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Although now we know the leading players on Barack Obama's
national security team, we still do not know his foreign policy
priorities. He has opted for a team whose character is, for the
most part, right-of-center, and selected establishment figures
to fill these roles, which suggests that a paradigm shift in
American foreign policy remains unlikely.
Instead,
America will reclaim the realist compass that guided its
international relations from the end of the Second World War to
September 11. Obama's foreign policy will continue in the path
of the Clinton administration's, back to power politics and
national interests, with a more pronounced emphasis on human
rights and the rule of law. According to Secretary of State
Hilary Clinton, American “smart power,” a mix of diplomacy and
defense, will be fully deployed worldwide. In other words
diplomacy, not militarism, will be the vanguard of Obama's
foreign policy.
Obama is too intelligent and politically
shrewd to overlook the tension between his campaign pledges and
the conservative character of his national security team. He
has defended his choices, saying that he will raise the banner
of change in the White House and be its guiding force.
“Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and
foremost,” he told reporters. “It comes from me. That is my
job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going, and to
make sure, then, that my team is implementing.”
Obama
is correct: his key responsibility is to provide vision and
direction. But there is a danger that his initiative will be
lost amid the competing interests of his cabinet secretaries
and the policy options they advance.
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