Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Appraising the Foreign Policy Legacy of the Obama Presidency

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Looking Back on President Barack Obama’s Legacy

  • 557 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter assesses Obama’s national security strategy and his overall management of foreign policy. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama indicated clear policy differences with his predecessor, George W. Bush, such as opposing the Iraq War and the USA PATRIOT Act. As president, Obama broke with Bush’s unilateral approach to foreign policy and pursued a multilateral strategy. Obama emphasized diplomacy and appointed two former Democratic senators (Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) as Secretary of State. The chapter examines Obama’s military policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, focusing on differences between Obama’s promises and actual policy decisions. Obama’s foreign policy achievements included signing the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba was one of the most dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward Latin America. But Obama also had foreign policy disappointments. For example, he pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center but was unsuccessful, due to largely (though not exclusively) partisan congressional opposition.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    Barack Obama, Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise (New York: Crown, 2008).

  2. 2.

    For a comparison of the two presidencies, see, for example, Meena Bose, ed., Change in the White House? Comparing the Presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2014.

  3. 3.

    For a meticulously researched biography of Obama, including extensive detail on both his maternal and paternal ancestry, see David Remnick, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (New York: Knopf, 2010).

  4. 4.

    Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995; reprint ed., 2004), Preface to 2004 edition.

  5. 5.

    Ibid.

  6. 6.

    David Mendell, Obama: From Promise to Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007; rev. ed. 2017), ch. 22, “The Senator.”

  7. 7.

    David J. Garrow, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (New York: HarperCollins,), ch. 10, “Disappointment and Destiny: The U.S. Senate, November 2004–February 2007).

  8. 8.

    Ibid.

  9. 9.

    “Senator Obama’s Announcement,” New York Times, 10 February 2007.

  10. 10.

    “Transcript: Obama’s Speech Against the Iraq War” (Chicago, 2 October 2002), National Public Radio, 20 January 2009.

  11. 11.

    “Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech” (2008 Democratic National Convention, Denver), New York Times, 28 August 2008.

  12. 12.

    “Full Transcript: Sen. Barack Obama’s Victory Speech,” ABC News, 4 November 2008.

  13. 13.

    Barack Obama, “Inaugural Address,” 20 January 2009. Available at www.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. These two paragraphs on Obama’s early speeches and travel originally appeared in Meena Bose, “The President and Foreign Policy,” in New Directions in the American Presidency, ed. Lori Cox Han (New York: Routledge, 2010). Some examples here of Obama’s foreign policy decisions also draw upon that chapter, as well as an updated version in a forthcoming second edition of the volume (Routledge, 2018).

  14. 14.

    Barack Obama, “Address to Joint Session of Congress,” 24 February 2009. Available at www.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov

  15. 15.

    Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on a New Beginning,” Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, 4 June 2009. Available at www.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov

  16. 16.

    For comparisons to other recent presidents’ early travel, see Brendan J. Doherty, “POTUS on the Road: International and Domestic Presidential Travel,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 39, no. 2 (June 2009): 322–46.

  17. 17.

    Statement by Norwegian Nobel Committee, “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009,” 9 October 2009, at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html

  18. 18.

    President Barack Obama, “Nobel Lecture: A Just and Lasting Peace,” 10 December 2009. Available at https://www.nobelprize.org/

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    President Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the United States Military Academy Commencement Ceremony,” 28 May 2014. Available at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

  21. 21.

    President Barack Obama, “National Security Strategy,” May 2010, p. 3. Available at http://nssarchive.us/

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    President Barack Obama, “National Security Strategy,” February 2015, p. 3. Available at http://nssarchive.us/

  25. 25.

    Mark Landler, “The Afghan War and the Evolution of Obama,” New York Times, 1 January 2017. Also see Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010). Not all White House and military officials supported the “surge” in Afghanistan; both Vice President Joe Biden and US Ambassador to Afghanistan/retired Lieutenant General Karl W. Eikenberry, for example, expressed concerns at the time about the reliability of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the difficulty of achieving security and political stability in the country. See Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler, “U.S. Envoy Urges Caution on Forces in Afghanistan,” New York Times, 11 November 2009; and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Envoy’s Cables Show Worries on Afghan Plans,” New York Times, 25 January 2010.

  26. 26.

    President Barack Obama, “The New Way Forward,” United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, 1 December 2009.

  27. 27.

    CNN Library, “Death of Osama bin Laden Fast Facts,” 23 April 2017.

  28. 28.

    Mark Landler, “Obama Signs Pact in Kabul, Turning Page in Afghan War,” New York Times, 1 May 2012.

  29. 29.

    Landler, “The Afghan War and the Evolution of Obama.”

  30. 30.

    Amy Waldman, “NATO Takes Control of Peace Forces in Kabul,” New York Times, 13 August 2003.

  31. 31.

    “How Many Foreign Troops Are in Afghanistan?” BBC News, 15 October 2015.

