5. Cementing relations with Europe

U.S. foreign policy under Obama also sought to continue the close partnerships with the EU and NATO. At the same time the administration urged the Europeans, not least Germany, to become more involved in global affairs, and increase their defense efforts (greater “burden sharing” with the United States). The development of a European army with its own distinct headquarters is viewed skeptically in Washington, but this issue is unlikely to undermine the Alliance. The European allies, after all, were able to overcome surprisingly quickly much more serious transatlantic crises such as the repercussions of the global financial crisis of 2008-11 which hit Europe badly as well as the NSA espionage scandal.

Still, transatlantic relations at the end of Obama’s presidency look less good than at the beginning. It is unlikely that the negotiations for a new wide-ranging transatlantic trade deal – the TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – will succeed any time soon. This is a personal blow for Obama who has pushed hard for the negotiations to succeed. Similarly, the decision by the British in a referendum in mid-July 2016 to leave the EU (Brexit) was a personal defeat for Obama who had told the British during an official visit a few weeks before the referendum that the United States wanted the UK to remain a member of the EU. Europe has felt abandoned by the United States in its search for a solution to the refugee and migration crisis which has confronted the EU since 2015. No significant help has been offered by the Obama administration, though many in the EU blame Washington’s passive stance in the Syrian war and its earlier adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq for having contributed to if not caused the refugee crisis in the first place.

6. Overcoming some long-standing foreign policy problems: Iran, Myanmar and Cuba

Obama made a number of serious attempts to resolve some intractable long-standing foreign policy problems that had preoccupied his country for many years. Here the president invested much time and energy and a lot of political capital. He achieved some major successes. The Nuclear Deal with Iran was perhaps Obama’s greatest foreign policy triumph. In July 2015 his Secretary of State John Kerry and five other countries (China, Russia, France, UK, Germany) signed a landmark nuclear deal with Iran (the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA). Iran agreed not to build or prepare to build a nuclear weapon and to redesign its existing nuclear reactors, reduce its uranium stockpile and commit itself to “extraordinary and robust monitoring, verification, and inspection” of its nuclear energy sector for the next ten years. It was the Obama administration that was the driving force behind the deal while China and Russia also played a crucial part. Although the agreement proved to be highly controversial in U.S. domestic politics, abroad the deal was much applauded, despite the uncertainty as to whether or not Iran would strictly observe the conditions of the agreement. In return western sanctions on Iran including the freezing of financial assets, which had crippled Tehran’s economy, were largely lifted.

The administration's rapprochement and normalization of relations with the military regime in Myanmar and with Cuba also deserve praise. In Myanmar, U.S. influence and economic carrots led to free elections and the restoration of a largely democratic government. The beginning of a process of normalization between the United States and Cuba was announced in December 2014, after more than fifty years of tension and hostility. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were restored in July 2015 and the president visited the island in 2016, the first sitting president to do so for eighty years. (His journey to Cuba was followed by a perhaps even more popular visit by the Rolling Stones.) The Obama administration also relaxed some aspects of America’s economic, financial and commercial embargo on Cuba and eased travel restrictions but the full removal of the embargo requires an act of Congress.

Obama’s foreign policy and its deficiencies: international terrorism, China and Russia     

Obama can thus point to some impressive foreign policy achievements. He was able to resolve some very complex problems that had defeated all of his predecessors. Yet his foreign policy is a mixed bag. On some issues of global importance the administration largely failed. Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s best efforts, the administration, for instance, was not able to make progress in the Israel/Palestine conflict. In fact U.S.-Israeli relations plummeted to new depths with the personal animosity between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the president becoming quite obvious.

During the Arab Spring in 2011, the United States failed to support the movements in the Arab street, despite its cautiously expressed sympathies. In Egypt for instance the White House contributed to forcing President Mubarak from power in February 2011 but eventually the normalization of relations with new hardline President el-Sisi has taken place. U.S. military aid to Egypt has been restored to its customary level. In fact, Washington is glad that Egypt has not descended into chaos like many other countries in the region but has remained a fairly stable pro-western nation, while having clearly developed into a police state. The same applied in Thailand where the military coup of May 2014 initially was much criticized by the administration. Still the relative stability of Thailand under the military government is appreciated in the United States and relations have been largely normalized again.

One of the greatest failures of the Obama administration is its inability to defeat ISIS, though some military progress has been made recently. Much more important, however, is the administration’s failure to successfully counter the fundamentalist philosophy and worldview held by many in the Middle East and in the West upon which the support of the terrorist movement rests. Relations with China, the superpower in waiting, are uneasy and difficult but there is some hope that both powers will continue to make genuine efforts not to embark on a serious economic, cybersecurity and military conflict. And cooperation with China has proved to be quite possible. After all, agreements such as the Iranian nuclear deal and the Paris climate conference treaty of December 2014 occurred with constructive Chinese cooperation. Beijing and Washington also agree in principle that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions need to be contained.

Perhaps the most disastrous and consequential failure has been the Obama administration’s inability to deal with Russia. After the March 2014 annexation of Crimea and the de facto-detachment of Eastern Ukraine, relations between the United States, EU and Russia went from bad to worse. Sanctions were imposed and Russia was excluded from the G-8. Anxiety about President Putin’s interest in further expansion, perhaps into the Baltic states and elsewhere in the former Soviet empire, made the West move NATO forces and missile shields eastward and invest in the strengthening and modernization of the NATO alliance. This in turn is seen by Russia as a serious threat.

Russia’s involvement in the war in Syria since September 30, 2015, on the side of the brutal Assad regime and Moscow’s increasingly unrelenting and cruel bombardments of cities such as Aleppo and other targets, both military and indeed civilian, have worsened relations further. While there has been constructive cooperation on other issues such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Geneva peace talks on Syria have led to limited cooperation between Moscow and Washington, on the whole Russian-western relations are in deep crisis. They are as bad as at the highpoint of the Cold War.

Conclusion                          

Towards the end of the Obama administration the global economic situation looks clearly better than in 2009 when the world was teetering on the brink of another Great Depression. Yet, global stability, not least in the Middle East, and U.S. relations with the other great powers in the world, notably, China, Russia and Europe, look more precarious than they did eight years ago. While this obviously is not President Obama’s fault alone, he clearly did not succeed in making the world more stable and less dangerous during his eight years in power. But perhaps without Obama and his sober presidency things would be even worse.

Klaus Larres is the Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He also is a Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University/SAIS, Washington DC and at present Fellow and Member at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey.

Image: President Barack Obama with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Department of Defense