Leadership for the Energy Transition: Developing Socially and Economically Shared Objectives and Contracts to Ensure A Green Future - Part 2: Enabling Successful Collaboration

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

In the first part I talked about the current challenge we are confronted with regarding the transformation of our economic system to fight climate change. I argued that we have to move from a linear take-make-waste economic model to a circular economy in which as many resources as possible stay within in the cycle, where they are re-used and re-“cycled”. I argued that this system changes will cause a shift in the roles of its actors. Rather than being focused on one single role with a limited set of objectives, private citizens, companies and the government have to widen their perspective and become much more strongly involved in every aspect of energy production and consumption. Glocalization leads to the civil society becoming prosumers – consumers and producers at the same time which requires a much stronger sense of personal autonomy amongst private citizens. In what follows, I want to continue by giving some ideas of why strong collaboration between actors is particularly necessary for moving on to a sustainable energy production system and which implications this might have for individuals, politicians and firms.

A rather simple but vital argument why citizens, businesses and governments must enhance their collaborative ties in order to transform our energy system deals with the necessity and importance of space, which already has been described extensively in energy-related and spatial planning academic literature. In a fossil-fuel based energy system, space is not a critical issue as most of the activity regarding extraction and storage happen underground - think about petrol stations. The new energy system is based on energy sources like solar, wind or hydro power, all of them above the ground, visible and highly space-consuming. To produce the amount of energy we need in a sustainable manner a much bigger area on the surface must be occupied in total by power plants than before, which in turn affects people who live in the surrounding. Solar panels on rooftops or windmills in the field are just two examples. Naturally, this will create controversies and induce public interest. NIMBY – not in my backyard – has become a dictum. Residents fight against energy plants in their backyards, especially when they do not enjoy economic benefit from it but have to bear with its visual effects. Therefore, it is more important than ever to include everybody in the decision-making processes, from private citizens over firms to the government. 

A transformative change of that kind requires participation and shared responsibility of all actors to achieve acceptance and make it successful.  A bundling of resources is necessary. Capital and technological resources are mainly possessed by companies and partly the government, whereas a decentralized production requires the use of space possessed (or controlled) by private citizens. This underpins the importance of a working democratic system. People must have the feeling of being included in the decision-making processes and must have a possibility to induce or prevent changes. Carolyn M. Hendriks from The Crawford School of Economics and Governance, who examined the accessibility of network governance in Dutch energy transition management is a proponent of more inclusion in the system and argues that “[i]nclusion of this kind requires the involvement of both functional representatives from affected groups, as well as descriptive representatives from affected populations. She argues that network governance can become more inclusive by providing “effective opportunities for policy actors, marginalized groups and citizens to participate in issues and decisions that affect them”.  They must feel responsible for their own fate, or as Eyre states it, it is necessary to “reconceptualiz[e] […] the user role as an active shaper of markets “. The government has to juggle between its responsibility to ensure enough freedom for firms to make innovation happen and increasingly involve citizens in decision-making, but it must also have enough power to ensure that unpopular decisions are executed, like the abandonment of subsidies for fossil fuels and the resulting obsolescence of old business models or the construction of large power plants. This shows how difficult good governmental work with regards to the energy transition is and calls for a very strong sense of leadership and persuasiveness amongst political leaders.  As every transition this one will also hurt some people – in every case in the short-term, hopefully not in the long-term. The often-cited coal industry is only one sector where people will have to be trained in different jobs. The government must work closely with the education sector and businesses to put people back to work who lost their job because of the energy transition - they must be trained in different jobs. 

In conclusion, the transition to a sustainable energy system is truly transformative. It will affect everyone, and everyone will affect it. It is part of an even more comprehensive transformation, namely the transformation of our economic system to a circular economy. It will be organized bottom-up and decentralized instead of top-down. It requires different resources than we are used to in the old system which are provided by different actors, especially space. Therefore, it must reach acceptance in all parts of our society and different actors must work together closely. They have do develop shared values and responsibilities and they must be willing to achieve the same objective.  

What does that mean practically? Politicians must show a different leadership style. They must emphasize the need for a renewed sense of self-responsibility of citizens. The extensive expansion of welfare systems in many Western countries over the last century has visibly led to a tremendous improvement of peoples´ lives. However, it appears that in this relatively short period of human history people got too used to being secured by the government in case of distress. As important a working social welfare system is – the transition of our economic system requires a shift in the thinking of all of us and an increased sense of personal autonomy. 

The right education is in this context of utmost importance. People should be educated about the aspects of energy and the energy transition and they must also be trained in a way to be able to respond to instant changes in the economy. Teaching economic and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in schools would be a fantastic way to do so. 

