Time for American leadership

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.de/time-for-american-leadership/a-17513078

Drones and sanctions as opposed to expensive military interventions: Obama's foreign policy strategy is shifting. Experts say he wants a light military footprint - however the Ukraine crisis may challenge that premise.

Time for American leadership

The situation in Ukraine is Europe's biggest security threat since the Cold War and the most difficult foreign affairs crisis in Barack Obama's term of office, according to Nicholas Burns, political scientist at Harvard University.

"I think President Obama has two great challenges. One of course is to respond with Germany and other countries to Vladimir Putin's aggression in Crimea and the Ukraine," he told DW. "And I think there is a big challenge that the United States face in Asia from Chinese expansionism in the South and East China Sea."

Two challenges - one consequence: "This is the time for American leadership," said Burns, who was Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs at the State Department under former President George W. Bush from 2005 until 2008.

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For some time now, the US Treasury Department has taken on role of the Pentagon's non-military branch. The guideline has been to move away from expensive, lengthy military interventions and instead fight intelligent wars with drones and sanctions. And to not go it alone.