Experts weigh in: What is the Obama Doctrine?

President Barack Obama returned home on Tuesday from a weeklong trip to Asia, having talked trade in Japan, pledged to defend South Korea, tended to an old friendship in the Philippines and drawn Malaysia closer.

Yet while there, the president’s attention was global. Russia continues to muscle its way through Ukraine, Syria’s regime continues to kill civilians, and Secretary of State John Kerry came away empty-handed from the latest peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Obama came to office brimming with optimism to turn U.S. foreign policy away from war. Five years later, what has become of the Obama Doctrine?

We asked two foreign policy experts for the Inside Story.

Do you think the president has a good argument to defend his foreign policy?

Nancy Soderberg: I do. First of all, this is a low point in U.S.-Russian relations. The lowest since the height of the Cold War. You cannot lay the blame for that on Obama’s feet. It is the result of very bad decisions by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama is doing what he can to raise the price for those decisions. They have not yet deterred Russian action, but I believe over time it will be seen to be President Putin’s mistake. It is frustrating. The toughest job President Obama has is to deal with is intractable problems in ways that do not please everybody. When you are sitting in the Oval Office, you have to make difficult choices. President [Bill]Clinton often said he did not like any choices. You have to look at it over time.

The pivot to Asia was in some ways interpreted as an abandonment of Europe, but you can walk and chew gum at the same time. It is a global world.

The toughest stain on his legacy is going to be the civil war in Syria. Our policy has failed on every level except for chemical weapons. Extremists have moved in, and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is more entrenched. It is moving away from U.S. interests. We need to assert U.S. interests. First and foremost, that is getting rid of jihadists and, second, easing the transition of Assad out of power.

The Obama legacy on foreign policy will include departures from Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has not gotten a lot of credit for reducing nuclear weapons globally. It is the least sexy issue he is working on but the most important.

Did we act too late on Syria, Ukraine and China?

It is a much more complicated issue. I have yet to hear anyone explain how they would like us to have gotten in Syria earlier. Who would we have armed? It is very easy to criticize the policy.

I think we need to reassess our policy in Syria. Our interests are being undermined. I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I know the current course is not serving American interests.

No, I do not think he has ever thought about withdrawing America’s role as a superpower. On the contrary, he has tried to use our superpower status to leverage our interests. On trade issues, he has done record things. For example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It may not pass this Congress, but it will eventually become law and be historic.

We can’t be the world’s policeman, but we can lead. If there is no leadership, you get Jello, mush, but when we lead, people tend to follow. That is what happened in Syria. It is a quagmire, really.

Has the U.S. pivot to Asia been real under Obama?

Isaac Stone Fish: I think so. This is kind of the question that has launched countless editorial opinions. We have troops stationed in Darwin, Australia. You have this new agreement with the Philippines. You have a lot more involvement in Southeast Asia and the opening up of Burma. You have stronger military cooperation with China. And you have Western allies like Japan nervous about that. You clearly have a lot more U.S. involvement in Asia. The dance is doing that despite the mess that is the Middle East. 

In Ukraine, though it does not have a treaty with the U.S., Russia is weaker than China and has succeeded in invading. So a lot of countries — Brunei, Malaysia and others — are wondering what the U.S. response would be to Chinese unilateral action, when China is much stronger.

Has China backed down in response to these moves?

No. The most marked aggression we have seen from China is in the Philippines’ [claims in the] South China Sea. There is a group of atolls that [the Chinese] have occupied. In Japan, we have seen fewer ships and planes in disputed areas. But you have a lot of heated rhetoric about seizing the Senkaku Islands. [Chinese President Xi Jinping’s] big question is, Can I do this without the U.S. responding?

One of the obstacles in U.S. dealings with Russia is its economic ties to Europe. Isn’t this true a millionfold of China?

Yes, but we are so far away from sanctioning China. If China did seize the Senkakus and Japan did not put up a fight and we decided to sanction them, it would hurt us as much as the Chinese.