A significant way in how the whole world turns actually rests in the hands of US President Barack Obama and his administration. Tempering the nuclearization of global weaponry, harnessing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions posthaste and on a global scale, truly changing the fate of Afghans, assuring stability in the potentially combustible powder keg that is Pakistan, making sure that there will never be another 9/11 ever again, and working in harmony with a rising China are monumental points in Obama’s overseas agenda.
According to Kevin Whitelaw in npr, Obama has a few things, albeit huge ones, to prioritize in 2010 as far as his administration’s foreign policy is concerned. Here are some of those colossal assignments:
The war in Afghanistan has become Obama’s war by virtue of the troop surge that he has allowed. His agenda behind the upturn in military action is military and police capability skills transfer to a country whose level of corruption is legend and whose president was recently seated back in power via electoral fraud.
Obama is working to lessen, if not eradicate, nuclear weapons in the world. He has two top adversaries in this mission, both of whom are stubborn and defiant with their nuclear binges. Obama’s diplomatic mettle will be put to a tough test trying to convince the two regimes of Iran and North Korea to curb their nuclear ambition.
China is rising on the global economic horizon, but the country is out to protect its own skin first and foremost. It will be up to Obama’s diplomatic negotiation skills to encourage China to progress for the sake of the entire planet, not just selfishly.
Obama cannot stabilize Pakistan on his own, no matter how many billions of dollars in military aid he is willing to give the country. Obama would do well to empower the government of Pakistan for it to be in control of its entire country, including the present lawless regions. Of course, he first has to stabilize the capabilities and check on the intentions of the Pakistani government itself.
Obama also has to assert that reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions is a matter of responsibility and accountability of all emitters, lest the Copenhagen Climate Conference merely be an exercise in futility.
Image: Elizabeth Cromwell
Wikimedia Commons