  32. 32.

    Christi Parsons and W.J. Hennigan, “President Obama, Who Hoped to Sow Peace, Instead Led the Nation in War,” Los Angeles Times, 13 January 2017.

  33. 33.

    See, for example, Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009); and David E. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (New York: Crown Publishers, 2009).

  34. 34.

    Peter Baker, “With Pledges to Troops and Iraqis, Obama Details Pullout,” New York Times, 27 February 2009.

  35. 35.

    Tony Karon, “Iraq’s Government, Not Obama, Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence,” Time, 21 October 2011; Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung, “All U.S. Troops to Leave Iraq by the End of 2011,” Washington Post, 21 October 2011; Ben Hubbard, Robert F. Worth, and Michael R. Gordon, “Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants,” New York Times, 4 January 2014; Mark Thompson, “Number of U.S. Troops in Iraq Keeps Creeping Upward,” Time, 18 April 2016.

  36. 36.

    Alan J. Kuperman, “Obama’s Libya Debacle: How a Well-Meaning Intervention Ended in Failure,” Foreign Affairs 94, no. 2 (March/April 2015).

  37. 37.

    Charlie Savage and Mark Landler, “White House Defends Continued U.S. Role in Libyan Operation,” New York Times, 15 June 2011; Jennifer Steinhauer, “House Spurns Obama on Libya, But Does Not Cut Funds,” New York Times, 24 June 2011.

  38. 38.

    Paul Richter and Christi Parsons, “U.S. Intervention in Libya Now Seen as Cautionary Tale,” Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2014; Sarah Aarthun, “4 Hours of Fire and Chaos: How the Benghazi Attack Unfolded,” CNN World, 13 September 2012.

  39. 39.

    Charlie Savage, “Attack Renews Debate Over Congressional Consent,” New York Times, 21 March 2011; Charlie Savage and Thom Shanker, “Scores of U.S. Strikes in Libya Followed Handoff to NATO,” New York Times, 20 June 2011; David M. Herszenhorn, “House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton,” New York Times, 28 June 2016.

  40. 40.

    Dominic Tierney, “The Legacy of Obama’s ‘Worst Mistake’,” The Atlantic, 15 April 2016; Shadi Hamid, “Everyone Says the Libya Intervention Was a Failure. They’re Wrong,” Brookings Institution, 12 April 2016.

  41. 41.

    Tierney, “The Legacy of Obama’s ‘Worst Mistake’.”

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    “Syria: The Story of the Conflict,” BBC News, 11 March 2016.

  44. 44.

    Scott Wilson and Joby Warrick, “Assad Must Go, Obama Says,” Washington Post, 18 August 2011.

  45. 45.

    Peter Baker and Jonathan Weisman, “Obama Seeks Approval By Congress for Strike in Syria,” New York Times, 31 August 2013; Haley Bissegger, “Timeline: How President Obama Handled Syria,” The Hill, 15 September 2013.

  46. 46.

    David Greenberg, “Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever,” Foreign Policy, 29 December 2016.

  47. 47.

    Associated Press, “Clinton: Obama is ‘Naïve’ on Foreign Policy,” The Debates on NBCNews.com , 24 July 2007; Marc Ambinder, “On Iran, Parsing Obama, Without Preconditions or Preconceptions,” The Atlantic, 21 May 2008.

  48. 48.

    Michael R. Gordon and David E. Sanger, “Deal Reached on Iran Nuclear Program; Limits on Fuel Would Lessen With Time,” New York Times, 14 July 2015; Obama White House, “The Historic Deal That Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon,” https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/328996; Zachary Laub, “The Impact of the Iran Nuclear Agreement,” Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, 18 May 2018.

  49. 49.

    David M. Herszenhorn, “The Iran Nuclear Deal: Congress Has Its Say,” New York Times, 7 September 2015; Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker, “Obama Yields, Allowing Congress Say on Iran Nuclear Deal,” New York Times, 14 April 2015.

  50. 50.

    Jennifer Steinhauer, “Democrats Hand Victory to Obama on Iran Nuclear Deal,” New York Times, 10 September 2015; Manu Raju, “How the White House Kept Democrats From Killing the Iran Deal,” www.cnn.com, 11 September 2015; Jim Zarroli, “As Sanctions on Iran Are Lifted, Many U.S. Business Restrictions Remain,” National Public Radio, 26 January 2016; Stephen Collinson, “Iran Deal: A Treaty or Not a Treaty, That is the Question,” www.cnn.com, 12 May 2015; Mark Landler, “Trump Abandons Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned,” New York Times, 8 May 2018.

  51. 51.

    Jeremy Diamond, “U.S.-Cuba Relations: 10 Questions on the Embargo, Embassies and Cigars,” www.CNNPolitics.com, 1 July 2015; Ted Piccone, “On Cuba, Obama Looks Beyond 2016,” Brookings Institution, 14 October 2016; Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S.-Cuba Relations, 1959–2018.” Available at www.cfr.org

  52. 52.

