I have found that the Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics actually has no analogue in foreign policy. Regardless, it is a good way to describe Obama’s foreign policy doctrine. Call it the Uncertainty Doctrine.
Businesspeople and economists make a good case that the uncertainty of Obama’s domestic policies has slowed the economic recovery. The private sector does not know when and for what they will next be taxed or regulated, what the new health care law visited upon them means for the economy. The anxiety causes a freeze in economic growth.
So too with Obama’s uncertainty foreign policy doctrine. Allies and adversaries have no idea what we will do next and are acting accordingly.
~~~ Just as uncertainty in economic policy can make an economy sputter, so too has Obama’s uncertainty doctrine made the world a more dangerous place. With no one else to do the chores, the United States must lead with certainty. The rest of the world may complain about our arrogance, but that is better than complaining about utter chaos.
Blogpost at Shadow Government
The Shadow Government blog makes many good points.
I have studied history and have found only one place where the uncertainty doctrine makes sense: war.
During war it is totally unwise to let your opponent know what you will do next.
Best to keep them guessing and having to prepare for EVERY contingency
Unfortunately, with Obama, the one place we do not have the uncertainty doctrine in practice IS IN WAR!
Obama telegraphs our every move to our enemies.
Al Qaeda and the taliban know when we will be leaving, don’t they.
Both certainty and uncertainty have their place in foreign policy… Schelling’s ‘Strategy of Conflict’ is a great read in that regard. I don’t think much of Obama’s foreign policy but in this case I’d rather see a more specific critique. Nixon’s ‘Madman Strategy’ was also predicated on uncertainty and I would expect a lot of people who dislike Obama to endorse his approach.
We are involved in a gigantic war inside and outside this country. Inside, instead of Republicans working with the President—as we learned in high school as the appropriate thing to do when one side won—Conservatives do everything imaginable to drag Obama down, strictly for ideological reasons. This war is culminating in the campaign for election in November—with each side slinging as much mud as possible.
A similar state is occurring on the international scene with trying to satisfy our number one lender (China), while at the same time figuring out what we need to do to bolster our own economy amidst seemingly a unrecoverable manufacturing market. To accomplish this feat without falling into the austerity trap that Europe seems the prefer, followed closely by the American conservatives (who normally despise everything about European economics—anyway, that’s what they say).
As for broadcasting every move in of our Middle-eastern war plans, Obama did manage to keep the plan to eradicate Osama bin Laden secret, right? So, maybe, he is not so stupid as conservatives think—after all, he did what Bush couldn’t do in his entire term.
Let’s see, the President is trying to Liberal1 instill Communism under a different name within the States. So yeah I don’t think many Republicans with a lick of knowledge about History want to help him on that.
The only wars within the Nation so far has been the Democrats and compliant RINOs assaulting the middle class and demanding the markets and the middle class earn less and pay higher taxes so loyalist voters to Democrats get bigger Welfare payments.