Outlines of an Obama Grand Strategy Emerge

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/us/politics/07web-sanger.html?_r=1&hp

Outlines of an Obama Grand Strategy Emerge

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 7, 2009

VIENNA — In eight days in Europe, President Obama has started down the road to remaking the global financial system, reinvigorating the NATO commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan, reinventing nuclear strategy and restoring relations to the Muslim world.

So, 77 days into his presidency, is there an emerging Obama Grand Strategy?

Not yet — but some outlines are emerging that may hint of what lies ahead.

snip//

It was when Mr. Obama turned to his vision of a nuclear-weapons-free future, during a speech in Prague, that strategic vision began to trump symbolism.

It is a strategy based on a bet: That if the world’s first nuclear-armed state demonstrated a willingness to sharply reduce its atomic arsenal, ban nuclear testing and cut off the worldwide production of more bomb-grade material, its reluctant allies and partners around the world would be far more likely to rewrite nuclear treaties and enforce sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

Mr. Obama was embracing a concept that the Bush administration had repeatedly rejected: That to counter proliferation, the United States could no longer simply ignore the fact that some countries — like Iran — were signatories to international treaties and could correctly claim a “right” to produce their own nuclear fuel.

Mr. Bush’s approach was to declare that some countries could simply never be trusted. Mr. Obama’s approach is to tighten the web of treaties, and amend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to make it harder for nations like Iran to limit inspections or refuse to answer questions about suspect documents. Mr. Obama even embraced two controversial treaties that many in Congress will oppose because of the limits they put on American nuclear strategy: One would ban nuclear testing, they other would cut off production of new fissile material.

“For me, it is a different world,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian-born director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a visitor to his office in Vienna on Monday, as Mr. Obama was finishing up his trip. “When was the last time you heard a president talk about moving toward zero nuclear weapons? Or fixing a nonproliferation system that is clearly falling apart?”

“Suddenly, I can come to the office feeling like I am part of the mainstream, not an outsider,” said Mr. ElBaradei, who was constantly at war with the Bush administration and is now coming to the end of his term as the head of the agency.

But then he paused. “We are beginning to see a strategy,” he said. “What we don’t know yet is whether he can implement it.”

[Cha]

1. This now has 5 recs and a kick.

This is the kind of thing that really encourages and inspires me.

"It is a strategy based on a bet: That if the world’s first nuclear-armed state demonstrated a willingness to sharply reduce its atomic arsenal, ban nuclear testing and cut off the worldwide production of more bomb-grade material, its reluctant allies and partners around the world would be far more likely to rewrite nuclear treaties and enforce sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

Mr. Obama was embracing a concept that the Bush administration had repeatedly rejected: That to counter proliferation, the United States could no longer simply ignore the fact that some countries — like Iran — were signatories to international treaties and could correctly claim a “right” to produce their own nuclear fuel."