A new leadership style for an era of limitations

Crises redefine a presidency just as earthquakes remake the landscape. In the case of US President Barack Obama, his reaction to recent crises — those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Japan are but the most recent — has revealed a cautious man who is nonetheless upending many long-held notions about what the world should expect from the US and its commander-in-chief.

For most of the nation's early history, American presidents played a supporting role in global affairs. Now the world is witnessing one who appears less inclined or less able to assert his country — or himself — as the dominant player in global affairs.

He seems more comfortable with the bully pulpit than the ‘big stick', more at ease working within coalitions or even letting other nations take the lead where Washington once would have stood front and centre. But it is still unclear whether his soaring rhetoric and somewhat humbler stance will succeed in advancing US objectives.

What is clear is that the president, because of circumstances and his own temperament, is acting less as the so-called most powerful man in the world and more as the planet's master of ceremonies — nudging, exhorting and charming, but less comfortable flexing US muscles than many of his predecessors.

Mayhem comes with the job, of course, but there is no doubt that Obama has faced an extraordinary array of challenges. Any notion that this president could set the global agenda was not just overtaken by events but overwhelmed by them.

From the financial crisis to the strains in the Eurozone, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the stirrings of an Arab spring, from the bloodletting on the US-Mexican border to the nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea, Obama has been buffeted every day in office.

Last week was a microcosm of his entire presidency. Even as Obama grappled with Japan's crises, the debate over military force against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Israel's decision to expand colonies following the killing of a family of colonists, the president had to prepare for a trip to Latin America, continue his budget battle on Capitol Hill, weigh in on education reform and make at least four media appearances concerning his March Madness picks.

Slew of challenges

The Obama White House has evolved beyond the ‘never let a crisis go to waste' hubris of its early days, when affairs were run by a handful of campaign consiglieri. Instead, we're seeing a White House more adept at multitasking precisely because it seems increasingly content to sidestep or delay addressing as many crises as possible — shifting the burden to allies overseas or on Capitol Hill, or limiting its responses to press releases, tweets and off-the-record briefings.

New Chief of Staff William Daley and new national security adviser Tom Donilon have systematically sought to re-engage with and make better use of Obama's cabinet, which includes members who reportedly felt alienated and underused in the administration's early days. The team approach has been on display in the past week, with cabinet secretaries and the vice-president prominently deployed worldwide to deal with the avalanche of competing and urgent demands.

Although such shared responsibility is an improvement over the days when Obama seemed like the administration's only effective spokesperson.

Whether the no-fly zone proves to be too little, too late or just in time will go a long way toward determining whether Obama's new foreign-policy approach is deemed deft and wise or feckless and indecisive. The new approach has offered mixed results with other foreign-policy challenges that have emerged in recent days. On Japan, Obama expressed deep condolences and, unable to privately persuade the Japanese to be more candid about their nuclear crisis, was forced to go public with the ‘we said/they said' dispute between the two allies about radiation risks.

If, for political or economic or personality reasons, the US and its leaders are perceived as less forceful in the world — if the ‘or else' is off the table — then the country's initiatives are certain to be less effective.

Obama is fashioning a new leadership style for an era of greater limitations on the US, but the trick with leadership is not just knowing where to go but getting others to follow, quickly and in a committed fashion.

Afghanistan tangle

The one major exception, the one place in which the president has put personal and national prestige on the line in a manner far exceeding a master of ceremonies, is in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, despite General David H. Petraeus' recent upbeat assessment of the conflict before Congress, the range of likely outcomes there is hardly encouraging.

If, in the wake of the US' upcoming departure from Iraq, the administration finds a way to declare victory in Afghanistan and start withdrawing forces there as well, Obama will lead a nation seemingly less interested in projecting force overseas than it has been in the past several decades, not perhaps since Jimmy Carter in the post-Vietnam period.

Given the costs of the the US' recent overseas misadventures, many would welcome such a shift. And with the nation's long-term domestic challenges, Obama may be but the first in a long line of presidents to embrace a less-is-more approach. But for those accustomed to turning to the US for strong leadership or to provide the spine in unwilling international partnerships, it is likely to prove a frustrating change.

The master of ceremonies, after all, may win applause and even seem to run the show, but such appearances are an illusion, and many of the leading roles will be left to nations and leaders unaccustomed to or uncomfortable with the limelight.

Their performances may not appeal to US audiences, and they may even suffer stage fright and leave the world's stage unoccupied — save perhaps for the lone figure still holding the mic, commenting on whether the US likes how things are going.

— Washington Post

David J. Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power.