One of the promises Candidate Obama made was to replace the Bush administration’s foreign policy with a smarter one — one more respectful of our traditional allies with an emphasis on “smart power.” So, how’s that working out?

Well, so far we’ve been rolled by the Russians while alienating Eastern Europe and Great Britain.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first meeting with Russian officials was marked with the (intentionally?) humorous gesture of presenting a Staples “Easy” button, but with the inscription changed to read “Reset” in Russian — a manifestation of this administration’s oft-repeated wish to “press the reset button” on the relationship between the Eagle and the Bear. But someone at State’s linguistics department wasn’t on the ball, because the inscription apparently meant “overcharge.”

This came on the heels of Russia’s rejection of a private letter from President Obama, seeking Russia’s help with curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for the U.S. abandoning its missile-defense plans for eastern Europe. This could not have been reassuring for those nations that spent decades under the Soviet thumb.

Those former Warsaw Pact nations have been among our staunchest allies. They are quite possibly the nations that value their freedom most, having so recently been oppressed, and have long depended on the U.S. to keep Russian expansion at bay.

Meanwhile, relations could be a bit warmer between the U.S. and Britain. They haven’t always been our staunchest allies (things weren’t so rosy between us at various points during the 18th and 19th centuries), but for well over a century things have been significantly better.

First, President Obama returned a Winston Churchill bust that had been on indefinite loan. Then, when Prime Minister Brown came to visit, he was greeted by an unending series of slights and snubs.

A new challenge arises with China: Recently, several small Chinese boats surrounded and harassed an unarmed U.S. Navy mapping ship in international waters off China’s coast, coming within 25 feet of the USNS Impeccable and trying to snag the cable it was using to tow bottom-mapping sonar. The Impeccable, which is unarmed, responded with fire hoses.

Here’s to hoping the State Department can find someone who speaks Mandarin fluently enough to whip up a “Reset” button for Secretary Clinton to present to Beijing. 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 1:20 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.