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Barack Obama's Post-American Foreign Policy: the Limits of Engagement

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Barack Obama's Post-American Foreign Policy: the Limits of Engagement Singh, Robert. "Notes." Barack Obama's Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012. 203–226. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 30 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781780931111.0007>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 30 September 2021, 15:45 UTC. Copyright © Robert Singh 2012. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. Notes Chapter One 1 Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of Barack Obama (London: Virgin Books, 2009), 20. 2 Quoted in Helene Cooper, “On the world stage, Obama issues an overture,” New York Times April 2, 2009, at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/ europe/03assess.html?ref=us. 3 Christopher Caldwell, “Leaders for our time: do crises demand craziness?”, Financial Times September 3–4, 2011, 11. 4 Michael Hirsh, “The Decider?”, National Journal July 30, 2011, 37. 5 The underemployment rate combines those unemployed Americans with those in part-time work who are seeking, or would accept, full-time employment. 6 The US Census Bureau recorded 46.2 million Americans in 2010 below the poverty line, of $22,314 for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual. That amounted to 15.1 percent of the US population, the highest since 1993. See Matt Kennard and Shannon Bond, “US poverty hits record levels,” Financial Times September 14, 2011, 10. 7 Ibid . 8 John R. Talbott, Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-down Economics (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008). 9 According to Gallup, Obama’s job approval in the last week of August 2011 averaged 40 percent, tying with his record-low 40 percent approval ratings for the two weeks commencing August 8. Only African Americans, Democrats and liberals gave him majority approval. See http://www.gallup.com/poll/149225/ Obama-Weekly-Average-Approval-Holds-Term-Low.aspx. 10 One-fi fth of Americans strongly approved of Obama’s performance, according to the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/ public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll. 11 According to a Washington Post-ABC poll conducted from August 29 to September 1, 2011, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/ postabcpoll_090111.html. 12 From the Washington Post-ABC poll, ibid ., at http://www.washingtonpost. com/obamas-approval-ratings-skid-to-new-low-economic-stewardship-in- question/2011/09/05/gIQACwxH5J_graphic.html. 13 President Obama famously stated, in an interview with ABC’s “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer on January 25, 2010, that “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” See Mark Mooney, “Exclusive: President Obama Would ‘Rather Be Really Good One-Term President’,” January 25, 2010, at http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/ president-obama-good-term-president/story?id=9657337. 14 The phrase is from Obama’s June 2, 2008 speech in St Paul, Minnesota when he had fi nally won suffi cient delegates to the Democratic National Convention to become the party’s nominee for president. See http://www.nytimes. com/2008/06/03/us/politics/03text-obama.html. 15 There now exists an extensive literature challenging the consensus notion that American primacy is under fatal threat, whether from American decline or the 203 204 NOTES “rise of the rest.” Among other valuable works, see especially: Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, World Out Of Balance: international relations and the challenge of American primacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); Michael Mandelbaum, The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era (New York, Public Affairs, 2010); Carla Norrlof, America’s Global Advantage: US Hegemony and International Cooperation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Eric S. Edelman, Understanding America’s Contested Primacy (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2010); Josef Joffe, “The Default Power,” Foreign Affairs 88 (2) 2009, 21–35; Robert J. Lieber, “Persistent Primacy and the Future of the American Era,” International Politics 46 (2/3) 2009, 119–39; and Robert J. Lieber, “Staying Power and the American Future: Problems of Primacy, Policy, and Grand Strategy,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 34 (4) 2011, 509–530. 16 Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: Allen Lane, 2008), 4–5. 17 “Remarks by the President in State of Union address,” January 25, 2011, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-offi ce/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state- union-address. 18 “Address by the President to a Joint Session of Congress,” September 8, 2011, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-offi ce/2011/09/08/address-president-joint- session-congress. 19 Adam Quinn, “The art of declining politely: Obama’s prudent presidency and the waning of American power,” International Affairs 87 (4) 2011, 803–24. 