American Exceptionalism in the Age of Obama

Brooks, Stephen

doi:10.4324/9780203085165

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…The grand strategy vision of liberal hegemony, for example, the default position taken by the US foreign policy establishment, links the dominant identity construct of American exceptionalism and indispensability to the material reality of US military supremacy and security practices such as the forward basing of US troops in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the global projection of military power and America's command of the global commons (Brooks 2013).…”

Section: Grand Strategy In International Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Obama Doctrine to America First: the erosion of the Washington consensus on grand strategy

Löfflmann

2019

Int Polit

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This article explores the social construction of American grand strategy as nexus of identity and national security. The article first highlights how the identity construct of American exceptionalism has underwritten a grand strategy of global leadership and military interventionism since the end of the Cold War, constituting liberal hegemony as dominant position within the bipartisan US foreign policy establishment. The article then explores the political impact of counter-hegemonic discourses of restraint and offshore balancing under the Obama presidency. It argues that in 'leading from behind' the Obama Doctrine represented a moderate intra-elite challenge to the status quo. Obama's use of exceptionalist rhetoric to legitimate restraint simultaneously exposed the political limits of this strategic paradigm shift, which oscillated between continuity and change. Finally, the article examines Trump's 'America First' stance, concluding that its combination of nationalism, nativism and protectionism has resulted in the erosion of the Washington consensus on liberal hegemony.

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Section: Grand Strategy In International Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Obama Doctrine to America First: the erosion of the Washington consensus on grand strategy

Löfflmann

2019

Int Polit

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“…Soft power can attract followers to negative or skewed as well as positive values. In its least sophisticated form US soft power is based upon an exceptionalist myth (Walt, ) characterized by ‘arrogance and lack of curiosity when it [comes] to other cultures and institutions’ (Brooks, , p. 4).…”

Section: Smart Power: Problems Of Measurement?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Counter‐terrorism, Smart Power and the United States

Eadie

2016

Global Policy

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This article examines smart power, specifically in relation to US counter‐terrorism initiatives, focusing on US foreign aid as a soft power instrument. Economic aid and military aid are disbursed under the auspices of USAID and the military is tasked with soft and hard power strategies that have proven problematic to manage as ‘an integrated grand strategy’. Identifying variables that accurately indicate the success or otherwise of smart power as a counter‐terror strategy is problematic. Nevertheless a tentative correlation can be drawn between high levels of US aid and low levels of trust in the US in frontline Islamic states. This has led to slippage between hard and soft power and un‐smart policy. Consequently a gap has emerged between what the US hopes that the international community will respond to in terms of smart power as a counter‐terror initiative and what actually happens. The US has tended to revert to hard power tools in the face of this gap. I argue that foreign aid must not only be soft but ‘sticky’ in order for smart power strategies to succeed.

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“…En los últimos años tras la controvertida presidencia de Bush y la llegada de Obama al poder, el debate en torno al excepcionalismo americano ha vivido un nuevo y encendido auge 12 . Según los neoconservadores, Obama ha abandonado el excepcionalismo americano: no cree que los EE.UU.…”

Section: Obama Y El Excepcionalismo Americanounclassified

La continuidad del discurso neoconservador frente a la política exterior de la administración Obama

Iglesias

2015

Revista UNISCI

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Resumen:A lo largo del pasado sexenio, la doctrina neoconservadora se ha convertido en la voz más beligerante contra la política exterior de la Administración Obama. Este artículo se propone analizar el contenido de la crítica neoconservadora, una crítica radical, pues no se limita a un disenso menor en torno a determinadas áreas temáticas o regionales de la política exterior estadounidense, sino que se presenta como un rechazo frontal tanto a sus fundamentos teóricos como a su implementación práctica. De este modo, se verá que el neoconservadurismo continúa firmemente apegado a sus principios, con un discurso que mantiene como eje su particular concepción del excepcionalismo americano. El neoconservadurismo sigue defendiendo la validez de sus ideas centrales y se reivindica como la mejor doctrina de política exterior posible para los EE.UU., la única adecuada para evitar su declive internacional y mantener el 'orden mundial americano' en las próximas décadas. Ello nos permitirá observar cómo, pese a su actual falta de influencia política, el mismo sigue gozando de una vitalidad que contradice las recurrentes afirmaciones sobre su desaparición.Palabras clave: Neoconservadurismo, política exterior de los EE.UU., Barack Obama. Title in English: "The Continuity of the Neoconservative Discourse against the Obama Administration'sForeign Policy" Abstract: Over the last six years, the neoconservative doctrine has become the most belligerent voice against the Obama Administration's Foreign Policy. This article seeks to analyze the content of the neoconservative criticism-a radical one, because it is not limited to a minor dissent about a particular regional or thematic area of American Foreign Policy, but it is an outright rejection of its theoretical foundations and practical implementation. Thus it will be seen that neoconservatism remains firmly committed to its principles, with a discourse that is always based on its particular conception of American exceptionalism.Neoconservatism continues to defend the validity of its core ideas and vindicates itself as the best possible foreign policy doctrine for the US, the only one capable of avoiding its international decline and of preserving the world American Order in the decades to come. This will enable us to see how, despite its current lack of political influence, neoconservatism continues to enjoy a vitality that contradicts the recurring assertions about its demise.

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American Exceptionalism in the Age of Obama

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

From the Obama Doctrine to America First: the erosion of the Washington consensus on grand strategy

From the Obama Doctrine to America First: the erosion of the Washington consensus on grand strategy

Counter‐terrorism, Smart Power and the United States

La continuidad del discurso neoconservador frente a la política exterior de la administración Obama

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