    Victor Cha, “The Unfinished Legacy of Obama’s Pivot to Asia,” Foreign Policy, 6 September 2016; Amanda Erickson, “A Timeline of North Korea’s Five Nuclear Tests and How the U.S. Has Responded,” Washington Post, 14 April 2017.

  53. 53.

    James P. Pfiffner evaluates the George W. Bush presidency’s actions in these areas, arguing that they “undermined the constitutional balance among the branches” (p. 4), in Power Play: The Bush Presidency and the Constitution (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2008).

  54. 54.

    Full assessments of Bush’s foreign policy include Peter Baker, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House (New York: Doubleday, 2013); James Mann, George W. Bush: The 43rd President, 2001–2009 (New York: Times Books, 2015); Jean Edward Smith, Bush (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016).

  55. 55.

    “Obama Signs Order to Close Guantanamo Bay Facility,” www.CNNPolitics.com, 22 January 2009.

  56. 56.

    Connie Bruck, “Why Obama Has Failed to Close Guantanamo,” New Yorker, 1 August 2016.

  57. 57.

    Ryan Browne, “Obama’s Last Transfer of Gitmo Detainees, Trump Inherits 41,” www.CNNPolitics.com, 19 January 2017.

  58. 58.

    USA PATRIOT is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, but all capital letters typically are not used in referring to the law. See Public Law 107–56, 26 October 2001.

  59. 59.

    “Barack Obama’s Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention,” PBS Newshour, 27 July 2004; Jason M. Breslow, “Obama on Mass Government Surveillance, Then and Now,” PBS Frontline, 13 May 2014.

  60. 60.

    The George W. Bush administration’s secret NSA program of surveillance without warrants was first revealed in James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times, 16 December 2005. Analyses of Obama’s surveillance policies include James Bamford, “Every Move You Make,” Foreign Policy, 7 September 2016; and Lauren C. Williams, “Obama Leaves Behind a Mixed Record on Technology and Surveillance,” www.thinkprogress.org, 22 December 2016.

  61. 61.

    Steve Coll, “The Unblinking Stare: The Drone War in Pakistan,” New Yorker, 24 November 2014; Jack Moore, Drone Strikes Under Obama Killed Up to 117 Civilians Worldwide, Intelligence Report Claims,” Newsweek, 20 January 2017.

  62. 62.

    Micah Zenko, “Obama’s Embrace of Drone Strikes Will Be A Lasting Legacy,” New York Times, 12 January 2016.

  63. 63.

    Barack Obama: “Remarks at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines,” November 10, 2007. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=77021

  64. 64.

    Michael Brune, “Let’s Celebrate the Environmental Progress Made During the Last Eight Years,” Sierra Magazine, 3 November 2016.

  65. 65.

    Jeff Brady and Scott Horsley, “What You Need to Know About the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline,” National Public Radio: All Things Considered, 17 November 2014; Juliet Eilperin and Katie Zezima, “Obama Vetoes Keystone XL Bill,” Washington Post, 24 February 2015; Laura Barron-Lopez, “Obama Vetoes Keystone XL Bill,” The Hill, 24 February 2015; Elana Schor, “Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline,” Politico, 6 November 2015.

  66. 66.

    White House, “President Obama: The United States Formally Enters the Paris Agreement,” 3 September 2016; “Paris Climate Deal: Nearly 200 Nations Sign in End of Fossil Fuel Era,” The Guardian, 12 December 2015; Lee H. Hamilton, “Obama Foreign Policy: Significant Success and Notable Missteps,” Huffington Post, undated.

  67. 67.

    Brian Resnick, “4 Things to Know About the Paris Climate Agreement,” Vox, 1 June 2017; Jonathan Ellis, “The Paris Climate Deal: What You Need to Know,” New York Times, 1 June 2017; Lisa Friedman, “Syria Joins Paris Climate Accord, Leaving Only U.S. Opposed,” New York Times, 7 November 2017.

  68. 68.

    Timothy B. Lee, ed., “The Trans-Pacific Partnership, Explained,” Vox, 25 July 2016; Barack Obama, “Statement by the President on the Signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” 3 February 2016, www.obamawhitehousearchives.gov; Jackie Calmes, “Obama Readies One Last Push for Trans-Pacific Partnership,” New York Times, 21 August 2016; William Mauldin, “Obama Administration Gives Up On Pacific Trade Deal,” Wall Street Journal, 11 November 2016; David Lawder, “Obama Administration Suspends Pacific Deal Vote Effort,” Reuters, 11 November 2016.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA

    Meena Bose

Authors
  1. Meena Bose
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Meena Bose .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, USA

    Wilbur C. Rich

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Bose, M. (2019). Appraising the Foreign Policy Legacy of the Obama Presidency. In: Rich, W. (eds) Looking Back on President Barack Obama’s Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01545-9_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation