Con una delle sue chiare analisi Stephen Walt sintetizza i limiti dell’azione di politica estera dell’Amministrazione Obama. Esposta su troppi fronti e priva di una strategia che identifichi chiaramente le priorità sulle quale concentrarsi:

The lesson here is that there’s no substitute for having a clear strategy and a well-developed set of priorities, especially when you’re leading a country that defines its interests in global terms and is inclined to meddle in every world development Although Obama understood that the consequences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the financial crisis required the United States to do somewhat less (a reality that his hawkish critics always forget because it was mostly their fault), his administration was still filled with idealist do-gooders who never saw a global problem they didn’t want to try to solve. But being busy is not the same as being successful, and frantic activity is easily confused with achievement. If you load up the agenda with more problems than you and your advisors can handle and you haven’t established which issues are critical and which belong on the back burner, then you’re not likely to solve any of them.