Islamabad is unhappy with the United States. As the anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden approaches, Pakistani officials, and especially parliamentarians, are spewing even more venom against the United States than they usually do -- which is saying a lot.  Pakistan is full of grievances. It is furious that the United States is launching drone attacks against al Qaeda terrorists on its territory. Pakistan has not yet reopened the logistics support line to Afghanistan through its territory, which it closed in retaliation against the previous spate of American drone attacks. The future of that line now appears to be in real jeopardy.

Pakistan wants $3 billion from the Coalition Support Fund as compensation for its operations in support of the American effort against terrorists operating from the Tribal Areas. Washington is prepared to reimburse about a third of that amount, and is not yet ready to pay even that.

Finally, Islamabad is uneasy with the Afghan-American agreement that commits Washington to a decade of support for Afghanistan once American and coalition troops withdraw in 2014. No one really knows how much American assistance will really be available. Ten years is a very long time, and American interests could lie elsewhere. But Pakistanis, ever seeking to render Afghanistan firmly within their sphere of influence -- and to prevent it from becoming part of India's sphere -- are uneasy about the thought of close American ties to Kabul for the foreseeable future.

There are those in Washington who persist in calling Pakistan an American ally. It is no such thing. The American-Pakistani relationship is a forced marriage of inconvenience. American-Pakistani relations are a shadow of the cooperation that had reached its zenith when Pervez Mussharraf committed himself to the fight against al Qaeda. Early in the past decade, Pakistan redirected its forces from the Indian border, and undertook serious operations against al Qaeda. Pakistan lost many troops in the effort, and the United States, recognizing Islamabad's contribution, established the Coalition Support Fund, which, at least when I was in charge of payments, covered over 80 percent of all Pakistani claims.

But times have changed. Pakistan's military has become increasingly radicalized, even as the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal continues to grow apace. The country's president, Asif Ali Zardari, has struggled with the military virtually since the day he took office.  The Pakistani "street," whose history of hostility to the United States dates back at least to the 1979 burning of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, is even more violently anti-American today. The power and influence of the Imams, and of the students who graduate their madrasas, continues to grow unabated. And the possibility that the country will break apart, with Pashtu, Baluch, Sindhis, and Punjabis, each going their own way, is considered more real than ever before.

The United States cannot abandon Pakistan. To do so is to invite open Pakistani support for the likes of the Haqqanis, who probably are now America's most dangerous adversaries in Afghanistan. However bad the relationship with Pakistan's military might be, having no relationship would be even worse. After all, not all of Pakistan's generals are radical Muslims; many still retain a Western-oriented outlook.

Moreover, the only way to combat the influence of radical Islam in Pakistan is to fund schools that can compete with the madrasas, by offering both religious and secular studies, as well as the hot meals that impoverished students can obtain nowhere else. While reeling economically, only the United States, despite its own economic headaches, is still in a position to finance directly the creation and sustenance of such an educational system.

Finally, however uncomfortable the relationship with Pakistan may be today, a Pakistan that becomes even more radicalized, or worse still, breaks apart, will represent a true danger to American security. Washington is right to ignore Pakistani protests and once again to employ drones against those who seek to harm America. It is also right to withhold payments of Coalition Support Funding until the road to Afghanistan is once again re-opened. But America must do more, in other ways, particularly in developing a much more ambitious plan to support modern education in Pakistan's poorest areas -that would also encompass traditional Koranic  studies. Perhaps direct American assistance will not be feasible -- Islamabad may prohibit such aid. In that case, indirect means will have to be found -- perhaps via international organizations. If the United States truly hopes for a cooperative relationship with Pakistan, it must do all it can to shed the light of modern education on the darker corners of that country's psyche. Nothing less will do, and no action at all would constitute a tragedy, for Pakistan, for the entire region, and for the United States as well.     

In truth much as I searched, I have found that the Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics actually has no analogue in foreign policy. Regardless, it is a good way to describe Obama's foreign policy doctrine. Call it the Uncertainty Doctrine.

Businesspeople and economists make a good case that the uncertainty of Obama's domestic policies has slowed the economic recovery. The private sector does not know when and for what they will next be taxed or regulated, what the new health care law visited upon them means for the economy. The anxiety causes a freeze in economic growth.

So too with Obama's uncertainty foreign policy doctrine. Allies and adversaries have no idea what we will do next and are acting accordingly.

Obama announced a troop surge in Afghanistan and then immediately a pull out date. Should our allies stick with us as we take out just enough bad guys to make the Taliban more vengeful when they return? Or instead should Kabul just make deals with the Taliban? An Iranian nuclear weapon is unacceptable but so is Israel removing one from the hands of Iran. Assad must go, but we will not do anything to make that happen. On the other hand maybe its best if he just stayed -- easier to work with than the alternative.

China was a partner in global action problems -- perhaps even a G2 was in the offing! Together we would work on climate change, nonproliferation, who knows what else? Now the United States needs to pivot to Asia to keep China in check.

Here is another part of the uncertainty doctrine that must leave Europeans and Middle Easterners scratching their heads: The United States is pivoting to Asia (under fiscal constraint) but not abandoning its allies in Europe or the Middle East.

The pivot, we tell the Chinese, is not about them. But then Manila and Tokyo ask: "What do you mean the pivot isn't about China. The Chinese are unwelcome visitors into our waters at least once a week!"

