, or the Caucasus, or Eastern Europe—are real. Because the United States is not the only one engaged in aggressive messaging. Its adversaries are actively seeking to undermine America’s reputation, reinforcing the fears triggered during the Obama era by planting additional seeds of doubt. China, for example, has told several countries in Southeast Asia that a time will come when they will have to choose between the United States and China. And as that day approaches, China has told them, these countries should consider the fact that China takes a long-term view of the region whereas the United States is likely to lose interest at some point. All of this makes countries in the periphery very nervous. Nobody wants to back the wrong horse, especially small and vulnerable nations whose future depends on making the right choice. They will not stick their necks out unless the United States projects strength and staying power. But if the United States does this, then it can count on the support of many nations in the periphery.

To do this, the United States will need to directly address doubts about its ability to make enduring commitments to these regions. The United States must provide reassurance that the periphery is vital to its economic and strategic interests; that the United States has a cultural predisposition towards the independence of, and the friendship with, these smaller nations; and that (contrary to popular belief) the United States actually has a strong track-record of undertaking very long-term commitments when it desires to do so, such as in Korea, Europe, or Japan.

Second, it will need to change its rhetoric. Neither U.S. adversaries nor its friends in the periphery respond well to weak, equivocating language. Teddy Roosevelt’s adage to speak softly and carry a big stick has merit, but in certain parts of the world a bit of swagger and confidence goes a long way. It is time to revert back to the messaging of a Kennedy (“Ich bin ein Berliner”) or a Reagan (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”) to make sure countries understand the United States means business.

Third, the United States will need to show greater willingness to transfer weapon systems to its friends. Such transfers, if handled judiciously, are in fact a cheap and easy way to provide periphery countries with a greater ability to achieve deterrence themselves, even in the absence of a concrete U.S. security umbrella. In addition, making U.S. defense platforms available also pulls these nations into the orbit of U.S. technology, thereby enhancing interoperability when joint action is required.

Fourth, it must work expeditiously to pass strategic free trade pacts like the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. These pacts help signal that the United States has a genuine commercial interest in these countries and also provides them tangible benefits, opening access to one of the world’s most attractive markets. It also forces them to raise certain standards beyond those available in China, making it easier for Western companies to move manufacturing to these countries. And more broadly it encourages the U.S. private sector to invest in these markets, creating an additional layer of interconnection that reinforces the strength and durability of their relationships with the United States.

Fundamentally, the key is simply, at a very basic level, to return to a foreign policy in which the United States stands up to its adversaries rather than handing them strategic victories on a silver platter. A policy mindful of the fact that weakness, not strength, is provocative. And a policy that acknowledges friends cannot be taken for granted and loyalty is not a one-way street. The United States must be there for its friends, particularly those in the periphery, if it expects those friends to be there for the United States.

 

The Post-Obama America

The United States is not in decline; far from it. Yet under President Obama, countries the world over could be forgiven for concluding that it is. The United States has the world’s most potent military, the world’s largest economy, the culture and values with the most universal appeal, and the world’s most dynamic private sector. In light of this, why would the United States act like a second-rate nation? It is high time that the United States get back to punching at its weight.

Doing so would not only be highly welcome globally among all of our friends in the periphery, but it would also restore order and stability by removing the vacuum that has tempted Russia and China to expand with such reckless abandon. And it would be good for the United States. Ultimately, the United States carries a heavy burden of leadership, but that burden also creates tremendous opportunities to forge valuable alliances, create business opportunities for U.S. companies, and establish a world order that favors U.S. interests and U.S. values.

Alexander Benard is a partner with a U.S. private equity firm that invests across various markets in Asia, Africa,and Eastern Europe. He has worked at the Department of Defense and the Hoover Institution.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Army.