Why Obama sticks to diplomacy despite flak

WASHINGTON - Nearly a month of heavy criticism of his foreign policy and repeated suggestions that Ukraine would be a litmus test of his presidency were looming over United States President Barack Obama as he took to the podium in Brussels for what would be the pivotal speech of his European trip.

Yet, anyone looking for even a slight recalibration of his diplomacy first, participatory approach did not get it. Instead, Mr Obama doubled down on his strategy of dealing with an increasingly belligerent Moscow.

In a 40-minute speech, he dismissed notions of a new Cold War, saying the Russia of today is not the Soviet Union of the past.

"Russia leads no bloc of nations, no global ideology," he said as he sought to cast the current conflict as one fought on values.

"Now is not the time for bluster. The situation in Ukraine, like crises in many parts of the world, does not have easy answers nor a military solution. But at this moment, we must meet the challenge to our ideals - to our very international order - with strength and conviction."

Indeed, there had been little evidence ahead of the trip that the US administration had lost faith in its post-war approach.

Still, Mr Obama's strong exposition for the decision to respond by isolating Russia and urging Europe to take actions of its own comes at the end of a month during which his move to take US foreign policy off a war footing has been relentlessly skewered at home. A poll this week saw favourability ratings for his foreign policy fall, with just 40 per cent of Americans saying they approve of his foreign policy.

The question is why he would choose to take this path, given how the likes of Russia and China might react. White House observers say the approach is driven by a conviction that the policy is the correct one.

The administration dismisses suggestions that it was some perception of weakness - for instance, it did not punish Syria for the use of chemical weapons - that triggered Russia's attempt to re-form the Soviet Union.

Mr Michael McFaul, the US ambassador to Russia until last month, however, called such an analysis "utterly unconvincing".

He outlined a long track record of Russian aggression that had little correlation with who the American president, whether Republican or Democrat, was at the time.

Mr George W. Bush failed to prevent the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008; Mr Ronald Reagan could not stop a Kremlin-aided crackdown on the civil resistance movement in Poland in 1981; similarly, in 1956, Mr Dwight Eisenhower could not stop Moscow from sending tanks into Hungary. All three were Republican presidents.

"If you can see a pattern - you know, Democrats in power, Russians invade, Republicans in power, Russians don't invade - that would be a powerful theory, but the evidence doesn't support that theory. The evidence doesn't support any pattern," he said.

Another reason that the White House seems to want to continue with its attempts to use diplomacy is that, prior to the Crimean invasion, there was evidence it was working on Russia.

Analysts point to how President Vladimir Putin spent US$50 billion (S$63 billion) on the Olympic Games and invited the world to Sochi to see the new Russia. He also freed two members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Mr McFaul said what likely triggered Moscow's sudden pivot against the West was not some long-term strategic plan but a reaction to the ouster of Ukraine's Russian-backed president.

Then there was the notion - up till this week's polls rejected it - that a foreign policy less tilted towards war is precisely what the US public asked for when they voted for Mr Obama.

Dr Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post describing Mr Obama's paradox.

"President Obama is supposedly conducting foreign policy in tune with popular opinion, yet his foreign policy is not popular."

Dr Kagan's hypothesis is that the current policy is unpopular only because it undermines the notion of American exceptionalism.

"They may prefer a minimalist foreign policy in which the United States no longer plays a leading role in the world and leaves others to deal with their own miserable problems... they may want what Obama so far has been giving them. But they're not proud of it, and they're not grateful to him for giving them what they want."

jeremyau@sph.com.sg

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