Oh, and we have new battle plan called "Air Sea Battle" that again is not about China. However, it is meant to operate in "anti-access" environments -- those in which enemies have many missiles, submarines, and cyber warfare capabilities. Sounds like China. We will be able to operate again in those environments once the plan is executed, but we will not execute it because we are cutting the defense budget, so China should worry a bit but not too much. Our allies should have just a little dose of reassurance to go along with their fears.

India is a strategic partner whom we would like to join us in checking (or not checking?) China but we are going to leave Afghanistan for India to fight over with its archrival Pakistan.

I think the point is made. Just as uncertainty in economic policy can make an economy sputter, so too has Obama's uncertainty doctrine made the world a more dangerous place. With no one else to do the chores, the United States must lead with certainty. The rest of the world may complain about our arrogance, but that is better than complaining about utter chaos.

A great hero for our time, Andrei Sannikov, was freed on Saturday afternoon.

For readers of Shadow Government who don't follow Belarus, this is very important. Belarus is the last dictatorship in Europe, run by Alexander Lukashenko. Strategically located among Russia, Poland, and Ukraine -- Belarus has its own history but has been basically a Russian satellite since Lukashenko was elected in 1994. The only European country to be thrown out of the OSCE, Belarus has become more repressive with time. The December 2010 elections were considered farcical by all accounts. Andrei Sannikov, a former Deputy Foreign Minister and diplomat, was the most prominent opponent to challenge Lukashenko in those elections.

Lukashenko runs the country as a puppet state based on the worst instincts and whims of Vladimir Putin. One problem has been that Belarus is politically oppressed but has enjoyed relatively benign economic times, which many speculate is due to subsidized Russian energy that Russia provides Belarus and that runs to Western Europe through Belarus. Lukashenko enjoys some political support but that has dropped over time and he remains in power illegitimately using harsher and harsher tactics.

After the rigged elections, Sannikov was imprisoned on trumped-up charges and Amnesty International listed him as a prisoner of conscience. He was beaten while in custody and his life was in very serious danger as his health deteriorated. His four-year-old son was threatened with being removed from the custody of his family and put into a foster home. A key aid of Sannikov's died under very suspicious circumstances. In short, the regime has put incredible pressure on Sannikov and his family. He has kept faith and risked his life for a free Belarus.

The United States and Europe have maintained sanctions on Belarus for several years. Europe has been divided on Belarus and the U.S. especially under George W. Bush was particularly vocal against the bad actions of the Belarus government. The Obama administration has maintained sanctions, but is perceived to be less animated about seeing the end of the Lukashenko regime. The German Marshall Fund with offices in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere maintained Belarus on the agenda in ways that others could not, as sanctions require a transatlantic approach in order to work.

It is possible that Lukashenko is using the Sannikov release as an opening gambit to try to have the sanctions lifted. A free Belarus would likely want a foreign and economic policy similar to Kazakhstan -- with the ability to engage and balance among Europe, the U.S., and Russia on a free basis -- not operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia. The best medium-term outcome would be for Lukashenko to not seek another term in 2014, seek a cold exile in Moscow, and allow for democratic elections in Belarus. A free Belarus would be a big win for the United State and Europe. In the meantime, this weekend is a moment of relief and joy.

Making foreign policy in a democracy is not easy. On top of the customary challenges of devising and implementing strategy in a complex international system, there are the additional factors of public opinion and the electoral cycle. These burdens vexed George Kennan so much that he came to disdain American democracy and despair of his country even being able to conduct an effective grand strategy. Similar frustrations sometimes beset contemporary commentators such as Tom Friedman, who express envy for China's autocracy and its apparent ease of decision-making.

But as Kennan failed to appreciate, democracy as a system also brings advantages to the making of foreign policy. These include the legitimacy of public opinion, the collective wisdom that can emanate from the body politic, the moral authority of democratic consent, the collective resources offered by participatory government, and the occasional brake on folly that public accountability can impose.

It is in this context that President Obama's recent open-mic embarrassment might be considered. When President Obama's own "oops" moment happened during his meeting with Russian President Medvedev in Seoul, the White House no doubt hoped that it would be nothing more than a one-day news story. Now that a couple of weeks have passed since Obama notoriously told the Russian leadership that he would have more "flexibility" once he was less accountable to the American electorate, the issue doesn't seem to be going away. Past hot-mic slips have been evanescent stories at best, but this one is likely to enter the annals of Obama administration foreign policy infelicities in the same file as "leading from behind," returning the Churchill bust to the UK, and showing the Dalai Lama the back door. The question is why?

In part this is because the White House itself is signaling its intention to make foreign policy a central part of its re-election campaign, which thus brings greater scrutiny on President Obama's foreign policy intentions during a second term. As a campaign tactic this focus is unsurprising, given the Obama administration's weak domestic and economic policy record. (The White House seems to realize this as well, hence the Obama re-election campaign's sheepishness about featuring past priority initiatives such as Obamacare or the failed stimulus package). But there are several other reasons why the "flexibility" remark won't soon be forgotten:

• It recalls one of Obama's first strategic mistakes. His 2009 decision to back away from commitments to American allies Poland and the Czech Republic while capitulating to Russian demands on ballistic missile defense secured very little in return from Moscow, especially in Russian willingness to pressure Iran on its nuclear program.