Local co-organizing of energy projects should be promoted more strongly. A good example for how this can look like in practice is the German crowdfunding start-up Leihdeinerumweltgeld.de (“borrow your environment money”) which offers a financing platform for local energy projects. Citizens can, for example, invest in solar or wind parks in their city or municipality built by private companies. It seems obvious that this helps to achieve acceptance amongst private citizens as they are assigned a certain kind of ownership and benefit from the projects financially in form of an annual interest. 

Lastly, there must be a full commitment of key political and business leaders to reach the necessary energy goals. Unfortunately, election cycles of four to five years often do not make it possible to sustainably execute the kind of responsible governmental leadership urgently needed which would provide guidelines for shared responsibility and inspiration for businesses and citizens. 

References

1. Becker, S., Moss, T., Naumann, M. (2016). The Importance of Space: Towards a Socio- Material and Political Geography of Energy Transitions. In: Gailing, L., Moss, T. (eds.), Conceptualizing Germany’s Energy Transition, Palgrave Macmillan, 93-108.

2. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017). Concept. What is a circular economy? A framework for an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design. Accessed: 02.03.2019. Available at:  https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept 

3. Eyre, N. (2013). Decentralization of governance in the low-carbon transition. In: Roger Fouquet (ed.) Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, Edward Elgar Publishing, 581-597.

4. Harvey, R. (2016). NIMBYism, co-operatives and Germany’s Energy Transition. Thenews.coop. Accessed: 19.01.2017. Available at: https://www.thenews.coop/108839/sector/energy/nimbyism-co-operatives-germanys-energy-transition/ 

5. Hendriks, C. (2008). On Inclusion and Network Governance: The Democratic Disconnect of Dutch Energy Transitions. Public Administration, 86(4), 1009-103. 

6. Jonker, J. (2012). New business models. An exploratory study of changing transactions creating multiple value(s).  Working Paper, Nijmegen School of Management.

7. Leihdeinerumweltgeld.de (2017). Legen Sie in Ihre Umwelt an | LeihDeinerUmweltGeld. Accessed: 20.12.2017. Available at: http://leihdeinerumweltgeld.de. 

8. Pennink, B. (2014). Dimensions for Local Economic Development: Towards a Multi-level Multi Actor Model. Journal of Business and Economics, 5(1), 249.

9. Rotmans, J. (2014). Sustainability: Jan Rotmans at TEDxMaastricht. Accessed: 19.12.2017 Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9furIv2jg50 

10. Van der Horst, D. (2007). NIMBY or not? Exploring the relevance of location and the politics of voiced opinions in renewable energy siting controversies. Energy Policy, 35, 2705-2714. 

11. Zhao, P. & Pendlebury, J. (2014) Spatial planning and transport energy transition towards a low carbon system, disP - The Planning Review, 50(3), 20-30. 

Acting Locally, Thinking Globally: What the Anti-Nuclear Movement Can Teach us about “New [Transnational] Modes of Observation of the World”

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

The 24th UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) has just wrapped up in Katowice, Poland. The conference’s main objective was to reach a decision that will ensure full implementation of the Paris Agreement (the so-called Katowice Package) and further lower greenhouse gas emissions globally. Reaching a decision that will appeal to all the signing parties of the Paris Agreement, however, is not a piece of cake; different national actors are still tackling the issue of climate change at their own pace, while the discrepancy in terms of  technological possibilities of controlling climate change between developed and developing countries is still enormous.

Climate change and environmental disasters at large possess an inherently transnational dimension. According to Lorenzo Natali, this transnational dimension stems primarily from their “hybrid character”: “The environmental disasters of the contemporary scenario are phenomena with uncertain boundaries. In a sense, they are ‘hybrid objects’—halfway between nature and culture, science and politics, human and non-human, global and local” (5). It is precisely because of their “hybrid character” that they require us to acquire “new modes of observation of the world, starting from our own collocation in the world in terms of space (local/global) and time” (5). The anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s, as well as contemporary activist groups fighting for the elimination of nuclear energy on a global scale can teach us how to do so.

From Local Struggles to Trans-Local Solidarity

The development of the anti-nuclear movement began during the 1950s, when the international community was still coming to terms with the 1944 atomic bombings of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With these bombings, the final stages of the Second World War left a bitter taste in the discourse on nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear energy which was circling within the scientific communities of some of the world’s most technologically advanced powers of that time.

After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 1950s were characterized by an atmosphere of an increased awareness of the potential dangers of nuclear energy and proliferation of nuclear weapons. It is during this period that the first nuclear disarmament groups of a more political and/or institutional nature were formed. These included the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Peace Action, Greenpeace, Global Zero, Soka Gakkai International, and many more.

