Barack Obama's Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement

Robert Singh

Jun 2012 · A&C Black

About this ebook

After one of the most controversial and divisive periods in the history of American foreign policy under President George W. Bush, the Obama administration was expected to make changes for the better in US relations with the wider world. Now, international problems confronting Obama appear more intractable, and there seems to be a marked continuity in policies between Obama and his predecessor.

Robert Singh argues that Obama's approach of 'strategic engagement' was appropriate for a new era of constrained internationalism, but it has yielded modest results. Obama's search for the pragmatic middle has cost him political support at home and abroad, whilst failing to make decisive gains. Singh suggests by calibrating his foreign policies to the emergence of a 'post-American'world, the president has yet to preside over a renaissance of US global leadership. Ironically,Obama's policies have instead hastened the arrival of a post-American world.

About the author

Robert Singh is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. His publications include American Government and Politics (2003), Contemporary American Politics: Issues and Controversies (2003), (as co-editor) The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism (2006) and (as co-author) After Bush: The Case For Continuity in American Foreign Policy (2008).