• It highlights another past miscalculation. In asking Medvedev to pass the "flexibility" message on to President-"elect" Putin, Obama inadvertently highlighted the administration's early failed efforts to boost Medvedev as the Russian leader while downplaying Putin's ongoing repression and consolidation of power.

• It raises more questions. What other types of comments or commitments has President Obama made to foreign leaders that hot microphones didn't pick up? One hopes that the "flexibility" plea is an aberration, and that this president does not see the American people as an obstacle to his foreign policy goals. The Republican presidential nominee will likely be asking this question often for the next several months. [Unsurprising disclosure: I am a supporter of Gov. Romney's presidential campaign].

• It compares unfavorably with Obama's predecessor. For all of the criticism directed at President George W. Bush during his time in office, foreign leaders and the American people always knew where he stood and did not worry that his public talk conflicted with his private messages. This contrast only further complicates the Obama administration's efforts to blame Bush for their challenges while simultaneously benefiting from his policies. Notwithstanding the cheap shots at Bush by some recent Obama administration officials, the White House continues to follow many Bush national security policies. The White House's continuation of the Bush administration counterterrorism framework and Asia-Pacific strategic alignments has been detailed at length elsewhere. Now the current benefits of bolstered intelligence collection on Iran that Bush launched can be added to the ledger.

• It reinforces an impression of disregard for many of the American people. Perhaps most irksome about the "flexibility" comment was its implication that President Obama sees the American public as a hindrance. But this is not the first time that he has been caught by a hot microphone disparaging his fellow citizens. Recall, for example, his 2008 comments that some Americans "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion."

• It exacerbates concern among American allies and partners about the Obama administration's reliability. Ironically, for all of this White House's campaign rhetoric about improving America's image and "repairing" relations with our allies, the reality is that under Obama our relations with most of our allies and partners on virtually every continent have actually worsened -- yes, worsened -- since the end of the Bush administration. The recent summit with Canada and Mexico barely covered over Canada's acute frustration with Obama for canceling the northern half of Keystone XL and apparently blocking their Trans-Pacific Partnership participation, or Mexico's anger over the thousands of guns flooding their country from the botched "Fast and Furious" operation. In Europe, the neglect felt by Britain and France is now compounded by their worries that the administration will look for an election-year off-ramp from stopping Iran's nuclear program, not to mention doubts about the White House's commitment to ending Assad's rule in Syria. Japan and Australia find the administration's abrupt changes of course in their region disconcerting, and Taiwan questions the White House's commitment to its security. India wonders whether the administration will leave its region even more unstable by focusing on leaving rather than winning in Afghanistan, and also wonders whether President Obama genuinely sees it as a strategic partner. Iraq and Afghanistan represent two cases where the Obama administration has presided over the deterioration in the complex yet functional bilateral relationships it inherited in January 2009. Obama's fraught relationship with Israel speaks for itself. And of course, Central and Eastern Europeans worry that Obama's appeal to the Russians for "flexibility" will come at the expense of America's commitment to their security.

In my last post, I sketched out the strategic case for significantly deepening U.S.-Kurdish ties. While such a paradigm shift may take some time, a good start can be made simply by clearing out the underbrush of counter-productive policies that needlessly hinder our relations with the Kurds. During this week's visit to Washington by President Masoud Barzani, head of Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, the Obama administration would be well-served by focusing on several practical deliverables:

Stop Treating the Kurds as Terrorists. Incredibly, under existing immigration law, members of Iraq's two main Kurdish parties -- Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) -- are classified as terrorists when seeking visas to enter the United States. As modified after 9/11, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) uses a definition of terrorism so broad that virtually any resistance group that in the past engaged in armed conflict against its government is considered a so-called "Tier III" terrorist organization. Membership in such a group is automatic grounds for denial of admission to the U.S., treatment that extends to the member's family as well.

That's right: The KDP and PUK for years worked hand-in-glove with the United States to bring down the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. After 2003, they served as America's most faithful allies in efforts to stabilize Iraq. And for all their trouble fighting alongside U.S. forces they got . . . well, they got labeled as terrorists, of course. As Mr. Bumble famously says in Oliver Twist, "If the law supposes that . . . [then] the law is an ass -- an idiot."

In 2009, Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano exercised their discretionary authority to exempt members of the KDP and PUK from the INA's terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds on a case-by-case basis -- provided they were able to satisfy officials at State and DHS that they met six criteria meant to show they were not in fact terrorists and posed no danger to U.S. security. Needless to say, the process of qualifying for the exemption is frequently long, cumbersome and -- let's be frank -- humiliating for people who threw their lot in completely with America, and often risked life and limb to help it succeed. And even with the exemption possibility, the slanderous classification of the KDP and PUK as terrorist organizations remains, an undeserving and gratuitous insult to a proud people that have gone out of their way to align themselves openly with Washington -- an all-too-rare occurrence in a Middle East where anti-Americanism is, sad to say, always in fashion.

Small consolation for the Kurds, perhaps, that the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela were also once ensnared by the INA's overly-broad sweep. Thankfully, Congress acted in 2008 to pass a law that explicitly removed the ANC from treatment as a terrorist organization under the INA. Similar legislative relief has been provided to other groups who fought repressive regimes. Now, no less should be done for the Kurds. As has so often been the case when it comes to doing the right thing in matters of national security, Senator Joseph Lieberman is leading the way, crafting a possible fix to the Kurds' outrageous dilemma. The Obama administration is signaling that it will support Lieberman's effort and it should do so, wholeheartedly. A statement to that effect by President Obama when he meets Barzani would go a long way. Even better if the president in the meantime issued a directive to State and DHS instructing them to cease considering the KDP and PUK as terrorist organizations for purposes of issuing visas.

