Presidential Leadership and National Security

The Obama Legacy and Trump Trajectory

Richard S. Conley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351979832
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book assesses the foreign policy legacy of the Obama administration through the lens of national security and leadership. Timely, accessible chapters authored by leading scholars of presidential and international politics cover White House-Cabinet relations; Congress and War Powers; challenges including the Iran nuclear deal, ISIS, and the closing of Guantanamo Bay; drone strikes; the New Cold War with Russia; and the ways in which the Obama foreign policy legacy shaped the 2016 presidential election. In particular, the book explores the philosophical basis of counter-terrorism strategy in the Obama administration and traces how precepts differed from the administration of George W. Bush. More generally, the book contributes to an understanding of the distinctive interplay between the formal, constitutional powers of the president and the use of informal, executive powers in the quest for peace and security. Finally, the book surveys the challenges that Donald J. Trump faces in the transition to the new presidential administration.

1 Introduction

The National Security Transition From Obama to Trump

Richard S. Conley

Assessing the foreign and national security policy record of any president just a few months after he leaves office is a precarious proposition. International politics are fluid, dynamic, and unpredictable. The long-term consequences of executive decisions, military actions, diplomatic endeavors, and responses to unforeseen crises spanning a four- or eight-year period may appear rather indeterminate the moment a new administration moves into the White House. Beginning at noon on January 20, the media naturally look forward to what the new president is doing, not back in time to appraise the former president’s performance. Recollections of the bygone days of the previous chief executive are almost immediately overshadowed by the daily drumbeat of White House announcements on cabinet appointments and palace intrigue. Indeed, the Sturm und Drang of the presidential transition of Donald Trump all but eclipsed serious discussions of Obama’s legacy as pundits and prognosticators peered into crystal balls and speculated about what the future holds for the Trump administration amid the fever pitch of controversies dominating the 12–24-hour news cycle.

Intrepid scholars, however, necessarily take a longer view and seek to situate presidents’ places in history, however tentatively or confidently. Political scientists employ a variety of tools, from theory testing to empirical data and normative benchmarks, to draw conclusions about presidents’ successes and failures. Sometimes when a president leaves office, his approval and reputation are at a nadir. But his legacy may be subject to revision and even “rehabilitation” with objective retrospection, careful analysis, and reconsideration of governing contexts that comes in the fullness of time. Harry Truman is a case in point. As he turned over the reins of the Oval Office to Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, Truman was not remembered for his leadership at the close of World War II, desegregation of the military, the Berlin Airlift, or his stunning, come-from-behind electoral victory in 1948. The phrase “to err is Truman” summed up the mounting frustration of a beleaguered nation at war in Korea, which the former general who had never held political office pledged to end. To the degree that polling data of the era were accurate, Truman’s final approval rating was 36 percent. Scholars’ retrospective evaluations of his performance in office 60 years later, however, place him at 89 percent approval (Panagopoulos 2012)! Ostensibly discredited upon leaving office, the 33rd president now ranks among the best-regarded chief executives in the modern era by many historians and political scientists.

What of the legacy of the nation’s 44th president, Barack Obama? Like Truman, he returned to private life as a controversial, if somewhat more popular, ex-president as he handed the keys to the White House over to another Republican who promised to steer the nation’s foreign policy in a different direction. Unlike Eisenhower, Trump did not inherit a conventional ground war from his predecessor but rather a highly unconventional set of challenges and a stalemate of a different sort. Obama had not completely ended US military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he had made significant progress on that front by drawing down the number of troops. The cost, according to his critics, was the rise of the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) that emerged out of civil war and managed to capture territory not only in Syria but in Iraq—domain that has proven challenging to retake, complicated by civil war and Russian involvement in the region. And the specter of homegrown terrorists only seemed to set the United States at greater unease.

Obama’s national security policies figured prominently in the 2016 electoral contest between his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and the real estate mogul. From the Iranian nuclear agreement to “leading from behind” with air strikes in Libya and recriminations that he reneged on a “red line” pledge following Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Obama’s foreign policy approach came under merciless attack by Trump and the Grand Old Party (GOP). Trump pledged an about-face to dismantle the fundamental aspects of Obama’s legacy. However, the disconnect between intemperate rhetoric on the campaign trail and the sober realities of navigating the ship of state through complicated and chaotic international waters has been palpable for the 45th president, at least in his first six months.

