When work began on this book, in the middle of 2012, pundits of all stripes were declaring Barack Obama to be unusually strong on national security. Admirers, of whom Obama still had a great many, hailed the President for obliterating the long-standing perception that Democrats were second best to Republicans when it came to national defense. Given the stagnation of the economy and the unpopularity of Obama’s signature health care legislation, the conventional wisdom held that Obama’s foreign policy record constituted the greatest single asset of his reelection campaign.
Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek, for instance, could be heard opining that two generations had elapsed since “a Democratic president has been as strong on national security as Barack Obama.” 1 In an article for the American Conservative, Michael Desch credited Obama with “exorcising George McGovern,” the presidential nominee whose antiwar platform had saddled Democrats with the “soft-on-defense” label since 1972.2 George Packer, one of the nation’s most distinguished journalists, was predicting that if Obama lost the election, “he’ll be remembered most for his foreign-policy achievements,” and if Obama were reelected, “he’ll have a chance of being a great foreign-policy President.” 3
Aside from the Republican base, most Americans held Obama’s national security record in similarly high regard during 2012. Obama’s public approval rating on national security hovered near 50 percent throughout the year, with the disapproval rating roughly 10 percentage points lower. Although national security was not the decisive factor in Obama’s electoral victory of November 2012—that distinction went to the tearing down of challenger Mitt Romney by Obama and others—these perceptions certainly helped him on election day.
It was my conviction in 2012, as it is now, that the widespread acclaim of Obama’s foreign policy was undeserved. During his first term, Obama had been ineffective in promoting U.S. interests abroad, and his actions were increasing the risks to the American people. Consequently, one of this book’s initial objectives was to persuade Americans that the glossy veneer on Obama’s national security record masked corrosion blisters that were in danger of rusting through.
During the more than two years required to write the book, opinion on Obama and his national security policies experienced a remarkable reversal, comparable in magnitude to the change in opinion on Jimmy Carter during 1979 and 1980. The leading cause was the rusting through of international problems that Obama had created or exacerbated. Most spectacular among the catastrophes were the killing of the U.S. ambassador at Benghazi, the territorial conquests of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Democratic congressmen, centrist pundits, and even some of Obama’s former cabinet officials started bemoaning the President’s weakness in the international arena. The President’s approval numbers on national security fell below his disapproval numbers in the middle of 2013, and by the fall, the approval figure had plunged below 35 percent, while the percentage of Americans disapproving approached 55. Among American military personnel, Obama’s approval rating fell from its peak of 35 percent to just 15 percent in late 2014, while his disapproval rating reached 55 percent.4
Thus did world events conspire to steal some of the book’s originally scheduled thunder. Disabusing Americans of an undue admiration for President Obama’s policies, however, was never the sole objective of this book. Indeed, my concern was less with any one individual than with policies that were leading the nation and the world toward disaster. Most of what follows should still be of intense interest to Americans, for several reasons.
For one, the innumerable news stories and cable TV debates on the biggest overseas catastrophes have disseminated only snippets of each catastrophic event to the American public. This book fills in the missing sections, and corrects segments of the media-driven narrative that are inaccurate or misleading. It also explains which elements of the story are truly important, and which are unworthy of endless repetition by television’s talking heads. The analysis reveals that the flaws in current policies are broader and deeper than most Americans know, and that they reflect misguided assumptions that are not peculiar to Obama but are shared by the leading pretenders to the next Democratic presidential nomination—Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, and his first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
For another, the risks that Obama’s policies have created go well beyond the few countries that have figured prominently in the news. Every continent in the world has been affected. This book takes the reader from the remote peaks of North Waziristan and the fishing cities of Somalia to the contested waters of the Scarborough Shoal and the drug-smuggling routes of Central America.
Third of all, this book shows that the deterioration of America’s strategic position did not commence in Obama’s second term, as public opinion polls and political punditry would suggest, but instead began as soon as Obama took office in January 2009. The strategic decline accelerated in 2011, as White House insiders increasingly took charge of national security policy and the defense budget sustained its first big cuts. Some of the poor choices and resultant setbacks were concealed in the first term because of luck, which among other things thwarted several attacks on the U.S. homeland, or because of the time lag between the making of a decision in Washington, D.C., and the playing out of events in the affected countries. Other deficiencies were hidden from view by the inattention of the mainstream media, which had a tendency to avert its eyes from Obama’s early failings. The nation’s tardiness in perceiving Obama’s shortcomings should serve as a cautionary note for all those who would withhold criticism or unflattering information on account of a politician’s ideology or identity. Obama’s poor performance in his first term should advise voters against paying more heed to a politician’s campaign rhetoric than his voting record, and against expecting that someone with no national security experience and no executive experience can handle the demands of the U.S. presidency.
Fourth, this book demonstrates that Obama subordinated U.S. national security to his own political interests with alarming frequency. While it would be naïve to expect elected politicians to wipe all political calculations from their minds when determining policies, the deployment of American troops into war for reasons of political self-interest should no more be condoned than the misuse of public funds for partisan purposes. Americans deserve a president who will not jeopardize the lives of America’s sons and daughters in order to pick up a few thousand votes in swing states, and they deserve to be notified when the President commits such an offense.
Finally, the book’s last chapter draws upon the lessons of Obama’s presidency to identify a better way for U.S. national security in the twenty-first century. It calls for the U.S. government to reassert proactive global leadership, reverse cuts to defense spending, and reinvigorate American public support for the military. The ultimate objective of these changes is not to invade every hostile country or to remake the whole world in America’s image, but rather to protect the United States and maintain the international stability upon which its prosperity depends. This positive vision, it is hoped, will be of value in the debate over national security during the presidential campaign of 2016, and in the U.S. decisions on national security strategy and defense spending after 2016.