Allow Visas to be Issued From Erbil. A related problem is that the U.S. Consulate in Kurdistan is not yet issuing visas. Instead, Kurds wishing to visit the United States must either take their chances by going to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad (by all accounts, a nightmarish experience due to security precautions), or travel abroad to an American post in the Gulf or Turkey. On top of the hurdles already posed by the INA's restrictions, the additional time, expense, and hassle this process adds can quickly become prohibitive. The Obama administration should act soon to correct the situation, and fast-track a presidential decision to issue visas from Erbil.

Read on

Yesterday, Josh Rogin highlighted testimony given by Peter Lavoy, acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs before the House Armed Services Committee about U.S. plans to not move forward with the 240,000 tons of North Korean food aid it had promised during recent meetings in Beijing. This decision was made as a result of North Korea's plans to launch a satellite into space, violating the moratorium they recently agreed to.

I have said previously that linking a U.S. humanitarian assistance program to the resumption of six party talks is a bad precedent. This type of action will lead many to believe that this would be a U.S. attempt to bribe the North Koreans to the table by taking advantage of a dire humanitarian situation.

Reports by U.S. non-governmental organizations working in North Korea are again saying that North Korean people are suffering from a severe shortfall in food supplies. This is not a new scenario for North Korea. The regime has continually struggled to feed its people since the famine of the mid 1990s, when over one million people lost their lives.

What is more shocking is the effect the many years of living on less than 1,700 calories a day have had on the general population. I saw this first-hand in a Pyongyang park in 2008 where some elderly people were quietly harvesting grass so they could supplement a meal. Today, a North Korean child can expect to be up to 7 inches shorter than his/her South Korean counterpart and 20 pounds lighter by adulthood.

Those in the NGO community with access to remote areas of the country have confirmed many in North Korea suffer from malnutrition and infection. In many cases, people outside of the capital are on the brink of fatal starvation.

Recently, five U.S. non-governmental aid agencies urged the U.S. government not to delay the provision of food aid, stating that "delay or potential cancellation of this program would violate humanitarian principles which hold that lifesaving assistance should not be used to achieve political aims." I couldn't agree more.

These five organizations have been working in North Korea for years, have first hand knowledge of the situation in-country, and have proved their ability to work alongside the World Food Programme to assure food assistance reached those most in need.

Where is Special Envoy Robert King in this scenario?

Why has the administration allowed the Department of Defense to announce food assistance has been halted?

It was Special Envoy King and a senior representative from USAID who were responsible for negotiating the resumption of food assistance during the March meetings.

It begs the question -- who is in charge of U.S. humanitarian policy in North Korea and what is the Obama administration's overall strategy?

Until a coherent strategy is articulated, questions will continue to be asked about the philosophical and practical origins of this administration's approach to humanitarian assistance and the need for North Korea to halt its nuclear agenda. These are, and should remain, separate issues.

The Obama administration confronts a particularly daunting set of challenges in what might be called the "greater Persian Gulf" or "north Middle East region": Iran, Iraq, and Syria.  There is a special urgency to the Iranian nuclear challenge, the unraveling of Iraqi security and therefore Iraqi politics, and the growing civil war in Syria.  These problems irresistibly draw the administration's strategic attention back to a region the president quite clearly would prefer to pivot away from.

Each of the challenges has its own complicated history, but in policy terms there is a common challenge for the United States: how to maximize our leverage so as to influence the development of the situation in a direction more conducive to U.S. interests.  Even with maximum leverage, we are not in a position to dictate events exactly to our liking -- perhaps our capacity to influence is limited even under optimal conditions. Yet, it is also likely that with more leverage we have a better chance of shaping events, whereas with less leverage we are more likely to be hostage to the agendas of others.

So the question suggests itself: What might increase our strategic leverage in the region beyond its current level? I can think of one: If the United States had a sizable residual force in the region for the purposes of strategic overwatch, it seems to me our leverage over each of these challenges would be greater.

With a residual strategic overwatch force, we could:

• Have more coercive military options vis-a-vis Iran without the need to trumpet them.  The complicated diplomatic signaling that the Obama administration has been struggling to send to Iran -- "we are serious, but not that serious, and we are determined, but not so determined as to act right now and we sure hope Israel isn't so determined as to act without us, but if they do, know that we tried to persuade them not to..." -- involves a lot of bluster and double talk. President Obama likes to invoke Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick." Wouldn't a residual strategic overwatch force in Iraq have given him a bigger stick, allowing him to speak a bit more softly?
• Have what the Cold War experience demonstrated was the predicate for successful containment and extended deterrence: forces in theater. There is a lot of loose talk about  containing and deterring Iran, and some of the loosest treats those as relatively easy assignments, given how the United States was able to contain and deter the Soviet Union. Very rarely do containment enthusiasts address the awkward fact that the Cold War success involved the costly deployment of a substantial tripwire.
• Have greater reassurance for our Iraqi partners who are still struggling to forge an enduring political order.
• Have a richer menu of more options, and at a lower cost, for confronting Syria. At a minimum, to the extent that coercive diplomacy might influence Assad's actions, having the ground forces there would bolster those efforts. At a maximum, the more daunting scenarios of securing Syria's WMD would seem a tad less daunting if the U.S. had substantial forces in theater.