This volume brings together a collection of timely analyses authored by leading scholars of presidential and international politics to assess the national security policy legacy of President Barack Obama and the implications for the transition of President Donald Trump. Three objectives inform the general approach to topics covered in this appraisal. First, the authors attempt to situate short- and long-term impacts of Obama’s leadership within the strategic setting of national and international politics in the post-9/11 era. Second, the contributors seek to understand the potential for lasting imprints that Obama made on the institution of the presidency and the implications for the constitutional order. Finally, scholars consider both the formal and informal bases of presidential power. The president’s constitutional authority as the nation’s top diplomat and commander in chief outlined in Article II is juxtaposed with relative mastery of communication and outreach to the public, the so-called “rhetorical presidency” that relies on the bully pulpit to build grassroots support and frame policy narratives.

Each chapter analyzes a particular facet of presidential leadership, with attention to criteria such as the president’s style, the strategic context and opportunity structure, and decisionmaking. Collectively, the essays cover a host of contemporary controversies spanning Obama’s two terms. Themes include the operationalization of alternate rhetorical approaches to change his predecessor’s narrative of the “war on terror”; the philosophical basis of counterterrorism strategy in the Obama administration and how precepts differed from the administration of George W. Bush; war powers and unilateral actions, including debates regarding military initiatives in the Middle East; the structure of cabinet/advisor relations on national security policymaking; the Iran nuclear deal; the ultimate failure to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; constitutional issues raised by drone strikes on US citizens abroad; the growing complexity of US–Russian relations; and the ways in which the Obama policy legacy shaped the 2016 presidential election. Readers will note that each chapter also includes a Future Challenges section that considers the potential consequences of Obama’s legacy for Donald Trump’s presidency.

In Chapter 2, Cigdem V. Sirin and José D. Villalobos commence the journey to assess the Obama legacy by evaluating the differences in presidential rhetoric and public politics between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Their astute analysis emphasizes Bush’s negative-valence rhetoric and Obama’s positive-valence rhetoric and the long-term implications for governance and national security policymaking for the two administrations. Bush shifted his public discourse toward the negative realm as a means of capitalizing on fears following 9/11 and building support for military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite earlier pledges of “compassionate conservatism” and the avoidance of nation building abroad. Obama’s dialogue on national security, in contrast, made every effort to mute negative commentary through messages of conciliation, empathy, enthusiasm, and hope for the future. He employed such messaging in the bid to cull support for his foreign policy vision, which marked a significant change from his predecessor’s: outreach, diplomatic problem solving, and collaboration instead of “hard” military power. By the end of Obama’s term, however, a dialectic emerged. Growing anxiety over terrorism and the situation in the Middle East enabled Donald Trump to come full circle to articulate a “negative-valence demagogic rhetorical approach” that exploited precisely the types of fears that emerged after 9/11.

Sirin and Villalobos employ a theoretical framework that connects presidential decisionmaking with these differing rhetorical strategies of the Bush and Obama presidencies to underscore the impact. George W. Bush’s rhetorical approach represented a “domain of losses.” The death and destruction resulting from the worst terror attacks on US soil, which occurred less than nine months into his first term, produced collective anger, and “heightened threat perceptions further contributed to public support for the riskier, costly militaristic policy options to fight the war on terror while fear and anxiety allowed for defensive homeland security measures and anti-terrorism policies.”

Obama sought to extricate the United States from a domain of losses and move toward a “domain of gains.” One product of his rhetorical approach was to emphasize the advantages of diplomacy in conflict resolution, consistent with multilateral efforts such as halting the Iranian nuclear weapons program and removing the stockpile of deadly chemical weapons in Assad’s Syria after the dictator used them on civilians. Another product, however, was that even as worldwide events—the rise of ISIS, Muammar Qaddafi’s attacks on civilians in Libya, the Syrian Civil War and refugee crisis—compelled military action, Obama preferred risk-adverse methods consistent with his public messaging. As examples, drones were used in lieu of boots on the ground to combat ISIS, and the United States “led from behind” while France and the United Kingdom did the heavy lifting of bombing targets in Qaddafi’s Libya.

