Foreign policy challenges for Obama administration

President Obama has largely been endorsed by the international community as a welcome change to the unpopular Bush administration. However we will soon find out just how cooperative they are when they are called on to back up their support of the new President's policies.

One of the key components to Obama's stated plans for the war on terror is to increase the focus on Afghanistan and increase multi-lateral cooperation in the region by bringing in forces from other countries to assist in the operation. As Howard Lafranchi of the Christian Science Monitor noted, "As part of a renewed dialogue with America’s partners, Obama is expected to make specific demands of allies early on – for example, over the NATO commitment in Afghanistan. The nearly global euphoria over Obama’s election will face a quick test as the new president asks for more troops to bolster an expanded US effort in Afghanistan, some foreign-policy experts say." Wess Mitchell, director of the Washington based Center for European Policy Analysis, said that “...this new administration is going to pretty quickly run into an expectations-reality gap,” referring to the willingness of European states to contribute more forces to Afghanistan.

Europe in general is already displeased with the war, and countries like Germany already have public opposition to the support they are already lending to the operation in Afghanistan. The foreign ministry of Germany has already voiced concerns that Obama will ask for more troop contributions to Afghanistan, and expressed that it would not be persuaded to comply. Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesperson, said that "[t]he deployment of German soldiers will be decided by the German government and the German parliament, regardless of what requests a future US president may approach us with." And the problem is that the political environment of European countries have figuratively tied their hands in regards to more action in Afghanistan. Karsten Voigt, another German foreign policy expert asserted that "Our partners know that [increased troop deployments to Afghanistan] [are] politically impossible in Germany, especially during an election year."

What Americans must realize now is that while the expectations of the Obama presidency and what it will accomplish abroad are sky high, those expectations must be tempered with the realization that although Europe has embraced an Obama presidency, their level of cooperation may not change in regards to the war on terror. For this reason it may be unrealistic to expect a marked change in multillateralism over the course of the next four years.

Conversely, it may become evident soon that Obama will encounter much of the same opposition that President Bush has in enlisting the help of Europe. Given the re-direction of policy that the Bush administration has already taken, we may not see much change at all. And while it is expected that Obama will attempt to facilitate the needs and concerns of our allies more than the prior administration did, experts like Wess Mitchell expect “more continuity than divergence."

The challenge for Obama will be to overcome the uncooperative policies of Europe, something the Bush administration was unable to do, and bring a renewed sense of multilateralism to the war on terror.