10 october 2009, history’s eyes on obama

Saturday 10th October 2009

Its 7am, saturday morning, as I go with the flow of my new rhythm and get up when I’m awake for a few precious hours in my study before the rest of the family rises. Another piece in place this morning, as I plug in the radio, and await to hear about obama winning the nobel peace prize. What to make of that. I wrote earlier that Huntington’s thesis casting the US as a lonely superpower was long outdated, the “unipolar moment” of the “indispensable nation” long gone. We have for a while been in an era where the US is still hegemonistic enough to veto action by others, but cannot itself succeed without others’ acquiescence. Sanctions, for example, work only when others support them - difficult for a hegemon, which prefers to act as it wishes, but can’t. Today, we are even further, and that need for passive acquiescence has turned into a need for active support. Obama recognises that, has acted on it, and as such has fulfilled an essential precondition for peacemaking and progress in the world that did not exist prior to his election. For that alone, he is well deserving of the prize’s undoubted honour. It also sets the bar a little higher, helping to create the image in which the administration will cast itself, adding a measure to which his actions will be judged against: is that something you would expect a nobel peace prize winner to do ? OK, it never worked with kissinger, but look to the rule, not the exception. I think the award was a brave and inspiring decision, and will come to be looked on as an important step on the road to defining the US’s foreign policy stance in the 21st century, as it leads the team in dealing with the hugely challenging issues coming up fast, not least the rise of china and what to do when it calls in its loan to US citizens...