However, it is only during the 1960s that the anti-nuclear sentiment began taking a more activist and grassroots turn, developing in tandem with the counter-cultural movements that were thriving across the western world. The counter-culture of the 1960s, together with the increased investments in nuclear energy, “exerted a profound formative impact” on the early environmental and anti-nuclear movement (3). It is also during this period that anti-nuclear sentiments took up a transnational dimension; “The expense and the scale of the reactor projects proposed during the late 1960s made almost every nuclear plant an international undertaking” (4).

Cross-Border Collaboration between Germany, France, and Beyond

During the 1970s, opposition to nuclear energy became a mass movement and “grassroots activists developed a new, politicized sort of environmentalism […]: one capable of probing the boundaries of high politics” (4). Due to the fact that environmental disasters and pollution at large do not stop at the borders of individual nation-states, activists in Germany and France, who were equally affected by plans of building nuclear energy power plants on both sides of the Franco-German border, started developing a trans-local sentiment which successfully linked  “geographically dispersed protest sites” (7). Activists from both sides of the border started participating in protests in German and French cities alike and, instead of conceptualizing the pollution affecting individual cities in France and Germany as a local problem, jointly demonstrated against further development of nuclear energy globally.

Thinking Globally; From Diablo Canyon to Tokyo

By the mid-1970s the anti-nuclear sentiment expanded across the borders of France and Germany: “communities close to prospective nuclear power stations in Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany almost simultaneously found themselves asking very similar questions about the potential impact of nuclear energy on their health, environment, and way of life” (6). During the 1970s, environmentalists in Japan started developing a growing trans-local sentiment for activists in neighboring East-Asian countries affected by pollution caused by several factories in Tokyo which were dumping their waste into East-Asian waters (2). Similarly, in 1979 activists rallied against the construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California, United States.  Activists all over the world were rapidly collecting information from various transnational spaces, appropriating protest strategies, and traveling to protest sites across the globe. Due to its global presence, the 1970s opposition to nuclear energy gradually grew into a full-fledged transnational movement against nuclear proliferation and use of nuclear technology.

The transnational mode of thinking is still present in anti-nuclear activist groups across the globe. The Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes (MCAN), one of Japan’s largest networks of anti-nuclear activists and groups, regularly protests against further development of nuclear energy not only in Japan but also the world. The group’s transnational character comes to the fore most vividly in their emphasis on supporting the elimination of nuclear energy globally and calling for support from activists outside of Japan (1).

Going Global, Going Green

With the ongoing debates about climate change and how to best mitigate its effects, the international political community will have to reconfigure its way of thinking about environmental degradation and acquire a ‘global mode’ of thinking about climate change. Due to the hybrid character of environmental disasters as well as their tendency to spread across political and natural borders, anti-nuclear activists–from German and French activists protesting together against developments of nuclear power plants on both sides of the Franco-German border to protesters in Tokyo fighting against the use of nuclear energy both in Japan and the world–can teach us how to think in a transnational manner so as to jointly tackle pressing environmental issues which are affecting us all.

References

1. “About us.” Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes. http://coalitionagainstnukes.jp/en/. Accessed 21 December, 2018.

2. Avenell, Simon. “Transnational Activism and Japan’s Second Modernity.” New Worlds from Below: Informal Life Politics and Grassroots Action in Twenty-First-Century Northeast Asia. Ed. Tessa Morris-Suzuki and EunJeong Soh. ANU Press, 2017. 77-98.

3. Bess, Michael. The Light Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France 1960-2000. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

4. Milder, Stephen. Greening Democracy: The Anti-Nuclear Movement and Political Environmentalism in West Germany and Beyond, 1968-1983. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

5. Natali, Lorenzo. A Visual Approach for Green Criminology: Exploring the Social Perception of Environmental Harm. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2016.

6. Tompkins, Andrew. Better Active than Radioactive! Anti-Nuclear Protest in 1970s France and West Germany. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016

7. Tompkins, Andrew. “Grassroots Transnationalism(s): Franco-German Opposition to Nuclear Energy in the 1970s.” Contemporary European History 25. 1 (2016): 117-142.

The Good, the Bad and the Bloody

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

Every armchair expert on economics or the Middle East can be counted on to shout “it’s the oil!” when discussing why Saudi Arabia is what it is and does what it does. And when one looks at the headline figures, it is hard to argue otherwise: the Kingdom is the world’s largest oil exporter, has the second-largest reserves and is the de facto head of OPEC, a cartel of oil exporting countries. It is also the quintessential rags-to-riches oil state, defined by irresponsible spending, peculiar national priorities (what is the point of building a 1 km high tower?) and a bloated bureaucracy. Oil has long been the indicator Saudi Arabia’s foreign and domestic policy, but times might be changing.

