By Michael O’Hanlon, Special to CNN
Michael O’Hanlon is senior fellow at Brookings and author of The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity. The views expressed are his own.
President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism speech Thursday did not deliver any radical policy changes or huge revelations, but it was well done nonetheless. It explained his reasoning behind the use of certain techniques of warfare including drone strikes and Guantanamo detentions, even as he also promised to minimize the use of these methods in the future and try to move towards a world in which the 2001 authorization for war against al Qaeda and affiliates would no longer be needed. It was an intelligent blend of the tone of his more idealistic speeches, such as the Cairo address of June 2009, with his more muscular messages like the December 2009 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
But one section of his speech is worth particular focus – the use of armed unmanned combat vehicles or drones. Even though President Obama did not specify exactly how drone strikes would change in the future, and did not provide a great deal of new information about them, the modest amount of detail he did provide was welcome. That is because U.S. drone strikes are badly misunderstood around the world, a point underscored by a New York Times op-ed today contained the following statements:
“...the C.I.A. has no idea who is actually being killed in most of the strikes. Despite this acknowledgment, the drone program in Pakistan still continues without any Congressional oversight or accountability.”
By Gabriel Kohan and Mark Donig, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Gabriel Kohan and Mark Donig are Middle East policy analysts whose work has appeared in CNN, Foreign Policy, Forbes, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The views expressed in this piece are their own.
Since the White House announced last month that President Obama would be headed to Israel, analysts have floated numerous flawed theories suggesting that the president’s trip is motivated primarily by either a desire to enhance cooperation on various security issues or to thaw the frosty relationship between the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Advocates of the first theory overlook the fact that, while security issues will be addressed, this trip to Israel is not necessary for the two countries to enhance their already unprecedented security relationship – the president could accomplish the same without leaving Washington. Meanwhile, proponents of the second overestimate the impact of one more face-to-face meeting between a president and prime minister who have already met in person a number of times over the previous four years.
Rather, the greatest impact that this trip could have is not between leaders or governments, but between President Obama and the Israeli public. By using this trip to speak directly to the Israeli people and to reassure them of America’s commitment to Israel’s security, President Obama can begin to forge the kind of trust with the Israeli public that has so far eluded him, in part due to his previous requests for Israeli concessions on territory and settlements that some perceived as insensitive to Israel’s precarious security situation. In building this good faith, Obama can begin to “reset” his relationship with Israelis who may not trust today that the president will “have Israel’s back,” and can use that newly built trust to help achieve longstanding American foreign policy goals in the Middle East.
Fareed Zakaria offers his take on why President Barack Obama should think big in his upcoming State of the Union address. Watch CNN's comprehensive coverage of the address, starting at 7 p.m. ET Tuesday.
On the president’s watch, we know that the country has now added 1.2 million jobs since he took office, but it’s not creating enough jobs fast enough to sustain a strong recovery. You see the housing market is coming back. The stock market is rallying. But how much can this president really do in the next four years to get the economy going again?
He could do a lot. We are actually in good shape compared with Europe, compared with Japan.
What this president should do is try to enlist Congress in recognizing that with borrowing costs at historical lows, what we need to do is rebuild America and gain jobs…and allow the economy to get to a kind of escape velocity.
If the president were to announce he has a big, new infrastructure bank that is going to borrow money, but which is going to spend it to rebuild America – invest in the future, rebuild the bridges and highways, build a new generation of smart grid, build a new airport system, a new air traffic system – I think the public at large would like to hear that.
This is the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal. People said we could never do something like that. It was the largest and most expensive government project ever, but unleashed 100 years of economic trade.
So, we have to think in those large terms. If we do, we can do things. If we believe we are entirely constrained, we can’t do much.
By Bruce Stokes, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Bruce Stokes is director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Center. The views expressed are his own.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address is now history. It has been labeled “progressive,” “partisan,” “one of the best ever” and “pedestrian.” Whatever the positive or negative take on its content, the speech was largely about America’s domestic concerns. The limited internationalism highlighted in the speech lacks significant support from the American people, especially those who got him reelected.
The economy, jobs and the budget deficit dominate public concerns in the United States, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. More than eight-in-ten Americans think Washington should pay less attention to problems overseas and more attention to issues at home. And such isolationist sentiment has increased 10 percentage points in the last decade.
This is the second in a series of entries looking at what we can expect in 2013. Each weekday, a guest analyst will look at the key challenges facing a selected country – and what next year might hold in store.
By Steve Linde, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Steve Linde is editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. The views expressed are his own.
Life in the Holy Land is often intense and seldom boring, and the country has captured the attention of the international news media for almost 65 years. This is not likely to change in 2013. Although Israel has a population of only eight million, almost every day generates unexpected and exciting developments. While journalists are not prophets, I would suggest that there are six key challenges facing the Jewish state in the year ahead:
National elections – Israel is all set for what promises to be an interesting national election on January 22, with 34 lists registered to run. A strong right-wing list comprising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home) is facing off against a splintered Center and Left that includes, inter alia, Shelly Yacimovich's Labor, the Tzipi Livni Party, Yair Lapid¹s Yesh Atid (There is a Future) and Shaul Mofaz¹s Kadima. Current polls show the now merged Likud-Beiteinu list comfortably ahead, with about a third of the seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament. But with growing discontent over the current government¹s foreign and socioeconomic policies, Likud- Beiteinu may in fact win fewer seats than its two component parties have in the current Knesset (42).
