Two Kinds of Change

Ilan Goldenberg laments the "lazy no change stories" that argue that President-elect Obama won't really change much in the realm of foreign policy. He follows that up with a more sustained attack on Newsweek's John Barry for making the "no change argument."

With all due respect, I think Goldenberg is missing the forest for the trees here. Obama will unquestionably change things about U.S. foreign policy. Closing Guantanamo Bay, "surging" into Afghanistan, opening a more sustained and direct dialogue with Tehran - these are all serious, and to my mind, mostly welcome, policy shifts.

But any foreign policy is anchored in something deeper than policy. It is anchored to an understanding of American national security interests and it is here where it is very difficult to discern any major "change" in Obama's approach. Oh sure, there is plenty of rhetoric about "dignity promotion" and the like, but that only underscores the fact that Obama shares his predecessor's capacious view of what America's "vital interests" are.

As I wrote earlier:

The defining feature of America’s post Cold War political debate is that while every campaign pays rhetorical homage to the “new world” we live in, none appear interested in actually pondering its strategic significance. The global defense obligations that America assumed as a direct response to the urgent threat of Soviet communism have morphed into the hubristic conceit that it is incumbent upon the U.S. to be, as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright put it, “the indispensable nation.”

Thus, Obama proclaims that “the mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.”

Obama wants to change how America leads the world. He has nothing to say on whether this is a proper or sustainable role for a democratic republic. Fair enough, of course. There are certainly circumstances where I think global activism and leadership are warranted.

But it's not enough to wave around serious (although still prospective) policy changes as proof that Obama is a transformative change agent. There's more to "change" than that.