Review article

The Reaches of Obama’s Foreign Policy Strategy

Lidija Čehulić Vukadinović ; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Jadranka Polović ; University Department of Professional Studies, Split, Croatia

Abstract

The joint work of authors Lidija Čehulić Vukadinović and Jadranka Polović explores the achievements of foreign policy strategy of the U.S. President Barack Obama. In spite of great expectations of global publicity, it was soon clear that president Obama is more than willing to replace his high ideals of equity and democracy with policy of compromise which absolutely acknowledged requests for the strengthening of U.S. global power relying primarily on a strong military force.
Using "smart power" approach to foreign policy, Barack Obama focused on three main areas of foreign policy activities. Because of the need to maintain U.S. dominance in Southeast Asia, this part of the world is defined as a primary area of U.S. foreign policy engagement in the 21st century, where U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China are of particular significance. Obama also seeks to redefine relations with the Muslim world; however, it is in Obama's policy toward the Middle East where the gap between the President's announcements and the results achieved is particularly pronounced. The third group of foreign policy priorities is related to decreasing nuclear weapons in the world, especially the slowing of nuclear development of Iran and North Korea, which also defines the relations between the United States and Russia.
Regardless of this set of priorities, the U.S. -European relations remain in the focus of interest of U.S. foreign policy strategy and the southeast area of Europe should be considered in this context. It remains an open issue whether the period of total U.S. dominance in international relations is over, and whether the growing interests of other actors in international relations will increasingly affect the objectives, the resources, the time frame and the place of realization of President Barack Obama's foreign policy strategy.

Keywords

President Obama; foreign policy strategy; global power; Muslim world; nuclear weapons; Southeast of Europe

Hrčak ID:

291655

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/291655

Publication date:

15.5.2012.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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