Mr Willem Post

President Obama in Post's analysis: pragmatic and realistic politician acting in a multilateral way

After a breathtaking overview of international relations from Cold War to the unilateralism of the Bush administration, Post mainly concentrated in his speech to analyze the first ten months of President Obama's foreign policy and the reasoning behind it. The multilateralist Europeans and their international legal order experienced the Bush administration as a shock, thus Obama's election was here enthusiastically welcomed. However, although global responsibility and rights are always combined in Obama's speech, first and foremost he remains a pragmatic and realistic politician, although acting in a multilateral way. According to Post this shows in Obama's immediate concentration on Afghanistan, where he has chosen to follow a twofold track after the Dutch model, including both military and civilian surge in his program, which is quite a difference to his predecessor's plans.

Quite amazing Post finds the fact that Obama did win the elections with his global message and multilateral stance, whereby Europe stays an important ally sharing common interests. In his address Post introduced two influential thinkers behind the “international phenomenon” Obama: Reinhold Niebuhr, a Christian realist of the interwar period and Fareed Zakaria, one of the most influential current political philosophers. From Niebuhr Obama has learned a general lesson, that States can manipulate their citizens, however without ordinary people coming together to create mass movements many things would not be realized. Zakaria's effect on Obama has more directly to do with US foreign policy, in that the development of a “post-American world” does not necessarily mean that it will be an anti-American world.

In an overall assessment Post reminds that although war of course is an important issue, for the average Americans the economic situation remains the very first problem to be solved. However, this does not mean that the Europeans should worry too much, because in his foreign policy Obama will stay moderate and pragmatic, dealing differently in every issue according to the needs.

As always, the lecture and subsequent discussions were followed by an informal “borrel” provided by the Campus Den Haag and the Montesquieu Institute. The exciting and informative lecture series is continuing after a Christmas break in February 2010.