Letter 2 America for September 9, 2014

Dear America,

The past week has been an exhibition of the "Obama Doctrine" in operation.  At the conference for NATO leaders in Wales, and previously in a speech given in Tallinn, Estonia while on his way to Wales, The President made a clear statement of the commitment of NATO to the defense of all its members, specifically including the Baltic states, which have already had their experiences with Russian dominion, and he announced the means by which NATO would offer that defense.  The alliance will form a mobile, rapid response force to be available anywhere within the alliance where a member's borders and sovereignty are threatened as an alternative to placement of masses of NATO troops wherever NATO nations border possible aggressors, meaning Russia.  This strategy, in opposition to accretion of massive forces where they can be seen by Russia and pointed to as aggression themselves, is an astute way of warning Vladimir Putin that NATO doesn't intend to build a modern Maginot Line for him to reflect off of when he rhetorically prepares the world for a Ukraine style invasion.  The rapid response force demonstrates preparedness, but does not represent a threat to any other geopolitical entity that isn't in an aggressive posture toward a NATO member, so on the one hand, President Obama has announced the alliance of the willing that he was seeking with regard to Russian, but not a concerted action directed at Putin's aggression.  It is a defensive stance, yet it represents strength of purpose and concerted effort by an international mass greater than Russia, which stands alone in the world today.  And then there was ISIS.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that a new alliance had been formed including Britain, France, Australia and Germany, among others, to combat ISIS in all respects from blocking the recruiting of foreign combatants to undermining the groups finances, and to support a reformed government in Iraq in unspecified but obvious ways in its struggle against ISIS on the field of battle.  This alliance was the condition precedent for a comprehensive plan to thwart the threat constituted by ISIS, the absence of which as been the center of much criticism of President Obama over the past two weeks.  The plan itself will be forthcoming in the immediate future, and it will then be for congress to put its own imprimatur on the battle against the jihadists everywhere who menace not just Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Syria, but all nations.  It is the first implementation of Mr. Obama's concept of "leading from behind" that is cohesive and realistic as well as vastly substantive.  An alliance of all the modern nations of the world against any enemy should daunt him, and that is what has formed over the past few days, characterizeable as not just as an alliance of the willing, but an alliance of the able as well.  And as such, it signals a new role for the United States in the world that will satisfy all with its proportion and symmetry with the goals and policies of all other nations.  The United States will no longer pronounce what it sees as imperatives and act with or without world consensus.  Rather, when crises arise and action is needed, we will be the rudder rather than the wind in the sails of the international ship of state.  Thus, the Obama Doctrine is a new alternative to the United Nations to be used by this country when there is no time for Security Counsel diplomacy and politics.  While the notion of leading from behind has been cast in a skeptical light by Republicans, and conservative Republicans in particular, the fact is that this is where we should have been since World War II.  Instead of fueling our foreign policy with national pride and chauvinism, we should have been marshalling the forces of the world to deal with the world's problems.  Instead of forging ahead even when we were alone in our mission, we should have been seeking concurrence and modifying our own stance whenever collective wisdom merited doing so.  Instead of dictating to the world what constitutes a noble nation, we should have been respecting differences and offering assistance toward the end of facilitating change rather than insisting on it.  If such had been the American foreign policy ethos, there would have been no Iraq and Afghanistan wars fought preponderantly by a staggering, overtaxed United States without real support from almost anywhere else.  We will not longer be the keepers of the flame, but we will continue to be vigilant and mindful of our values and how they interplay with those of others.  That is what an enlightened nation does.  It steers...whether from behind or not.

Your friend,

Mike