Obama's Second Nobel

It's strange how partisan reactions to the Nobel Prize completely missed the common-sense rationale behind the Obama pick. According to many of my outside-the-beltway friends, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for defeating President Bush and arresting the dark spiral into which his administration had set the nation and the world. That Obama did it as an African American who first had to defeat the Democratic heir-apparent was even more remarkable. The entire campaign gave the world hope that cynicism, unchecked wealth, and fear could be overcome.

For the rest of the world--and for most of America--that is enough of an accomplishment to earn the Nobel Peace Prize. But it was not all. Obama has since led the G20 to stabilize the world economy in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. He reached out to the Islamic world, with an open hand and he urged the world to reduce our collective nuclear arsenal.

So the prize is clearly deserved, for President Obama turned the United States around.

But as a leader, he has much still to do, and he knows it. The nation is still in the red--progressing, but in the red. The question is, is the President thinking as seriously and as in depth about America's new role in the world as he as been triaging the world's urgent crises or planning the strategy in South Asia.

From what I can tell, the answer is still no. The default grand strategy--hegemonic assurance--remains the same, even if it is now shifted into its more liberal form. In other words, we are still saying to the world, we will address the world's greatest security threats and provide basic international security, freedom of navigation, etc, as long as great and rising powers do not challenge our military dominance. We would pay for that strategy by trading security for debt. The United States said we would be the consumption engine to fuel global growth as long as producing, or surplus nations kept buying our debt. As a hedge against the unknown reality of the Post-Cold War world, it was a decent idea. But as a long-term post-Cold War grand strategy, it was a recipe for overreach and economic collapse--and we got both. 

Until we change that failed grand strategy, the other items on the President's agenda will suffer or stall. From climate change to economic growth to ending wars. It will be by leading Washington, the nation, and the world towards a new American grand strategy where the President has the opportunity to earn his second Nobel prize. This time, he will only have to articulate a powerful new domestic economic engine that will back up a principled and achievable global strategy.

And he will have to articulate it soon. Oslo would be a good place to start.