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Obama's foreign policies and rhetoric are a major departure from that which has prevailed in the United States for generations. Republicans have a different idea. (Survival / SWP)

The Bush administration has coined a foreign-policy doctrine. President George W. Bush, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin Powell herald "the new realism." Think you know what they are up to? OK, then fill in the blank: The "new realism" is _______. If you find the blank hard to fill, don't worry; so would most of today's international-relations scholars. Indeed, one fundamental problem with the Bush administration's new doctrine is that "realism" no longer has any real intellectual coherence.

President George W. Bush, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, & Secretary of State Colin Powell claim that their ideology is "the new realism," The authors note several problems with this. First, the ideology of realism itself is shown not to work. Realism is the idea that military power is the driving force in the world. Experience has shown that other factors -- such as economic globalization, political democratization, particular belief systems, & international law & institutions -- impact global politics. Therefore realism is a simplistic model. Bush's use of the realism title may be an attempt to give the administration an image of truth & honesty, in contrast to the previous administration. Another theory for the use of the title is that more military emphasis is actually needed in certain cases, such as the unwillingness of the US to mediate in the Middle East. The "new realism" title may continue, but what is needed more then a label is a sensible foreign policy. R. Larsen

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.