The difficulty with presidents who don’t have strategies is convincing them that they actually don’t have them and that they do need them. George W. Bush seemed to believe that military assertiveness constituted a strategy. Bill Clinton subordinated international strategy to domestic politics. Obama appears to think that common sense and flexibility constitute a strategy. The result is that leaders around the world often puzzle over what Obama is seeking and how. It’s not that these leaders have their own strategy, but there is a much better chance that they’ll go along with Obama if they believe he has a plausible one.

To understand this gap, it’s helpful to survey the evolution of Obama’s approach to world affairs. When he took the oath of office, Washington’s relations with the world were, to put it kindly, in a state of disrepair. Initially, Obama tried to be forthcoming and understanding to all. He offered talks with Iran and North Korea, and he made conciliatory gestures toward China and Russia. He opened a welcoming hand to Arabs and Muslims in a June 2009 speech in Cairo, which he underscored by not traveling a few extra miles to Israel. Europeans expressed pleasure at his un-Bushian willingness to consult them, appreciate their points of view and recommit America to an early exit from Iraq. But with little to build upon and a declining U.S. economy, these initiatives stalled, and high hopes abroad began to dim. What follows is a rapid run-through of my observations on some of the major issues.

NOWHERE WAS Obama’s understanding of the limitations of American power better executed than in Iraq. Bush signed a pact for the full withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011, and it was clear to all—save the neocons—that the Iraqis would not budge on that. Obama took out the troops. Republicans tried to attack but got nowhere. Most Americans realized that staying would expose U.S. soldiers further without having much effect on Iraq’s various troubles. However the public may have felt about the toll in American lives and money, it now seemed relieved. And the negative consequences in the Gulf area have been minute. The real strategic blunder came when Bush destroyed Iraq, leaving Iran as the only major regional power.

In Afghanistan, Obama made the opposite call, yielding to the pressure to escalate. He quickly became bogged down due to the casualties and costs, Afghan corruption and inefficiency, Pakistani duplicity in providing safe havens to the Taliban and so on. Only as his reelection campaign approached did he commit to a limited war-fighting strategy and eventual withdrawal. But questions linger over how many troops will remain after combat forces are withdrawn in 2014 and for how long. Perhaps Obama simply is trying to cover up retreat in an election year. Perhaps he still believes in some of his old danger-and-victory rhetoric about Afghanistan. Or perhaps he still doesn’t quite know what to do.

Obama’s policies on the nuclear bad guys—Iran and North Korea (and don’t forget Pakistan)—have been mixed. After early days of conciliation, Obama’s policy on Iran has been mostly hard-line, a clarity blessed by U.S. and Israeli politics. And it’s been half right. On the plus side, he’s gotten most major nations to impose a formidable list of economic sanctions and stepped up U.S. military presence in the region. But pressure alone, no matter how formidable, hasn’t been and won’t be sufficient to settle matters with Iran. Sanctions won’t work unless teamed with a reasonable proposal. If the U.S. goal is to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program altogether, the risk of war will be high. If the goal is to restrict that program to energy and make it very difficult for Tehran to develop and hide weapons-grade material, diplomacy has a chance.

So far, Tehran wants almost all sanctions lifted without giving clear indications of its bottom line. The American-led side insists on a step-by-step approach and won’t concede Iran’s right to produce uranium enriched to 20 percent, a short jump to weapons-grade quality. Neither side will budge, and nothing will happen before November. The same holds for the already nuclear-capable North Korea. Obama tried talking, but like his predecessors, he flopped. For all Pyongyang’s threats, however, its leadership seems to respect deterrence—buttressed by Beijing’s aversion to another Korean war.

To me, more worrisome than North Korea or Iran is our sometime ally Pakistan. Pakistan already has damaged antiproliferation efforts by divulging nuclear secrets to ignobles the world over. With its unstable domestic politics and possession of over a hundred nuclear weapons (and growing), it has to rank well ahead of Iran and North Korea in likelihood to use nuclear weapons or give them to terrorists.