20 Stanley A. Renshon, National Security in the Obama Administration: Reassessing the Bush Doctrine (New York: Routledge, 2010). 21 For an excellent elaboration of the distinction, see Paul McCartney, “American Nationalism and US Foreign Policy from September 11 to the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly 119 (3) 2004, 399–424. 22 See Gary C. Jacobson, “Polarization, Public Opinion, and the Presidency: the Obama and Anti-Obama Coalitions,” Chapter 5 in Bert A. Rockman, Andrew Rudalevige and Colin Campbell (eds.), The Obama Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2012), 94–122. 23 According to Gallup, Americans’ political ideology at the mid-year point of 2011 looked similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41 percent self-identifying as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent as liberal, at http://www.gallup.com/ poll/148745/Political-Ideology-Stable-Conservatives-Leading.aspx. 24 “If,” in Rudyard Kipling, Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 1993), 134–5. 25 Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: Allen Lane, 2008). 26 Barack Obama, “A World That Stands as One,” Berlin, Germany, July 24, 2008, at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,567920,00.html. 27 Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), 279. 28 Inderjeet Parmar, “American power and identities in the age of Obama,” International Politics 48 (2–3) 2011, 153–63, at 154. 29 Quoted in Paul Steinhauser, “Obama: my presidency would unleash a ‘transformation’,” CNN.com, 27 July, http://articles.cnn.com/2007-07-27/ politics/obama.black.votes_1_affi rmative-action-presidential-forum-obama?_ s=PM:POLITICS. 30 Jonathan Alter, for example, records that in the middle of 2009, Obama’s popularity in ten nations was higher than in the US: Kenya, 94 percent; Germany, 93 percent; France, 91 percent; Canada, 88 percent; Nigeria, 88 percent; Britain, 86 percent; Japan, 85 percent; South Korea, 81 percent; India, 77 percent; Brazil, 76 percent; US, 74 percent. See Jonathan Alter, The Promise (London: Simon NOTES 205 and Schuster, 2010), 224. Other selected surveys over 2009–11 are mentioned in subsequent chapters. 31 Hardball with Chris Matthews , MSNBC, December 10, 2009. Quoted in Windsor Mann (ed.), The Quotable Hitchens: from Alcohol to Zionism (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2011), 207. 32 According to Gallup polls, at http://www.gallup.com/poll/1726/Presidential- Ratings-Issue-Approval.aspx. 33 James Traub, “The Two Obamas,” at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ articles/2010/08/06/the_two_obamas?page=0,0. 34 Stephen Walt, “Obama is zero for four and Republicans are sitting pretty,” at http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/30/obama_is_zero_for_four_and_ republicans_are_sitting_pretty%20. 35 Quoted in James Kitfi eld, “The 13 th Crisis,” National Journal August 7, 2010, 10–18, at 15. 36 Cited in Con Coughlin, “Cameron has given up on Afghanistan,” The Spectator July 31, 2010, 12–13, at 13. 37 Quoted in Ryan Lizza, “The consequentialist,” New Yorker May 2, 2011, 55. 38 Giles Whittell, “America lost more than lives on that fateful day,” The Times September 10, 2011, 10–11. 39 Jeffrey Sachs, “The great failure of globalization,” Financial Times August 18, 2011, 11. 40 Stanley A. Renshon, Barack Obama and the Politics of Redemption (New York: Routledge, 2012); David Remnick, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (London: Picador, 2010); Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of Barack Obama (London: Virgin Books, 2009); David Mendell, Obama: From Promise to Power (New York: Amistad, 2007); Shelby Steele, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win (New York: The Free Press, 2007); John K. Wilson, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest (London: Paradigm Publishers, 2008); Jerome R. Corsi, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008); Martin Dupuis and Keith Boeckelman, Barack Obama: the New Face of American Politics (London: Praeger, 2008); Dinesh D’Souza, The Roots of Obama’s Rage (New York: Regnery, 2010). 41 Larry J. Sabato (ed.), The Year of Obama: How Barack Obama Won the White House (New York: Longman, 2010); Kevin J. McMahon, David M. Rankin, Donald W. Beacher and John Kenneth White, Winning The White House, 2008 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Daniel J. Balz and Haynes Bonner Johnson, The Battle For America, 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election (Viking Books, 2009); Carl Pedersen, Obama’s America (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009); John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won The White House (London: Viking, 2010); Ian Leslie, To Be President: Quest for the White House 2008 (London: Politico’s Press, 2009); Chuck Todd, Sheldon Gawiser, and Ana Maria Arumi, How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election (New York: Vintage Books, 2009); David Plouffe, The Audacity To Win: the Insider Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking Press, 2009).
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