Obama Doctrine
In an article in The Providence Journal from August 28, 2007, James Kirchick used the term in a derogatory sense, and argued that the Obama Doctrine could be summarized as: "The United States will remain impassive in the face of genocide."
This critique was based on an interview Obama had given to the The Associated Press on July 21, where he said that "the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems" and that "preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.
"[11] Hilary Bok, guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic's The Daily Dish, refuted Kirchick's representation of Obama's foreign policy views as a distortion.
Bok pointed to Obama's use of anti-genocide activist Samantha Power as a political advisor, and to several interviews the candidate had given expressing concern for the situation in Darfur and elsewhere.
[12] Later, in a presidential debate with Senator John McCain, Obama stated that the U.S. occasionally would have to "consider it as part of our interests" to carry out humanitarian interventions.
[16] Then-President George W. Bush, in a May 2008 speech at the Knesset, likened direct negotiations with Iran, or terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, to attempts at "appeasement" of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.
Here, Obama listed the five pillars of his foreign policy, should he be elected:[20] I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century,Sweet pointed out that these ideas were a reiteration of the essay "Renewing American Leadership," that Obama had written for Foreign Affairs magazine in the summer of 2007.
A proposal to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the rejection of the phrase "Global War on Terror", and the reconciliation with Russia through the abandonment of the anti-ballistic missile program in Poland and the Czech Republic, were taken as clear signs of a reversal of the principles of the Bush administration.
The Obama Doctrine, in Drezner's interpretation, was to abandon foreign policies that had proven fruitless and unpopular, in order to focus on more important and pressing issues.
He defined the doctrine as "a form of realism unafraid to deploy American power but mindful that its use must be tempered by practical limits and a dose of self-awareness.
"[27] In addition, Obama expressed a desire for the U.S. to seek friendship with all, harkening back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy.
"[28] Political policy analysts such as Ray Walser lamented this stance, arguing that portraying America as "equal" among the nations of the world would reduce its global stature.
[35] The question of the Obama Doctrine once more came to the fore in connection with his acceptance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway in December 2009.
[38] The speech was generally well received, and was praised by conservative figures in American politics, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and John Boehner.
The third is that the innate American desire to fix the sorts of problems that manifest themselves most drastically in the Middle East inevitably leads to warfare, to the deaths of U.S. soldiers, and to the eventual hemorrhaging of U.S. credibility and power.
Obama believes that history has sides, and that America’s adversaries—and some of its putative allies—have situated themselves on the wrong one, a place where tribalism, fundamentalism, sectarianism, and militarism still flourish.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called democracy and human rights central to the strategy, adding that "We cannot sustain this level of deficit financing and debt without losing our influence, without being constrained about the tough decisions we have to make.
And if nations challenge or undermine an international order that is based upon rights and responsibilities, they must find themselves isolated.Washington began isolating Vladimir Putin's Russia, slowly shutting off market access for Russian banks, companies, and state bodies with $714 billion of dollar debt.
[citation needed] In the last week of June 2014, a court fined BNP Paribas $9 billion because it had handled foreign exchange transactions with Sudan, Iran, and Cuba from 2004 to 2012.
Mr Obama's statement that 'the US must reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend our nation and our interests' is a clear indication that the US has not abandoned its war doctrine as such.
Expect the US to go beyond its borders to dominate new frontiers - not only geographically, militarily or economically as a traditional empire, but also cyber, space and other technological frontiers.Within the United States, critics have further picked away at the administration's policies.
"[52] A Washington Times editorial criticized the president's strategy, stating that it should not be "some kind of outreach initiative, it is the framing document for America's global safety.
[56][57] A great deal of this cost containment (in money and the loss of American servicemen) came from replacing massive land invasions with selective drone strikes or special operations missions that have resulted in the deaths of top terrorist leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
[58][59] These limited resources will be focused and managed to "Ensure U.S. forces can defeat more than one enemy at once",[60] while the previous Bush administration had only planned to "decisively" win in only one of two "near-simultaneous conflicts".