OBAMA’S POLICIES toward China, Russia and India have had their inevitable ups and downs, without crises. From here on, presidents will be judged in large measure by how well they manage affairs with China, the other superpower. At the outset, Obama faced the improbable circumstance of Chinese leaders liking his predecessor, who didn’t arouse the usual Chinese suspicions about scheming Americans. Obama has not had an easy time commanding their respect. To them, he’s been sometimes too hard, sometimes too soft, sometimes both. They certainly didn’t like the Obama team’s policy and resource pivot from Europe and the Middle East to Asia, China’s turf. To China, it smacked of a new containment policy and of Washington’s refusal to allow Beijing its day in the sun.

Obama has a genuine desire to work out differences with China, provided he can satisfy three key constituencies: 1) China’s neighbors, who want an unobtrusive U.S. bubble of protection from Beijing; 2) humanitarians, who believe that strategic concerns should be subordinated to democratization and human rights; and 3) conservatives, who fear growing Chinese military might. All represent legitimate U.S. concerns.

Obama has tried to calm Beijing somewhat by reframing the pivot as more of a “rebalancing.” Thus, even as Obama transfers U.S. military resources to Asia, he correctly is attempting to shift the main theater of competition from security to economics. He boldly and rightly expanded plans for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, going beyond free trade to the aggressive protection of intellectual-property rights and other matters. At the same time, however, he has tried to comfort China’s neighbors over key issues such as the South China Sea. These neighbors want it all ways—U.S. protection but not so much as to anger Beijing and risk Chinese trade and investment. In other words, they want Washington to take the heat, not them.

Relations with China are nothing like those with the old Soviet Union. There was no economic dimension to Cold War politics. In U.S.-Chinese relations today, economics is central. Each is a major trader and investor with the other, and China holds more than a trillion dollars of U.S. debt. While common economic interests certainly do not guarantee peace, they sure help. The main point is this: events in Asia and elsewhere will go China’s way unless America’s economy revives—a key point that Obama hasn’t sufficiently stressed to Americans.

From a low point under Bush, U.S. relations with Moscow had nowhere to go but up. Obama hit the “reset” button to start a new relationship. Sometimes, this produced good feelings; other times, there were increased tensions. Particularly troublesome to Moscow have been U.S. interventions, actual and potential, in other countries. Russia worries about U.S. interference in Ukraine and Georgia as well as in places like Syria. Yet Moscow has cooperated with Washington on Afghanistan logistics, nukes in Iran and North Korea, and antiterrorism issues generally.

The reset button has had its offs and ons, and the relationship hasn’t been elevated to the strategic partnership Obama wanted. But it’s still worth trying, especially with Vladimir Putin reensconced as president. To make it work, U.S. leaders must prepare to be seen side by side atop the mountain with Russian leaders. That’s how they see themselves, and Washington should treat them that way. It’s a small price to pay for Russia’s diplomatic cooperation. American leaders can’t ignore human-rights and democracy concerns, but for now they will need to temper the rhetoric to get Moscow’s power aligned with America’s on difficult world issues.

The would-be strategic partnership with India has yet to bloom, and if it ever does it’s not clear what form it will take. Like many of its neighbors to the east, India wants China to be distracted with America as it flexes its muscles. At the same time, New Delhi is deciding when and how much to embrace Washington. And it is India that will do the deciding. So far, Washington’s devotion to forging this strategic partnership (against China, unspoken) has been mostly unrequited. Washington has given India a free ride on inspecting military-run nuclear facilities. In return, New Delhi has been quite stingy. In a huge deal last year, India snubbed U.S. jet fighters and chose to buy Russian and French ones instead. India is still figuring itself out, and both New Delhi and Washington are calibrating how far they can go without alienating the Chinese.

Image: Pullquote: Obama’s position at the political center in U.S. foreign policy has enabled him to deflect classic Republican charges of liberal weakness that always kept Democrats on the defensive.Essay Types: Essay