Such a residual strategic overwatch force was always part of the plan, as Tom Ricks recently reminded us. No, the plan was not for "permanent bases" -- a partisan bogeyman well-tailored to clouding strategic thinking -- but rather to a longer term presence dictated by conditions on the ground rather than by the American electoral calendar. The Obama administration, to their credit, tried to implement that plan but ultimately failed and then tried to spin their failure as a great success.

That spin makes me curious: wouldn't conditions on the ground seem to dictate the desirability of such a strategic overwatch force? Of course, there are also downsides that would weigh in the balance: the financial costs of the deployment; the vulnerability to a Khobar-style terror attack; the possibility that the deployment would fuel local resentments; etc. Moreover, as Obama spinners are quick to point out, much of the blame for the failure to achieve a stay-behind agreement belongs on the Iraqi shoulders. Perhaps the downsides outweigh the upsides, but if so, it is a far closer call than the administration would like to admit.

Voters are going to hear a lot about how President Obama kept his promise to "end" the Iraq war and bring all of the troops home. Then he may go on to describe how he is addressing other key challenges in the region. What he likely won't say is that the way he ended the Iraq war has weakened his hand for all of these other problems. 

Vice President Joe Biden was in Central America this week attempting to staunch the hemorrhaging of regional support for the U.S.-led War on Drugs.

His trip follows one last week by Secretary for Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who similarly decamped to the region to buoy a faltering U.S. flag as drug cartel-fueled violence continues wreaking havoc on Central American societies.

What's caused this flurry of high-level administration attention to the region is a number of recent public statements by sitting Latin American presidents openly questioning the effectiveness of current counter-narcotics policies and calling for multilateral discussions on legalizing or decriminalizing the use of illicit drugs.

Those speaking include the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, but they also have received the sympathetic ears of President Santos of Colombia and President Calderón in Mexico. Their unprecedented statements can be seen as a measure of their collective frustrations at the ravaging of their countries by drug gangs just to feed the drug habits of recreational users in the United States.

But they also are indicative of the failure of the Obama administration to provide strong leadership and support as the drug cartels have reacted to strong government policies against them in Colombia and Mexico by relocating their operations to much more vulnerable countries in Central America.

Doubts about the administration's commitment to the drug fight were also fueled by the president's 2013 budget request, which includes a 16 percent reduction in counter-narcotics assistance to Latin America -- including a 60 percent drop in aid to Guatemala. That is hardly the way to win friends and influence people who are risking their lives against brutal and uncompromising enemies wealthier and better armed than they are.

It may be that these leaders don't really have any intention of decriminalizing or legalizing the use of drugs at home (profoundly risky, to say the least) and instead are desperately trying to get Washington's attention to the crises, but that is hardly comforting. Four decades of cooperation between Latin American governments and the United States on enforcement and eradication of illicit narcotics shouldn't come to this; instead of pushing forward to confront new challenges, we're are left trying to recoup lost ground.

To be sure, combating drug cartels is not a pretty business. One does not have to be a member of a peace brigade to be concerned about the impact of drug violence on Latin American communities, but excessive sentimentalism is rarely a sound basis for public policy. Especially when trying to confront drug gangs that have killed tens of thousands, fueled corruption by buying off public officials and undermining democratic institutions, and terrorized local populations.

Nor is lethal assistance the sole answer. These countries need across the board assistance to build up their judicial and penal systems and more economic opportunities for their people to depress the lure of the drug trade. But nothing is possible without re-establishing peace and security and that means employing superior force against those who prefer it the other way.

Unless the administration's approach to the increasing drug violence in Central America becomes more of a priority, they will continue to be confronted by counterproductive distractions like the current statements out of the region. For example, next month President Obama will travel to Colombia for the sixth Summit of the Americas. There are many issues to discuss with responsible governments looking to better the lives of their peoples. Drug legalization should not be one of them.

Even though Vice President Biden said all the right things during his trip this week -- "...there is no possibility that the Obama-Biden administration will change its policy on legalization" -- the problem is he had to say it at all.

Charlie Kupchan is both a first-rate scholar and a generally insightful commentator on foreign policy. This makes his FP article yesterday ("Sorry Mitt, It Won't Be an American Century") all the more puzzling and, frankly, disappointing. Navigating the article's internal contradictions can be a head-snapping experience. Kupchan begins with a snide dismissal of Mitt Romney's calls for renewed American global leadership as "hackneyed rhetoric," since in Kupchan's telling the U.S. is an exhausted, overstretched nation that needs to curtail its commitments abroad and "focus on the home front." Having described a diminished America, Kupchan then pivots and applauds President Obama's chest-thumping defiance that those who think America is in decline "don't know what they're talking about." But to back up his praise for Obama, Kupchan describes a world in which America's economy will soon be eclipsed by China, American capacity to project power is diminishing, America is overextended in the Middle East and Europe, and the American ability to influence global events is being overtaken by other rising powers. If that doesn't amount to American decline, I would hate to see what does.

