Obama likely to opt for strategic retraction

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By Tao Wenzhao (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-26 07:48

When Barack Obama is officially sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, the world he faces will be very different from the one his predecessor George W. Bush did eight years ago. The days when the US sat comfortably relishing the spoils of the Cold War are long gone, as the war in Iraq and the spreading financial crisis have dragged the country into a difficult situation it has not seen for decades.

What does all this mean to the Obama administration when it takes office or to the US for that matter? Taking a cue from a slew of signs, I believe that Obama's government will very likely pursue a strategic retraction, meaning the US will very likely enter a period of strategic adjustment.

The last time the US underwent a strategic retraction was in the early 1970s. The starting signals came in then President Richard Nixon's address to the nation on the war in Vietnam on Nov 3, 1969 and the annual foreign affairs report his administration submitted to Congress in Feb 1970.

Nixon said back then the US would still honor its obligations spelled out in the treaties it had signed with its allies, but it was impossible for the US to defend all "free countries" in the world and those under security threats should rely on themselves more than on any other nation, because the US would not plunge into another protracted conflict like the Vietnam War ever again.

That is the so-called Nixon Doctrine, of which the gist is to pursue a strategic retraction by reducing the defense obligations the US had to fulfill around the world. Between then and the early 1980s the country basically remained in strategic retraction, mostly because the US was sinking deeper in the swamp of Vietnam War with the society bitterly split.

In the early 1980s the Reagan administration put the nation back on the track of strategic expansion as it assumed the US had recovered from its "Vietnam War Syndrome". President Ronald Reagan moved into the White House with the banner of "restoring American power" held high. He lost little time in setting up an all-round rivalry against the Soviet Union with all guns blazing and ultimately exhausted the other superpower to death with his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

After the Cold War ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the US not only maintained the Cold War-era military alliance without a clearly-defined enemy but also pushed forward NATO's eastward expansion while reaping the benefits of the Cold War.

It also made easy gains from its intervention in the first Gulf War and massive air raids against Yugoslavia. After the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on US soil, the Bush administration rode on the surging patriotic fervor of the nation and launched the war on Iraq before wiping out al-Qaida, achieving another "over-expansion of the empire".

The war in Iraq has seriously consumed the US' hard strength, sucking more than $580 billion out of the federal coffer by the end of the 2008 fiscal year; while the nation's soft strength was also heavily damaged, with its international image reduced from bad to worse amid rising anti-Americanism around the world (particularly among the Muslim communities).

Islamic fundamentalists are doing a pretty good job keeping the US military busy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and constantly reminding Washington the war on terror is far from over.

Meanwhile, the US has soured its relations with Russia by expanding NATO eastward and deploying its missile defense system right outside Russia's front door. The cross-Atlantic alliance has been weakened by cracks as a result of the war on Iraq. And the Israel-Palestine peace process has made no progress.

Today the US government is up to its nose in debt, which will put Obama's domestic and foreign policies in a suffocating bind. How else can he free the US from all this except undergoing strategic adjustments?

As Obama said in his campaign speeches and published articles as well as the Democratic Party's guiding principles, his administration will probably make the following strategic adjustments:

Return to multilateralism. Unilateralism is a fundamental characteristic of the "Bush doctrine", which believes in launching preemptive strikes against what it calls "axis of evil" states and make regime change there, with the war on Iraq as a test of this singular obsession.

But, the neo-conservatives had lost their charm and been marginalized by the time Bush entered the second term of his presidency. The Obama administration will bring multilateralism back and handle various regional as well as global issues by relying on the United Nations, international mechanisms and cooperation with the international community.

Pull the US military out of Iraq and focus on counter-terrorist actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama promised time and again during the election campaign that he would get all US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months once he takes office as the next US president.

Given the country's current economic condition, the Iraq War-related spending should be the first to lose weight in order to achieve budgetary balance. That's why Obama is expected to honor this particular promise and he will, though he is also obligated to ensure Iraq's security after the US military leaves no matter how challenging that will be.

Obama will send more US soldiers to Afghanistan while proceeding with the pullout from Iraq. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said he is willing to negotiate with the Taliban forces and Obama has not ruled that possibility out.

The real thorny issue in that part of Asia is Pakistan, which suffers from serious domestic instability. Obama said during the election campaign that he might order cross-border strikes from Afghanistan at al-Qaida bases believed hidden in Pakistan's northwestern region. His words triggered a diplomatic spat as the Pakistani government protested strongly against such blatant disregard of its sovereignty.

It will be a very daunting task for Obama to hit al-Qaida hard without stepping on Pakistan's toe while helping the South Asian nation maintain stability.

Improve relations with Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). An important condition for resolving the Iran and DPRK nuclear issues is for the US to first improve its relations with the two countries. The nuclear issues will be very hard to solve as long as serious lack of mutual confidence exists between the US and these two nations.

Obama has stated clearly Iran's possession of nuclear arms is unacceptable, but he might be willing to handle the US-Iran and US-DPRK relations in a more pragmatic and flexible manner than his predecessor did. The possibility that Obama will improve bilateral ties with either or both should not be ruled out.

Rethink the plan to deploy "missile shields" in Central Asia. Obama has insisted that the anti-ballistic missile defense systems should be deployed only after their effectiveness has been proven. While in office he might review the agreements that the Bush administration has signed with Poland and the Czech Republic to deploy missile defense batteries in the former and an early-warning radar system in the latter. This is also necessary when the defense budget cut comes into the equation. It should also help bring the flame down somewhat from under the simmering US-Russia standoff in Eastern Europe if not dowse it for good.

Stop pushing forward NATO's eastward expansion. Because of differences between the US and some European Union members, the indifference of Poles toward the issue of their country joining NATO and staunch objection by Russia, Obama is not expected to urge the eastward expansion of NATO forward as foolhardily as the Bush administration has done so far. The likelihood of Georgia and the Ukraine becoming NATO members in the next few years is minimal.

Rebuild US-Russia ties. The US and Russia enjoyed a period of close relationship after the Sept 11 attacks, but their bilateral ties began to cool down soon afterwards.

Obama understands that the US needs Russia's cooperation in fighting terrorism, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and on many economic issues. That is why he will try to rebuild the US-Russia ties by putting the US on an equal footing with Russia and in a more reconciliatory manner.

An advocate of reducing America's own strategic nuclear arsenal, Obama will seek to negotiate new treaties on strategic arms reduction with Russia when the existing ones expire during his term in office.

If he indeed adopts the stance on these issues as suggested above there is a good chance the US-Russia tension will ease during his presidency. The US must treat Russia as an equal partner and stop asserting its own will on the latter.

I have described how the US strategic retraction might look like after Barack Obama is sworn in, but whether it will happen depends on many factors, with some of them quite unpredictable. Judging by the current situation, however, the above-mentioned scenarios are possible. All we need to do is wait and see.

The author is a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

(China Daily 11/26/2008 page9)