President-elect Barack Obama's personal story, intelligence and hope instill confidence. He sees opportunities amidst dangers. He is determined to address climate change and the nation's economic crisis.
But his biggest challenge will be managing imperial decline.
No candidate would acknowledge this, but a transformative president cannot avoid it anymore than Lincoln could deny that civil war would define his presidency.
Bush officials misread history. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they spoke openly of "Empire." They used the tragedy of Sept. 11 to launch "America's grand strategy" to achieve permanent global domination. They also gravely overestimated U.S. power.
Empires rarely decline gracefully. They often confuse military power with real strength, thus sealing their fate. The world is changing. U.S. power is diminished. Our economy is weak. Our military is strong but counterproductive given the problems we face.
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Obama must explain to an anxious public that a diminished global role can be good. To succeed he must expound a more modest narrative in which our hopes rest in joining the community of nations to solve pressing problems.
By fundamentally changing U.S. foreign policies, we can redirect resources to address climate change, revitalize the U.S. economy and meet health and other pressing social needs.
The world hopes Obama chooses new approaches to security. His foreign policy should be guided by three insights: that military solutions are inadequate to solve most of the nation's and world's problems, that the U.S. will be welcomed as a good global partner, and that the nation's economic crisis is best understood in relation to the disastrous wars, the excessive military spending, and the failed foreign policies of "Empire."
To fruitfully re-engage the world and fulfill promises to revitalize the U.S. economy, the Obama administration should complete a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within nine months, begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and avoid escalating U.S. military involvement in Pakistan. It should address the root causes of terrorism, end illegal occupations, address economic and political grievances and view terrorism as a criminal enterprise.
The Obama administration should help resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict through balanced diplomacy. It should negotiate with Iran, work to have the Middle East declared a nuclear weapons-free zone, abandon plans to deploy a missile defense system and engage Russia and China to reduce the size of nuclear arsenals.
It should convene a global conference to cut global military spending by 50 percent, redirect money to address climate change and to end global poverty, close many of the more than 750 permanent foreign U.S. military bases, stop producing unneeded weapons, and confront the disastrous rise of the "Military Industrial Complex," to borrow the words of President Eisenhower.
Finally, the Obama administration should disentangle U.S. foreign policies and issue a blanket statement precluding torture or the degrading treatment of prisoners.
These profound foreign policy changes require a strong social movement and inspired presidential leadership. The success of Obama's presidency and the well-being of the nation hang in the balance.
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Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is an associate professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He sought but did not receive DFL endorsement for U.S. Senate in 2008.