By Hans Kundnani, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Hans Kundnani is editorial director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. The views expressed are his own.
The overwhelming feeling in Europe following Barack Obama’s re-election was a sense of relief. Although European approval of his administration’s foreign policy has dipped since he took office in 2009 – particularly over his increased use of drones and his perceived failure to put greater pressure on Israel – Europeans overwhelmingly preferred him to Mitt Romney. Indeed, according to one poll carried out in 12 European Union member states before the election, 75 percent said they would vote for Obama and only 8 percent for Romney if they could choose.
Still, Obama’s second-term foreign policy has the potential to divide Europe – and to divide Europe and America. Two developments in particular will shape Obama’s second-term foreign policy – deficit woes and a pivot towards the Asia-Pacific. Both will create tough choices for Europeans as they struggle to deal with the euro crisis.
Fareed Zakaria speaks with historian Robert Caro, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Lyndon Johnson, about drawing parallels between the Johnson and Obama presidencies.
People cite your book now as a kind of totemic source to make this point that Johnson knew how to schmooze, he knew how to use power, he knew how to push the buttons of Congress. And that Obama is aloof and less interested. So give us your sense, because it's a different landscape. Johnson did have Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate.
I'll take the opportunity of this show to say, although my book is constantly used to show that Barack Obama should be more like Lyndon Johnson, that's not a lesson I get at from the book. I think it's a misreading of it.
[With] Obama, you go back to that same thing – the moral arc of the universe bends slowly, but it bends toward justice. You know, Obama made a considerable bend in that. If you look back at Obama’s first term, you ask what are historians going to be saying about this in a century? They're going to be saying, “what's a major thing?”
By Michael O’Hanlon, Special to CNN
Michael O’Hanlon is senior fellow at Brookings and author of The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity. The views expressed are his own.
Three senior Republican lawmakers may have come away "concerned" from their meeting with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. But beyond the specific debate about the Benghazi incident, and the continued concerns of critics including Senator John McCain, there looms a larger issue of whether she would be an appropriate choice as secretary of state in the second Obama term.
Nearly 100 House Republicans have now come out against her, joining several prominent GOP senators. They criticize her as either untrustworthy or incompetent, with insinuations that she is too much of a partisan to represent the country as a whole on the international stage. President Obama’s unwillingness to back down in the face of their criticisms, meanwhile, risks creating a new and unnecessary partisan wedge in Washington at just the moment the country needs its leaders to work together.
FULL POST
"Fareed Zakaria GPS" this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET.
Second-term presidencies come with a unique set of challenges. How have past American presidents handled them? Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Jon Meacham and Robert Caro look back, and offer advice to President Barack Obama.
“Even in this era, where the president of the United States is watching in real time the operation to take out bin Laden, even with that there is a fog of war. There is a fog of information,” Meacham says. “And a president is paid to make sure that when he’s acting, he’s acting on facts. And I think where presidents get in trouble is, as President Bush did, I think particularly in the first term, was acting on information, acting on convictions that were not supported by the data coming in.”
Then, The Revenge of Geography author Robert Kaplan says despite the advances of globalization, international relations and trade remain bound by the rules of geography. And, in our “What in the World” segment – why Latin America has a bulging middle.
By Bruce Stokes, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Bruce Stokes is the Pew Research Center’s director of Global Economic Attitudes. The views expressed are his own.
The election is over. The voters have spoken. Now the work begins. But there is little evidence that the American public wants its leaders to put aside their partisan differences now that the campaigning is finished.
The most pressing economic policy issue confronting Congress and the White House is, undoubtedly, the end-of-the-year deadline for agreeing on a comprehensive plan to reduce the U.S. deficit and debt. Barring agreement, automatic spending cuts and tax increases will kick in, possibly triggering a recession.
Americans are united in their worries about the adverse economic impact of hurdling over this “fiscal cliff.” But they remain divided over what to do about this challenge. And, more broadly, they disagree about the need for their leaders to compromise and about the future political direction of their parties.
By Daniel Vajdic, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Daniel Vajdic is a researcher in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The views expressed are his own.
At least as far as foreign policy went, Russia received an unexpected amount of attention in this year’s U.S. presidential election campaign. Whether it was the Romney team’s dismissing the so-called reset, its claim that Russia is America’s “number one geopolitical foe,” or President Obama’s infamous open mic moment, in which he promised his Russian counterpart “flexibility” on missile defense if reelected, ties with Moscow kept cropping up.
It is, of course, true that the Cold War world no longer exists, and that Russia occupies a far less significant space in American foreign policy. And the U.S.-Russia relationship simply is not as overtly antagonistic as it was in the Soviet era. But it is also clear that Russia continues to pose serious challenges for the United States.
By Sarah Margon, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Sarah Margon is the deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed are her own.
Second terms are when presidents start to think about their legacy. And with a first term that earned President Barack Obama strong national security bona fides, he has the opportunity to pursue a robust foreign policy that more closely aligns U.S. values and interests. Historically, many presidents have supported such an agenda, but few have been able to follow through for fear of looking weak. Freed from the political constraints of his inaugural four years, and with two-thirds of Americans, according to polls, confident in his ability to handle major national security challenges, Obama can now stop paying lip service to this ideal.
The foundation for such an approach already exists. In 2011, Obama asserted that a “strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of [core national security interests] will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind. Failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has festered for years that the United States pursues our interests at their expense.”
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