Restoring solvency
Stephen Walt
It is by now a cliché to observe that Barack Obama took office facing the greatest challenge of any United States president since Franklin Roosevelt. The US economy had been in free-fall since the northern summer of 2008, the nation’s image around the world had taken a beating over the previous eight years. Obama inherited a losing war in Iraq, a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and a wide array of unresolved foreign policy problems. No president in living memory had taken office with so much to solve and such limited room to manoeuvre.
The new president wasted little time in responding. In his first 100 days, Obama pushed through an ambitious economic recovery program that included a major fiscal stimulus package, a controversial plan to buy up toxic assets in the banking industry, a limited bail-out for automobile manufacturers and proposals for a new regulatory regime for Wall Street. At the same time, he launched a dizzying set of foreign policy initiatives. After six months, Obama almost seemed to be the miracle worker his campaign had promised. As former advisor to President Clinton, William Galston, commented after Obama’s first 100 days: “If he’s right, our traditional notion of the limits of the possible—the idea that Washington can only handle so much at one time—will be blown to smithereens.”
Yet appearances can be deceiving, and this is almost certainly the case when it comes to foreign policy. Although Obama has made a number of positive moves, his actions to date are more style than substance. To be blunt, anyone who expects Obama to produce a dramatic transformation in America’s global position is going to be disappointed.
There are three reasons why major foreign policy achievements are unlikely. First, the big issue is still the economy, and Obama is going to focus most of his time and political capital there. Success in this area is critical to the rest of his agenda and to his prospects for re-election in 2012. Second, Obama is a pragmatic centrist and his foreign policy team is made up of mainstream liberal internationalists who believe active US leadership is essential to solving most international problems. Although they will undoubtedly try to reverse the excesses of the Bush administration, this group is unlikely to undertake a fundamental rethinking of the US’s global role. Third, and most important, there are no easy problems on Obama’s foreign policy “to-do” list. Even if he was able to devote his full attention to these issues, it would be difficult to resolve any of them quickly.
In terms of grand strategy, his ultimate aim must be to bring US commitments back into alignment with its interests and resources—to restore what Walter Lippmann termed “solvency” to US foreign policy. This broad goal can be achieved by extricating the nation from some current obligations, by improving relations with adversaries, by getting other states to bear a greater share of America’s burden, or a combination of all three. Obama will try to keep US commitments within bounds and to improve relations with several adversaries, while taking symbolic steps to repair the damage the Bush administration did to the country’s global reputation. But he is unlikely to achieve any far-reaching breakthroughs. The foreign policy agenda at the end of his first term is likely to look a lot like it does today. To see why, let us look more closely at the crises he faces.
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In the news
US housing expert has some home truths
16 Mar 2010
Sydney Morning Herald
In this article by Andrew West, current guest of the US studies Centre Henry Cicneros, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton Administration gives his opinion on the NSW Government’s potential use of powers to acquire private land and turn it over to property developers.
A TOP adviser to the Obama administration has warned the Keneally government to exercise extreme caution before using proposed powers that would allow it to acquire private land and turn it over to property developers.
Henry Cisneros, who was secretary of housing and urban development under the former US president Bill Clinton and now advises the White House Office of Urban Affairs, said the government would have to demonstrate that seizing private land was for "a larger public good".
Dr Cisneros, who is in Australia as a guest of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney for a series of lectures and meetings, told the Herald such powers were controversial in the US.
"It's been a raging controversy that's gone all the way up to the Supreme Court," he said.
"It is a problem and, in the US, private property is treated so sacredly there would be inhibitions against it. On the other hand, there have been court rulings saying that, for a defined public good, it is allowable."
Dr Cisneros served four terms as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, before being appointed to the Clinton cabinet in 1993. He is now a developer of low-income housing and an occasional White House counsellor.
As mayor, he said, he never forced a private owner to sell to the city. "I did not do it to someone who did not want to sell," he said. "We frequently approached people about selling in order to build a 137-store mall downtown, but it was for business use."
But if governments can prove that buying private land occupied by a single home or business was to sell it to a developer for medium and high density dwellings to ease a housing crisis, such powers are justified, he said.
"You could compensate people appropriately, even into the future for the enhanced value," he said. "If fairness can be achieved, if there is a larger public good in creating greater density of housing, then any city that can do it should work at it."
Dr Cisneros also warned that as Australian cities become more crowded and expensive, governments may have to build "workforce housing" for essential staff, such as police, teachers, nurses, and firefighters.
Several years ago, after a fierce storm lashed Seattle, there was no power for several days because repair crews, who could not afford to live in the city, could not return to work from their distant homes. King County in Seattle now has an ordinance that gives workforce housing priority on plots of unused or abandoned land.
In San Jose, California, the city had to offer housing aid to teachers who were resigning after just two years because they could not bear the long commute to school. "The city was losing all that investment in teacher training," Dr Cisneros said.
In nearby San Ramon, police who are forced to live 120 kilometres away now work three 12-hour shifts a week, and stay in dormitories. "They can't make the commute," he said. "So you're getting dysfunctional policing."
In the news
Smith steps up condemnation of Israel over 1600 new settler homes
12 Mar 2010
Sydney Morning Herald
In this report by Kirsty Needham the US Studies Centres' Associate Professor Brendon O'Connor and Postdoctoral Fellow Jeremy Pressman are interviewed about the significance of the latest controversy involving Israeli settlements on disputed land.
STEPHEN SMITH has joined a chorus of international criticism of Israel over its controversial approval of thousands of new settler homes, which threatens to scupper US-brokered Middle East peace talks.
Analysts said the strong language of the Minister for Foreign Affairs was a departure from Australia's record of ''playing it safe'' on Israeli politics. It follows the straining of Australia-Israel relations after the forgery of four Australian passports used in the assassination of a Hamas figure in Dubai, allegedly by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Federal police investigating the passport incident are believed to have returned to Australia, but yesterday Mr Smith's office said he had not yet seen their report.
The Israeli government has blamed the announcement of 1600 new homes by its interior minister - just as the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, arrived in Jerusalem and days after the Palestinian Authority had agreed to indirect talks - on a bureaucratic mishap.
The White House has condemned the announcement as undermining the peace process. Mr Smith told Sky News yesterday: ''This is a bad decision at the wrong time, and it's not a helpful contribution to the peace process.''
Britain, the European Union, France and Egypt also condemned Israel's move. But Brendon O'Connor, associate professor in American politics at the University of Sydney's US Studies Centre, said it was a departure for Australia to criticise Israel.
''Australia has previously played this issue very safe compared to a lot of European countries,'' he said. Jeremy Pressman, an American post-doctoral fellow at the centre who specialises in the Arab-Israeli conflict, said the passport tension was likely to be a factor in Mr Smith's rebuke but the broader international community had been angered by the timing of the announcement.
''It is traditional Israeli coalition politics and a long-running way to poke the US in the eye,'' Dr Pressman said.
Mr Smith has told the Israeli ambassador that lack of co-operation with the federal police investigation could bring adverse consequences but has said he will read the report before drawing conclusions.
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