Several commentators have highlighted the Obama administration’s apparent shift to a more muscular foreign policy, openly committed to promoting democracy and using military might to confront jihadist threats.
But over at Stratfor, George Friedman argues that the administration has yet to confront the “deep paradox “ of its foreign policy: striving to change foreign perceptions of the US while continuing many of the same policies – “imposed on him by geopolitical reality” – of the unpopular Bush administration.
The administration is clearly ready to flatter its European allies, suggesting that when U.S. and E.U. strategies were never “more in synch”, but it is unlikely, or at least unclear, that they will commit to follow Washington’s lead simply because their perceptions are more positive:
In the coming months, three questions will manifest themselves. The first is: Will the Europeans shift from greater control over U.S. actions and less risk to less control and more risk? The second is: What will the president give them in exchange? How much control will pass to them in a consultative foreign policy? The third: How much active support for the Untied States are the Europeans able and willing to bring to bear?
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