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US: Nobel Speech Places Obama Within Realist-Liberal Tradition

Analysis by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Dec 10 2009 (IPS) - In formally accepting the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama enunciated a worldview that places him squarely within the realist and liberal internationalist thinking that dominated post-World War II U.S. foreign policy – at least until his predecessor’s “global war on terror.”

In asserting before the Nobel Academy that “evil does exist in the world” and that “there will be times when nations… will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified,” Obama echoed the realism long favoured by Republican policymakers, in particular.

At the same time, his emphasis on the importance of building international institutions designed to prevent war – “an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize,” he noted – as well as to “protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons,” echoed the liberal internationalist creed embraced, at least rhetorically, by Democratic presidents since Wilson himself.

And his quotation of John F. Kennedy, widely seen as the embodiment of the two schools’ fusion, in favour of working “on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions” – made clear what Obama sees as his overarching task in world affairs. “A gradual evolution of human institutions,” he repeated for emphasis.

“In a sense, this was one of the clearer statements of foreign policy principle that Obama has delivered to date: an extended defence of using realist means in the service of liberal internationalist ends,” wrote the conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat.

The speech, he added, was a “corrective to some of the more hubristic elements of [George W.] Bush’s foreign policy.”

Indeed, although as much as half of the speech was devoted to defending the use of force – an approach that the White House apparently deemed necessary given Obama’s announcement last week that he is sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to a war in Afghanistan that is particularly unpopular with his Scandinavian hosts – it also made clear his repudiation of key elements of the so-called “Bush Doctrine” that dominated the Texan’s first term, in particular.

In addition to publicly addressing the moral complexities raised by the resort to war, Obama stressed the “human tragedy” that is its inevitable result. “… [W]ar itself is never glorious,” he said, “and we must never trumpet it as such.”

He also repeatedly rejected the kind of “exceptionalism” the Bush administration used to argue – that the U.S. should not be constrained by laws, treaties and other international conventions that bind other nations, by virtue of its moral superiority and its unique role as the ultimate guarantor of global peace and security.

“America – in fact, no nation – can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves,” he declared at one point. “Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct,” he said later in a passage reaffirming Washington’s commitment to the Geneva Conventions.

Similarly, while acknowledging Washington’s status as the “world’s sole military superpower,” he stressed in one of several passages implicitly critical of Europe’s reluctance to take on a greater defence burden that the world is no longer unipolar, if ever it was.

“America’s commitment to global security will never waver,” he said. “But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan,” he added in a plea for more NATO support there.

In another clear difference with the “Bush Doctrine,” Obama also strongly defended his strategy of diplomatic engagement with foes and abusive governments, as realists among both Democrats and Republicans have long favoured.

“I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation,” he said. “But I also know that sanctions without outreach – condemnation without discussion – can carry forward only a crippling status quo.”

At the same time, however, he accorded a high priority – higher perhaps that in any previous speech – to the importance of promoting human rights, noting that, “only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.”

“[W]ithin America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists – a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world,” he said. “I reject these choices.”

Confronted with repressive governments, “there’s no simple formula… But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time,” he said, citing the liberating effects of engagement by two Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, with China and the Soviet Union, respectively.

At the same time, the battle for human rights should not be confined to civil and political rights, he said, in a further nod to the liberal internationalism first promoted by President Franklin Roosevelt and another slap at the “democracy” mantra of his predecessor.

“A just peace… must encompass economic security and opportunity,” he said. “For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.”

Despite his implicit rejection of many of the “Bush Doctrine’s” core principles, the speech earned generally favourable reviews from Republican critics, some of whom have been more favourably disposed to him since last week’s announcement that he will escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

Former Bush aide Peter Feaver said Obama “channelled his inner pragmatist.” “People wondered what would be the effect of the irony of him accepting the Nobel Peace Prize within days of ordering a major escalation in war,” he wrote on his foreignpolicy.com blog. “The effect, it appears, is that it drove him to give one of his better speeches.”

But that pragmatism, and particularly his extended defence of the use of force, proved very disturbing to others, particularly in light of the impending escalation.

“Much of his highly militarised speech could have been given by George W. Bush without blinking,” said Tom Engelhardt, whose tomdispatch.com website is among the most popular for progressive foreign-policy critics. “Though invoked repeatedly, the Martin Luther King who opposed the Vietnam War would have rejected it out of hand.”