What is going on here?  I wrote last week about the confusions that seem to beset the "American decline" debate and the Obama administration's opportunistic political tactics of rhetorically rejecting American decline while implementing policies that assume (and advance) said decline. It is true that the global distribution of power is shifting towards the likes of China, India, Brazil, and other emerging powers. But -- and here is the key point -- these power shifts are not (yet) coming at the expense of the United States but rather primarily come at the expense of the European Union and Japan. For example, American share of global GDP for the last four decades has stayed relatively constant at 25-28 percent of global GDP, whereas the core EU and Japan's shares of global GDP have both declined by over 25 percent from their peaks. Defense budgets tell a similar story. The American share of global military spending has stayed roughly constant over the past decade, while the defense budgets of the United Kingdom, France, and Japan have declined substantially relative to China. So yes, the U.S. needs to adjust to shifts in the global balance of power -- but Mitt Romney is correct that these shifts do not need to come at the expense of American primacy.

This might well be the crux of the difference between the Obama administration and its Republican critics on the decline debate. Both sides agree that global power dynamics are shifting. But President Obama, at least in Kupchan's analysis, sees the shifts as cause to dial back American leadership, whereas Romney and many other Republicans see the shifts as an opportunity for renewed American leadership in helping shape the emerging order.

Yet as Bob Kagan and others have pointed out, while the U.S. is not yet in decline, there is a worrisome possibility that some of the Obama administration's policies are putting the U.S. on a path to decline. Kupchan actually applauds a series of Obama policies -- such as slashing future defense budgets, pulling back from Iraq and Afghanistan with outcomes still uncertain, and conceding that authoritarian capitalism is the model of the future -- that in fact risk diminishing America's standing in the world and cede global leadership to other emerging powers. To that list should be added Obama's exorbitant expansion of the national debt to the tipping point of parity with our national GDP, and a persistent unwillingness to reform the real drivers of our indebtedness: domestic welfare-state entitlement programs. (As just about everyone who follows this issue has pointed out, Obama's blithe disregard for his own Simpson-Bowles debt commission shows just how little entitlement reform seems to matter to this White House). This makes the Obama campaign's talking point, echoed by Kupchan, that it will focus on "nation-building here at home" sound like, well, hackneyed rhetoric.

In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama jumped from issue to issue. At times, in all this leaping, he found himself on the opposite side of a stance he had taken minutes before.

Early on, he claimed success on his bailout of the auto industry (continuing a policy launched by Pres. Bush) and claimed it was a model that could be replicated:

"On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen...We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back. What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh."

Then, minutes later:

"It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."

One of the most striking themes of a generally hodgepodge speech was strong skepticism about trade. The president fully embraced the "lump of labor" fallacy, in which one imagines a fixed number of jobs in the world that are simply slung back and forth across oceans.

"Let's remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores…we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed."

The strong implication is that the rest of the world has been booming, enjoying all those factory jobs they swiped from us. It's difficult to find that in the data. But the president promised to chase down foreign wrongdoers with a new Trade Enforcement Unit.

He claimed previous efforts at trade enforcement, such as his tariffs on Chinese tire imports, had saved American jobs (1,000, in that case). This is interesting on several counts. First, he made the claim in the context of saying that "I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules." Yet the Chinese tire tariffs case never even alleged wrongdoing on the part of the Chinese. They were just selling at low prices.

Second, other observers have generally found no evidence those tariffs did anything to help American workers. The U.S. China Business Council, in a study, concluded:

"U.S. imports of the low-end tires involved in the case have actually increased substantially since the tariffs were imposed -- but have shifted from China to other countries. And, there is no objective evidence that the tariff boosted U.S. tire manufacturing jobs."

A Wall Street Journal report last week reached a similar conclusion. In order to be fair, the Journal offered the administration the chance to rebut, but reported: "Spokespeople at the ITC, the Commerce Department, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative say they have no comprehensive analysis yet of the broad effect that the tariff has had." That was last week. So how did the President determine that 1,000 jobs were saved?

The third point on this illuminating case is that -- even if his numbers were right -- the president thinks it would be a successful policy to charge tens of millions of Americans more for their tires if it protected 1,000 jobs. That's a fairly stark statement in favor of protectionism.

So much for what the president did say. What about the things he did not say? He made no mention of his vaunted Trans-Pacific Partnership. Recall that two months ago, in Hawaii, this was a pillar of his administration's turn back to Asia. It is a highly ambitious undertaking and would require a huge administration effort, in close collaboration with Congress, if it were to conclude this year. The State of the Union is traditionally where an administration sets out its priorities for the year ahead. Yet not a mention.

Nor did the president say anything about the economic crisis in Europe. One hears that the White House considers it the biggest threat looming over a nascent U.S. recovery. If the president were truly trying to describe the State of the Union, Europe's predicament would seem to deserve some serious mention.

But it would fit awkwardly in a campaign speech and was thus, presumably, omitted. The topic, after all, seems to highlight the potential dangers of excessive borrowing, as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels demonstrated in his response:

"In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership."

That's certainly not an image the president wanted to invoke, as he moved on to a grab bag of new spending proposals and as his administration delays the release of his budget.

Thus, the state of our union: we're in campaign mode.

Fareed Zakaria's interview with President Obama on Obama's foreign policy is a missed opportunity. Zakaria enjoyed exceptional access to President Obama, but chose to present the gauzy survey that the White House communications office might have served up (perhaps those two facts are linked?). Zakaria is certainly smart and knowledgeable enough to probe more deeply, but he didn't, or if he did, he didn't include it in the interview, and those deeper insights didn't make it into his own summary analysis of the interview either.

