The contours of an Obama foreign policy

Michael Walzer, the American political philosopher, breaks down the dimensions of the foreign policy of a prospective Obama administration at the "Dialogues on Civilisations" conference in Istanbul. There's nothing particularly new here - more multilateralism, more engagement with international institutions (like the International Criminal Court) and processes (a return to Kyoto), a change of focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, etc.

Some of Walzer's predictions are too hopeful. He expects more emphasis on workers' rights and environmental protection in trade negotiations, which, given the chip-off-the-old-block economic advisors surrounding Obama, is wishful indeed. Washington also has miles to go before its current martial stance on the "war on terror" is softened to the more old world "criminal justice" approach.

Changes in degree rather than in nature, perhaps, but welcome changes indeed after the Bush administration's plodding and blundering track record of international engagement. But is it enough? As Walzer perceptively concludes:

America has less power and a diminished authority today compared to the Clinton years. And the world is even more recalcitrant now than it was then. A different American foreign policy, that I have just described, may not make a big difference, and it won’t make a big difference unless it is accompanied/supported by different policies in other parts of the world.

As this blog has frequently pointed out, the supposed "epochal moment" of Obama's rise is shrouded by substantial shifts in global geopolitics, an "epochal moment" of sorts above and beyond the US. The true test of either an Obama or McCain foreign policy will lie in how Washington comes to grips with a political landscape in which the confidence and bluster of US campaign rhetoric sounds hollower than ever before.