The balance of the chapter, which urbanely places presidential rhetoric into the larger political science literature, concentrates on Obama’s legacy vis-à-vis the new Trump administration. Sirin and Villalobos question whether Trump’s election marks a return to zero-sum diplomacy and whether the new president’s staff reflects that weltanschauung. Moreover, questions abound as to how Trump’s attempt to enforce a ban on Muslims from select countries will affect US relations with the larger Islamic world, in which Obama spent much time trying to find mutuality. Similarly, Trump’s rhetoric on energy independence, climate change (withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement of 2015), and scrapping the Iran nuclear accord, if matched by action, has profound implications for Obama’s legacy. Finally, the authors consider the rise of social media and how it has intersected with the rhetorical presidency. Quite appropriately, they call for much more research to understand how media such as Twitter and Facebook enhance presidents’ direct connections with the public, and with what implications, depending on the valence presidents employ.

In Chapter 3, Karen A. Feste assesses shifts in terrorism strategy from the administration of George W. Bush to Barack Obama. Obama, she posits, aspired to be a transformational and reconstructive president in national security. He set out to repudiate the policies of his predecessor largely through the bully pulpit. He emphasized “soft power” over “hard power” in terms of military force. He endeavored to change the vocabulary and narrative from “the war on terror” to “countering violent extremism” as a means to avoid unnecessary confrontation with the Muslim world and to begin to temper polarization at home and abroad. To do so, he relied largely on oratory in the bid to alter public views.

In the final analysis, Feste’s provocative thesis that Obama, unlike George W. Bush, was a transactional leader whose rhetoric was insufficient to alter course significantly or change public opinion dramatically may prove controversial. One central factor she identifies was the deficiency of rhetoric to make collective sense of homegrown terror and “lone-wolf” attacks at home and abroad, not to mention the rise of ISIS and its brutality, which ratcheted up over the course of Obama’s second term. Borrowing from Skowronek’s (2011) theoretical frame of “political time,” she argues that Obama was caught in a certain cycle of history that precluded him from reconstruction and instead compelled him toward the politics of “preemption.” Shifting from the “politics of articulation” early in his presidency, Obama “reiterated basic operation norms and operating premises on US counterterrorism formulated by former president Bush as he introduced specifics of his new programs and direction.”

Bush, according to Feste, did not set out to be a reconstructive president but embraced the task after 9/11. Alas, we are left to ponder a central conundrum with respect to the modern presidency, counterterrorism strategy, and national security policy. Under what conditions is the politics of reconstruction in this realm possible? Is it the product of events and the constraints of inalterable historical circumstances, or can presidents follow the prescriptions of Richard Neustadt (1991), who emphasized presidential persuasion and bargaining in his classic book Presidential Power? Or is the “rhetorical presidency” on its death bed as presidents’ pleas fall “on deaf ears,” as George C. Edwards III (2006) suggests?

Perhaps the Trump presidency will offer important insights in the coming months. Trump pledged a wholesale reversal of national security policy during his 2016 campaign. Once in office, however, he has recoiled to a large degree. He jettisoned labeling China a “currency manipulator” to secure President Ji Xinping’s assistance against the rogue leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, who is bent on developing ballistic missile technology capable of delivering nuclear weapons across the Pacific. Furthermore, after calling the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) obsolete, Trump reassured Europeans of his support after leaders promised to step up efforts against ISIS—and the president came to realize the contributions of the Atlantic Alliance in Afghanistan since 9/11. Finally, though he promised a more restrained foreign policy, his ordering of air strikes on a Syrian air base in early April 2017 following Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians represented another volte-face. Critics see policy incoherence, supporters flexibility. Whether the end result is the politics of reconstruction, consolidation, decay, or preemption in the Trump era remains an open question.

In Chapter 4, Louis Fisher reviews military initiatives undertaken by President Obama from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya and ISIS. His skilled analysis underscores the obvious complexities and subtle intricacies—strategic, statutory, and constitutional—of Obama’s actions as he operated under legislative frameworks (i.e., Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, 2001 and 2002) dating to the early post-9/11 era designed to combat the Taliban in particular. Embedded in Fisher’s detailed study is the solemn and paramount question of the war power and the constitutional balance between the executive and the legislature.