That is a pity, because I think Zakaria is a better critic of American foreign policy than he showed this time.  Here are just a few questions that a more trenchant interview might have pressed the president on:

• You campaigned on the claim that climate change was a national security threat of the highest rank, as important a national security interest as dealing with the threats posed by terrorists and WMD proliferation.  Yet, you have not governed that way. Yes, Congress opposed your cap-and-trade program, but they also didn't want Obamacare yet you rammed that through. Why couldn't you accomplish your grand strategy shift on climate change?
• You campaigned on an unrelenting critique of your predecessor's policies, yet you have kept so many of them in place. Moreover, where you have enjoyed the greatest success, say the killing of Bin Laden, it is through following techniques, tactics, and procedures developed by your predecessor. And where you have enjoyed the least success, say in Israel-Palestine, it has come after making abrupt changes. Do you think it is time now to refine your critique?
• Governor Romney has offered a fairly nuanced critique of your Iran policy, particularly focusing on missed opportunities during the post-election turmoil in June 2009 and then again with the September 2009 revelations of the secret uranium enrichment program.  Looking back on that year, do you agree with Romney that you missed some opportunities?
• Increasingly, our allies are expressing great discomfort with your heavy reliance on drone strikes. If you get a second term, do you think you will be obliged to scale back that program or brace yourself for significantly greater friction with our allies?
• What happened to your idea of a G-2, a condominium of global cooperative problem solving between the United States and China?
• You say you pride yourself on good personal relations with other leaders and that this has contributed to success in foreign policy. How extensive was your outreach to Prime Minister Maliki and how effective was that in negotiating the follow-on agreement that your administration was seeking?

You have launched the transpacific trade accord initiative, but you have done so after three years of letting ready-to-go trade agreements languish and after opposing the renewed grant of  fast track authority that all of your predecessors deemed essential for a credible trade promotion strategy. Why should our Asian partners view your proposal as a credible without it?

One could easily generate dozens more, and Zakaria could doubtless come up with a few that I haven't considered. The one time that he actually did press the president (albeit gently) on Simpson-Bowles, he elicited a bit more candor (and defensiveness) from his interview subject.

Perhaps it was the Oval Office effect. I know how the setting can intimidate even someone as self-assured and cosmopolitan as Zakaria. Perhaps, given my own turn at the mound, I would pitch softballs, too. But I would like to think that a seasoned pro would deliver a few fastballs, and maybe even a brush back pitch or two.

The president and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced today the administration's approach to cutting defense spending back to a $583 billion topline, the requirement for next year's budget. The guidance issued today does not set the parameters for all the cuts necessitated by last summer's budget agreement -- a whopping $500 billion across a decade will yet need to be found, and DOD has been loudly saying that cannot be done within this strategy. The Pentagon's approach is sensible, but the real problem is the president avoiding a serious discussion about risk -- and that is dangerous when cuts of this magnitude are underway.

There's not really much news in the strategic guidance released to such fanfare today. The administration hype is that this is a new strategy. That is not true. The "two war strategy" under discussion is not a strategy at all, but a planning construct for sizing the force.  Previously, the U.S. has maintained active duty forces ostensibly adequate to fight two wars nearly simultaneously in different regions. But the planning translates only loosely to actual war (because of allied military and political limitations, the Kosovo air campaign required all the assets of one war, even though it was a limited mission). The president -- any president -- is not going to refuse our treaty commitments to the defense of Korea if it is attacked, or precipitously end operations in Afghanistan if that should happen. By cutting the force, you are not saying we will only fight one war, you are saying we will take greater risk and time to fight the wars we need. If the President is really saying we will not fight two wars simultaneously, it would beg challenges between now and 2014, when he's committed to ending the one war we are fighting.

Panetta's plan looks to (the details of programmatic cuts are not yet public) take the bulk of cuts in the size of the force, which is not a bad choice, given the administration has chosen to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manpower is the quickest return of cash, and our military has demonstrated in the past decade that it can recruit, train, and equip quality soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to surge our ranks when the demands of two wars require more forces. Whether Panetta's approach remains viable as the sequestration cuts go into effect next year is an open question; even accepting we're unlikely to choose to fight our wars by counterinsurgency means anytime soon, I'm skeptical enough can be cut from manpower to bring the budget into alignment. 

There is also a crucial guns versus butter issue Panetta fails to take up, at least so far. As Arnold Punaro from the Defense Business Board puts it, unless major changes are made to DOD medical and retirement programs, "If we allow the current trend to continue, we're going to turn the Department of Defense into a benefits company that occasionally kills a terrorist." The same growth of medical and retirement programs that is the principal driver of our federal debt is also crowding out other spending within the DOD budget. I expect that is where Panetta will focus the second tranche of cuts.

The Panetta approach reverses his predecessor's relentless attention to near term demands of the wars we are fighting and accepting greater risk in the out years. Gates' strategy heavily weighted the need for manning and equipping the current force for winning two simultaneous wars by counter-insurgency, the most personnel-intensive and long-term approach. Gates' strategy was also, it must be acknowledged, the most likely to produce results conducive to America's security and a stable, prosperous international order. Other means (stand-off strikes, greater reliance on allies, adopting a marginal contribution formula, decapitation attacks, etc) are cheaper but bring greater risk of failure to achieve stable political objectives and a wide range of collateral problems. Gates' strategy is a costly way to win the nation's wars, but it is also the best of our current options.

