The endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama nearly 6 months ago by the most accredited and reputable geostrategist Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski as well as numerous former President Clinton’s aides and advisors testify to the originality as well as strategic clarity of the senator whose vision of hope and of change is bound to set in motion a re-orientation of the international diplomatic and political climate in ways that are at variance with the current Bush administration’s practice which has since 9-11 been devoted to the exclusive use of military power at the expense of diplomacy and political conciliation, hence the proliferation of international disdain for the United States as well as a heightened prospect of asymetrical challenges thereto. It is thus the understanding of the situation and its dynamics that has decidedly propelled Obama to a new thinking divorced from the business-as-usual mentality characterizing the Washington political class.
These endorsements, hence, are an inestimable bonanza for the Obama campaign that had arguably suffered a significant setback following an interview and a major policy speech in which he came close to enunciating a military-diplomatic doctrine encapsulating his thinking with regard to the imperatve of striking a balance between diplomatic practice and military necessity. It is hardly surprising, then, that Obama’s stance on unilateral action in the event of Pakistan’s failure to act against terrorists operating within its borders, as well as his non-use of nuclear weapons raised eyebrows within the elitist circles of the foreign policy establishment. For them the U.S. ought to maintain a position of strategic ambiguity regarding its use of nuclear weapons, never mind that its overwhelmingly preponderant nuclear capacity and perceived recklessness with which it excercises its military power have created an incentive for other nations to develop their own countervailing options of deterence or defence. From Obama’s perspective, however, it means breaking away from the current paralysis caused by fear of, and aversion toward America, and coming to grips with the imperative of the reoriantation of the international community to a new environment that proceeds from the presumption that to change the international mindset you’ve got to change the environment that has spawned the negative view of the U.S. in the first place. In this sense, then, the question as to whether an American president could or could not use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances ceases to be purely a matter of American domestic politics as it evokes broader questions of countervailing response to the U.S.—strategic, or, tactically asymtrical—as well as nuclear proliferation. It goes without saying, then, that Obama’s thinking has far-reaching significance consequent to future non-proliferation efforts as much as it potentially has domestic as well as international resonance, not only because it seems to chart a clear-cut and unambiguous repudiation of weapons of mass destruction, and impunity of those bent on harming America, but also because it crystallizes an imperative for viable strategies for the maintanance of both American national security and world peace.
Tags: American security, asymetrical challenges, Brzezinski, endorsement, The Obama Doctrine, world peace
