Getting Back in the Saddle: My Two Cents on Resetting the Reset Button

Spare Change | 22 May 2010 | David J. Aland

[SpareChange]

Getting Back in the Saddle: My Two Cents On Resetting the Reset Button

By David J. Aland /// 22 May 2010

Osama bin Laden, the man whose dream is the ultimate destruction of the “Great Satan” United States, once noted that nations and people follow the “strong horse.” Setting aside his Charlie Manson intellect, let us consider his premise – is America a strong horse these days?

Once, the displeasure of the United States was enough to deter rogue states and keep wacky heads of state in line. The threat of US retaliation kept North Korea in check, the Soviet Union in decline, and Middle East despots in the shadows. The Monroe Doctrine, either explicitly or implicitly, kept peace to our south. But our President has now declared a “new international order”, most recently at West Point – and it is that new order that we have to thank for the current shabby state of international affairs.

We have “reset” our relations with Russia – and the Russian Bear is resurgent. Our allies east of the Fulda Gap have come to understand that they must make a separate peace with their former Soviet overlords, as the umbrella of security once provided by the US has voluntarily collapsed. We have repudiated missile agreements and security assurances in Eastern Europe. Russia is now the strong horse in Eastern Europe, and our emergent allies there know that making peace with Russia is more reliable than making common cause with the US.

The perception of US protection to South Korea is crumbling. Obama has gone to great lengths to neutralize the “nuclear advantage” of the US. Is it any surprise that the North Koreans have hardened their resistance to sanctions by the West, sunk a South Korean warship, and rattled their own rusty sabres? Plainly, the Kim Jong-Il believes he has the upper hand.

US opposition to the emergence of nuclear powers in the Middle East has been abandoned by the Administration in its desire to “engage” Iran, which the Iranian thugocracy views as tacit approval to continue their path towards nuclear weapons. The Iranians have successfully stalled, feinted, and delayed while the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon moves forward. Syria’s President Assad now says the US has no remaining credibility in the Middle East. Sadly, events only ratify that point of view.

Obama has chummed it up with Hugo Chavez, the B-movie dictator who funds insurgencies and drug-cartels in neighboring countries and continues to drive his own economy into the dumpster. The lack of American disapproval allows Chavez to trade on moral equivalence, de-stabilize his neighbors, and create a drastically less stable region for American interests, including the kind of arms deals with Russia that past Presidents would have strenuously condemned.

Our President stood by while the President of Mexico criticized American laws from the White House and the floor of Congress, rather than attempting to aid an American governor in stemming the tide of illegal immigrants from Mexico. It is clear that the President lacks the willpower to actually secure American borders, which fuels a spillover of Mexican crime cartels into American cities, with the attendant murders, kidnappings, and violence.

China and Burma have been given a pass this semester for misconduct, while India and Japan are given the cold shoulder. The President and his Secretary of State continue to snub Britain, insult Canada, isolate Israel, and treat NATO like an embarrassing relation. Our long-standing allies in Europe have been ignored while the US “engages” with governments whose past agendas have been, to say the least, inimical to US interest. Not surprisingly, those allies, rather than embracing this new and less “cowboy” American foreign policy, have begun to understand that the US is content to “go it alone”, and, by all signs, are letting it be so.

Not to beat the horse analogy to death, but it’s time the US got back in the saddle on the diplomatic front. It was once accepted that the United States was a rewarding friend to have and a terrifying enemy to face. Lately, it seems to be more that the US is a terrifying friend and a rewarding enemy, largely due to the sophomoric and naïve way this Administration has pursued our role in the world community.

It’s time to reset that “Reset Button”, Mr President, and demonstrate that America knows how to be both friend and enemy, and knows with whom each relationship fits. That takes real diplomacy, not quixotic narcissism. We cannot afford to ride off in pursuit of imaginary prizes while squandering what little standing we have left in the world.

In case you haven’t noticed, some of the other guys out there are breeding war horses.

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David J. Aland is a retired Naval Officer with a graduate degree in National Security Affairs from the U. S. Naval War College.