As a candidate for the Oval Office, Obama articulated positions on the war power relatively consistent with an “originalist” view of the executive’s scope of authority. Perhaps not surprisingly, as a constitutional law professor, his rhetoric accentuated respect for the separation of powers and limitations on presidential military action absent approval by Congress. As Fisher notes, Obama rebuffed the Bush-era notion that “that the president may do whatever he deems necessary to protect national security” and criticized his predecessor’s challenges to interpretations of the war power that ran counter to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Most critically, Obama elaborated that military initiatives by the United States were most successful historically when approved by the legislative branch.

Once in office, Obama found the precepts he so elegantly voiced problematic in the course of rapidly changing international events. The Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan prompted his deployment of 17,000 troops to ward off further advances and to bring stability to the country. In Iraq, despite continuing turmoil, battling insurgents was complicated by a Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by his predecessor that called for the removal of all US troops by the end of 2011. In Libya, he supported NATO intervention via air strikes against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime under the auspices of a UN resolution. When Congress raised objections that the actions were inconsistent with the War Powers Resolution, the president cited humanitarian concerns and dismissed bipartisan objections on the “limited basis” of the military action. In Syria, Obama unsuccessfully sought congressional support for military action against the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons against civilians; instead, he turned to Russia to broker an accord seeking to rid the country of its arsenal.

Obama’s military offensives against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the constitutional issues they raise, are central to Fisher’s discerning analysis. The prospect of a protracted military engagement differentiated the operations against ISIS that commenced in August 2014 from the limited strikes in Libya, for example. The Obama administration justified action on the basis of the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. However, the 2001 authorization never contemplated presidential authority against future terrorist organizations, and the 2002 authorization against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was wholly based on the false precept that the Baathist dictator was harboring weapons of mass destruction. In the final analysis, Fisher posits that the Obama administration’s legal and constitutional reasoning fell short, though Congress missed the opportunity to authorize military action that could have provided the president greater legitimacy, if not moral authority, in the battle against ISIS or other rogue regimes.

Indeed, military action against ISIS without explicit congressional approval formed the basis for a lawsuit that received scant attention in the media. In essence, Captain Nathan Smith believed his oath to preserve, defend, and protect the Constitution was in direct conflict with military actions the president ordered, which were not authorized by Congress and putatively violated the tenets of the War Powers Resolution adopted in 1973 (operations had exceeded the 60-day period of mandated presidential reporting to Congress). Captain Smith’s case was ultimately dismissed by a federal circuit court on the basis that his litigation represented “political questions” and matters of foreign relations inappropriate for judicial review. Yet, as Fisher notes, “the district court recognized that questions of statutory construction and interpretation are committed to the judiciary” even if it “declined to analyze the War Powers Resolution, the 2001 AUMF, and the 2002 AUMF.”

Fisher’s analysis encourages us to reconsider anew and reconnect with the fundamental debates about the war power that first began in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, have continued through controversial judicial decisions such a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction: The National Security Transition From Obama to Trump
• 2 Rhetoric, Public Politics, and Security
• 3 Terrorism Strategy Shifts From Bush to Obama
• 4 Military Initiatives by President Obama
• 5 Obama’s National Security Cabinet: The Fight to Survive White House Micromanagement
• 6 Obama and Guantanamo: The Intractable—and the Internal—Dilemma
• 7 Attack of the Drones: National Security, Due Process, and the Constitutionality of Unmanned Strikes
• 8 Obama, Unilateral Diplomacy, and Iran: Treaties, Executive Agreements, and Political Commitments
• 9 US–Russian Relations During the Obama Presidency: From Reset to a New Cold War?
• 10 The Clash of Civilizations and the Clash of Candidates: The 2016 Election
• Appendix A. US Domestic Terrorism, 2009–2016: Attackers Using Political Islam Justification
• Appendix B. Selected Speeches of President Obama, 2009–2017: Counterterrorism Policy
• Index