“Obama’s number one task in Moscow in to show Vladimir Putin that he is as tough as Putin is, and that’s not going to be easy.”
That is my main take-away by Dr. George Friedman, CEO of Stratfor from this very helpful framing of the Obama-Medvedev talks:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWRtuADJd-o&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
It will be interesting to see what Obama gets from his Russian Counterpart. I hope Obama is tough, but like most leaders on the liberal side of American politics, he strikes me as far too agreeable to the politics of American grievance, a view that would likely leave one more aware of the guilt and shame in America than of the moral conviction needed to protect her.
If you think America deserves to go down (remember Rev Wright’s “God damn America, it’s in the Bible” and “America’s chickens have come home to roost”), how does one find the base to defend it?
I think Dr. Friedman in The Next 100 Years provides compelling data to support his assessment of Russia as the greatest strategic threat to the U.S. in “a host of issues” and the Russians read Obama as weak. If he holds to the American grievance view, it is hard to disagree with them.
And that’s no small risk to us as American citizens, irrespective of the facts there are supporting the American grievance position. I think if America is ever to come of age and become the dominant power Friedman expects over the next 100 years, it will require satisfactory resolution of this tension of American grievance vs. American strength (or exceptionalism, as some may prefer). Self-loathing and self-defense cannot coexist long in the face of a stron adversary.
For those following the Obamacast hypothesis, I find it interesting that Friedman references the challenge Obama faces between his campaign promises to remove the ballistic missile defense system from Poland and the strategic need to keep that system in place to project U.S. power there and help deter Russia’s expansionist attempts.
The frame is starting to take shape around this President. As much as he likes to avoid being pinned down, events and other geopolitical actors will not let him do so forever.
Then again, if plays on a distracted public, the media keeps his weaknesses out of the spotlight, and uses his words to carefully direct attention away from his actions in support of a Statist agenda, he may keep that frame from surrounding him in the minds of the voters.
And that tension between these two narratives–the one the world would impose on him vs. the one he wishes to sustain and amplify through his popularity–seems to me to be the great emerging drama of this Presidency.
Unless, of course, you believe all he is doing is carefully orchestrated to bring the U.S. into a system of world government. Then these meetings with Medvedev are probably only a cover. And the real narrative that matters, in this view, is what is going on in and through the Bilderberg Group and others, with Obama and Medvedev being two implementers of one common vision.
Interesting theatre, without a doubt.