President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.
Editor's note: Andrew Hammond was formerly a geopolitical analyst at Oxford Analytica, and a special adviser in the UK government of Tony Blair. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely his.
(CNN) -- U.S. Republican Senator Rand Paul
announced last week that he is taking legal action against President
Barack Obama for "snooping on the American people." Meanwhile,
Democratic Senator Bernard Saunders has asked new questions in recent
days to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) about whether it has
spied on elected U.S. officials, including in Congress.
These related
developments underline that the controversies over the NSA have become
perhaps the biggest issue in the President's in-tray following months of
damaging revelations, from Edward Snowden, about U.S. surveillance
programs -- both domestically and internationally. With the disclosures
doing considerable damage to the reputation of the United States in
general, and particular harm to the NSA, and individual U.S. technology
firms, the President is keen to try to try to draw a line in the sand in
the new year.
Andrew Hammond
Over Christmas, Obama
spent much time during his Hawaii vacation reviewing reform options,
including the 46 recommended in December by the independent White House
Panel. And, he has promised a "definitive statement" in coming days on reforms to the NSA.
The President has already
talked positively about some of the independent panel's
recommendations, including halting the NSA's collection and storage of
millions of U.S. phone records and instead requiring phone firms to hold
this data. However, it remains unclear how sweeping the entire package
of changes will be, nor how well received they will by U.S. and
international publics.
While the White House is
determined to move off the defensive on this issue, this will not be
helped by the continuing flood of publicity that surrounds the NSA.
Moreover, barring an amnesty for Snowden from Obama, it is also probable
that there will be further damaging revelations from the former
government contractor that help keep the issue in the spotlight. The
likelihood of further disclosures is underlined by the estimate that
Snowden has leaked only a small fraction so far of the material about
the NSA that he has in his possession.
This highlights one of
the fundamental issues underlying the Snowden affair: what it reveals
about the changing map of influence and power in a world that continues
to be transformed by economic globalization and the information
revolution, including the rise of "big data" enabled by digital
technology. To date, these forces have generally reinforced U.S.
international pre-eminence for several reasons, including the country's
relative technological edge over much of the rest of the world (which
will decrease over time); the fact that its dominant culture and ideas
are very close to prevailing global norms; and that its multiple
channels of communication help to frame global issues.
However, this emerging
environment has simultaneously raised new challenges, and not just for
the United States. For instance, the potential for sensitive leaks, and
technological advances that have led to vast increases in open source
information for publics, has fueled skepticism of government information
and actions.
Indeed, governments
increasingly compete for international credibility not just with their
foreign counterparts, but also "new" actors such as media outlets like
Al-Jazeera, and other organizations like WikiLeaks. Sensitive
disclosures, and/ or information that is perceived to be manipulated or
propaganda, can undermine the credibility of a country and/or its
government.
In the context of the
Snowden allegations, key dangers for Washington are not just potential
backlash from international publics. But also foreign elites (even
strong allies like those in Germany) proving more cautious in sharing
information and cooperation.
Looking specifically at
the campaign against terrorism, the Snowden affair thus intensifies the
global diplomacy challenge that Barack Obama faces five years into his
presidency. While the President is still quite popular personally in
many countries, international favourability towards the country and U.S.
policies is now generally in reverse.
For instance, among the 22 countries surveyed by Pew Global in both 2009 (the first year of Obama's presidency) and 2013 approval
of US international policies has dropped by about 20% or more in six
states, including China, Indonesia, Argentina, and Egypt. In many other
countries (including Canada, Russia, Britain, Poland, France, Turkey,
Jordan, and Japan), the fall-off is over 10% over the same period.
Drones fuel distrust in U.S. government
U.S. use of drone
strikes on suspected terrorists, in particular, is widely unpopular
internationally. More than half of the populations, in almost all
countries surveyed by Pew Global in 2013, were opposed to continued use of these unmanned combat aerial vehicles.
The public diplomacy
challenge facing the United States is particularly grave, right now, in
the Middle East where support for the campaign on terrorism is
especially important. However, only an alarming 11% of the population in
Pakistan, 14% in Jordan, 16% in Egypt and the Palestinian territories,
and 21% in Turkey, currently have favorable views toward the United
States according to Pew Global.
It is important that the
Obama team begins to turn this climate of opinion around. This is
because, in common with the Cold War, the challenges posed by the
campaign against terrorism simply cannot be overcome by military might
alone.
Thus, Washington must
redouble its efforts to win the battle for international "hearts and
minds." This will help create an enabling (rather than disabling)
environment facilitating both covert and overt cooperation and
information sharing with U.S. officials.
To be sure, some
countries will continue to assist Washington because of factors such as
self interest and/or fundamental agreement with U.S. strategy and
policy. However, the degree to which other states do so, especially in
crucial theaters like the Middle East and Asia, will often depend
heavily upon a mixture of the attractiveness amongst foreign publics,
and the degree of trust and support within national elites, of the
United States in general and the Obama administration in particular.
It would be a tragedy if these relationships become critically damaged by the Snowden affair.
