Obama Foreign Policy Doctrine: Preparing America to Succeed in Multipolar World

Abstract

The article aims to explain the foreign policy doctrine of the Barack Obama administration, describe the core principles and assumptions it is based on and in this context, analyze the concrete steps it undertook in international relations. It is well-known that Barack Obama's foreign policy is based on an important recognition. Namely, the world has become much more multipolar today than it was even ten years ago. This means that America can no longer be the only state that dictates its order to the world. Therefore, America should no longer be the only state responsible for providing the global "public goods" as well. However, world still needs the US's leadership. Today, America is the only state that possesses the necessary power and influence to lead in dealing with the issues, such as the maintenance of the open and stable economic system, climate change and global warming, nuclear proliferation, the fight against international crime etc., and succeed in involving all relevant global players in the process as they are common for all. The US leadership, as well as the peaceful evolution of the international order depends on how America succeeds to engage the world's leading states into the cooperation for resolution of these issues. The most important challenge for the United States in the 21st century, however, will be the reforming of the current world order that is a kind of a hierarchical liberal institutionalism, based on the American hegemony, experiencing a legitimacy crisis in today's world. In this way America will, for the third time in its existence, continue to lead in the formation of an international order that will be an open, rule-based, evolutional form of the liberal institutionalism, where the newly emerging powers will manage to pursue their vital interests and this fact, together with American leadership will be the guarantor for the stability of the new international order.