June 01, 2014
Moneyballing Obama's Foreign Policy
President Obama is feeling defensive about his foreign policy. And he is keen to use every metaphor in his toolbox to explain it. In his commencement address last week at West Point, the president told the assembled cadets that he wasn’t inclined to use them much in combat: “Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.”
Several weeks earlier, in a now-infamous press conference in the Philippines on April 28, Obama, an avid sports fan, said that his foreign policy was like baseball: “You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run.”
The pundits didn’t like the emphasis on small ball. And from a reputational perspective, the president does appear to have forgotten the important lesson that Mark McGwire, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux taught sports fans back in the late 1990s: Chicks dig the long ball. Critic John Podhoretz, among others, noted that this vision of America as a singles hitter, or utility infielder, hardly matches the reality of American power and influence around the world. As even New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, hardly an Obama hater, recently said, “A singles hitter doesn’t scare anybody.”
More from CNAS
-
What the government should or should not do to help space industry
Commentary
The COVID-19 economic slowdown will have lasting implications on the new space sector. Yet the United States cannot afford another lost decade of commercial space innovation. ...
By Mikhail Grinberg
-
Time for the US to declare independence from China
Commentary
Americans now know they can’t rely on China or even our allies to produce the goods we need during a pandemic. That’s why it’s time for the United States government to do what...
By Anthony Vinci & Dr. Nadia Schadlow
-
Transcript from Engagement and Competition: China, Technology, and Global Supply Chains with the Cyberspace Solarium Commission
Transcript
On March 26, 2020, the CNAS Technology and National Security Program and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission hosted a virtual panel discussion on "Engagement and Competition: C...
By Rep. Mike Gallagher, Samantha Ravich, John C. Inglis, Carrie Cordero & Martijn Rasser
-
The Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s Mandate to Fix Congressional Oversight
Commentary
The report of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission is finally out—and it provides a fresh look at congressional oversight on cybersecurity. Congress established the commission a...
By Carrie Cordero & David Thaw