Read on

In his 2009 Inaugural Address, President Obama laid down a marker to those who would threaten the United States:

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.  And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken -- you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

In 2011, he fulfilled this promise by ordering a daring raid on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, resulting in the death of the architect of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  Given that the greatest responsibility of any commander in chief is keeping the American people safe, this action, combined with the president's continuance and expansion of many of the counterterrorism policies initiated by the Bush administration, were the president's greatest accomplishments in 2011.

However, lurking beneath these successes are the President's greatest failures of 2011. 

The president's counterterrorism accomplishments over the last three years have been supported by his policies toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  His willingness in 2009 to extend his campaign timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and his initial stewardship of the gains achieved by President Bush's 2007 surge of forces created the opportunity for a significant victory in the war on terror.  As the events of the last two weeks indicate, that outcome, unfortunately, is no longer certain given the administration's inability or unwillingness to negotiate a U.S. military presence in that country after the end of this year.

Similarly, in Afghanistan, the president initially appeared intent on achieving a military victory against the extremists that threaten Afghanistan's stability.  His 2009 surge of forces has produced significant gains, especially in the south.  But the president now seems more focused on winning reelection than winning the war.  The surge forces will be out of the country by October of next year and the press is rife with reports of secret reconciliation talks with the Taliban that could undermine the Afghan government and reverse the gains made by the Afghan people since the brutal days of Taliban rule.

Compounding these two failures in 2011 was the president's inability to leverage the momentous developments of the Arab Spring.  As people seeking their freedom took to the streets in country after country, President Obama stood by, letting others, many of whom do not share America's interests, take the lead.  Fundamental change in the sclerotic Arab world has the potential to reverse the trends that led to the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the extremism that continues to threaten our way of life.  Unfortunately, the leader of the free world refused to lead.

Great leaders shape the strategic landscape rather than allow themselves and their countries to be buffeted around by world events.  President Obama deserves credit in 2011 for policies that led to the deaths of many who plotted to kill Americans, but because of his unwillingness to consolidate gains in Iraq and Afghanistan and embrace the revolutions of the Arab Spring, 2011 will likely be remembered as a year of missed opportunities rather than strategic successes.

In assessing the most important things that the Obama Administration got right and got wrong in 2011, there are an abundance of choices in both categories.  National security-wise, the Administration had a very mixed year -- genuinely so, in terms of a number of notable successes as well as a number of significant failures.  The former include an improved strategic posture in Asia, the discovery of a freedom agenda for the Middle East and Asia, helping engineer Qaddaffi's ouster in Libya, and of course killing Osama bin Laden, Anwar Al-Awlaki, and other Al Qaeda High-Value Targets.  The latter category includes being repeatedly behind the curve on the Arab Spring, waffling on Iran's nuclear program, botching the drawdown and military exit from Iraq, losing Pakistan, further alienating Israel, and getting left holding an empty bag on the Russia "re-set."  While any of the above would be legitimate choices, my main criteria for selecting the best and worst is how each will look in the light of history.  In other words, 25 or 50 years from now, what might historians look back on and evaluate as the best and worst of the Obama Administration's policies in 2011?  I honestly don't know, and anyone who insists we can know history's judgments in advance is committing historical malpractice.  But that doesn't mean we can't at least speculate -- and admit it is mere speculation -- on what might have the most enduring consequences.  Here are mine.

The Obama Administration's Most Significant Success: Creating a new strategic posture in Asia.  If the Obama Administration's initial Asia policy consisted of naively pursuing an illusory "G-2" with China while neglecting our regional allies and universal values such as human liberty, than 2011 marked a substantial course correction in the Indo-Pacific.  A renewed commitment to allies such as Japan and Australia, increased attention to emerging partners such as India and Indonesia, outreach to potential partners such as Vietnam and Burma, and an upgraded strategic posture across the region were all features of a substantially improved Asia policy that has the potential to pay dividends for a generation. 

The Obama Administration's Most Substantial Failure: The National Debt.  Recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen frequently called the national debt "the single biggest threat" to our national security.  Yet it was also the biggest failure of the Obama Administration during the year, a failure that might hurt America for decades to come.  What was the White House's fault on this?  Part of it was, to paraphrase Governor Mitch Daniels, a failure of arithmetic: presiding over the increase of the debt to the unfathomable amount of $15 trillion (an unprecedented increase of $4 trillion just since Obama took office) without making any effort to reform entitlement spending.  But the bigger part of the failure was the White House's cheap demagoguery that attacked any credible plan such as Paul Ryan's, and the cynical disregard of bipartisan efforts such as Obama's own Simpson-Bowles Commission.  All of which further poisoned the political environment and put any prospects for fiscal sanity on life support. 

Why is this a national security failure?  For the obvious reasons of how the debt strangles needed resources for the defense, diplomacy, and development budgets, or how it gives China economic leverage over us, or how it threatens the dollar's status as the global reserve currency.  But more perniciously, the debt is a national security failure because of how it undermines one of the main pillars of American power and global preeminence: our economic dynamism and our model of an opportunity society.  Ryan Streeter astutely calls this a "crisis of aspiration," and a national debt that now equals our national GDP cuts at the heart of American exceptionalism and leadership.