Obama's foreign policy fecklessness

This isn't some make-believe conservative criticism. It's real. And it's dangerous.

In international relations, perceptions matter.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Conservative hawks have long blasted the Obama administration for its accommodating posture toward America's adversaries, which they argue has made Obama weak, both in perception and in reality, and that this weakness has emboldened America's adversaries, to the detriment of America's interests and to global stability.

It's easy enough to caricature this view, and many voices on the right have provided fodder for the caricature. The whole critique seems to turn on the idea that all of international relations is about perception, and the only thing that matters is projecting and embodying toughness. The only way America can play its role on the world stage, in this view, is through confrontation and fear. I'm a conservative hawk myself, and yet I have often been highly skeptical of this view, because the world is a lot more complex than that, and different situations call for different responses. And, obviously, we shouldn't forget the Bush administration's example of hawkishness gone disastrously wrong.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.