America, Hell Yeah!

Saudi Arabia’s most important and long-lasting ally is none other than Uncle Sam. In 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud met and stated they would “deal with the world’s problems”. Be it by supplying hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets,  by invading Iraq, or by bombing the living daylights out of a vast number of civilians in Yemen, the two countries have always found a way to ‘solve’ the issue at hand.

For decades this rather ham-fisted approach to problem-solving was, if not accepted, at least recognized. However, the end of the Cold War and the rise of a multi-polar world has meant that the idea that the end justifies the means no longer holds water. America can no longer browbeat its allies into toeing the line, nor stop other great powers from speaking out. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia’s position has been further weakened by two major PR blunders the last 20-odd years.

The Middle East was barely a blip on the radar in the 1990s. With the exception of the Oslo Accords, the region was side-lined by the democratization of Eastern Europe, the Rwandan genocide and IRA terrorist activities in the UK. Then, on the 11th of September 2001, the Middle East, and especially Saudi Arabia, entered the global consciousness. With 15 of the 19 attackers coming from the Desert Kingdom, the al Saud family had some explaining to do. It was a historical low point in US-Saudi relations, and people everywhere started asking questions: Who funded the terrorists? Why is such virulent anti-Western preaching allowed in the country’s mosques? What can be done about it? None of these questions got satisfactory answers, and the bilateral relationship has never really recovered. Both countries lost international legitimacy – one because of its less-than-appealing reputation as a terrorist Petri dish, and the other for starting two rather ill-considered wars.

The Fresh Prince

In 2017, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) became Saudi Arabia’s new crown prince. He wanted to stop the country’s reliance on oil, modernize its financial sector and temper the puritanical form of Islam with which his Kingdom has become synonymous. His plan, Vision 2030, was hugely ambitious: reduce debt, make the world’s largest oil company partially public, and eliminate corruption (so far all of them have seen little success). In the West, though, the most prominent reform involved civil society, such as allowing women to drive and reopening cinemas. MbS was hailed as a reformer, a breath of fresh air, a counterweight to the gerontocratic leadership of the Saudi state. And, for all intents and purposes, he was. Saudi Arabia is unquestionably on the path of reform and is barrelling along frighteningly fast.

With such far-reaching reforms, instability is inevitable. So is criticism. People are bound to disagree, either because the reforms go too far or because they don’t go far enough. Jamal Khashoggi fell in the second group. He objected to the Prince’s authoritarian tendencies and went into self-imposed exile to the US in order to ensure he did not fall victim to these exact tendencies. Unfortunately, he did. It was the biggest test of US-Saudi relations since 9/11, and wiped out all of the goodwill bin Salman had built up with his aforementioned reforms. It is not newsworthy that a Middle Eastern country kills journalists. What is newsworthy is when a journalist with American residency is allegedly cut into pieces and dissolved in acid. That’s behaviour you expect from drug cartels, not from a country trying to change its international reputation.

Beyond Oil, without America

Whether Khashoggi’s comments were justified or not is largely irrelevant. Saudi Arabia has to change its economy and would be wise to cultivate new relationships. Predictions differ, but thanks to electric vehicles, renewable energy and ever-increasing efficiency, oil consumption will plateau between 2030 and 2040, with oil prices likely dropping much earlier. Economic diversification isn’t preferable for Saudi Arabia, it’s necessary. With the world, and thereby America, becoming less reliant on oil, Saudi Arabia’s decades old and hugely powerful bargaining tool will slowly become less effective. Already now, America only imports a small fraction of oil from the Kingdom, but is keen to retain influence due to it’s geographically important location and its power over oil markets. This meant that Saudi Arabian political priorities could be predicted with relative certainty: maximize the value and stability of oil, and keep Washington happy.

The last few years have been different. In 2015, MbS became minister of defence and promptly started a war in Yemen at the request of the ousted Yemeni government. Three years, tens of thousands of  deaths and a major humanitarian disaster later, end is not in sight. The Yemeni war is a pointless exercise in jingoism with little political or economic benefit compared to the horrific costs incurred. In 2017, Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, ostensibly because the small country supported terrorist groups and its relatively good relationship with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s sworn enemy. Finally, there is the already-discussed vanishing act performed on Mr Khashoggi. None of these activities make sense when one looks at the historical reasons for Saudi Arabia to take action outside its own borders. For almost a century, Saudi politics was defined by a clever balancing act involving the appeasement of the country’s religious establishment and courting Western support, while using oil and its revenues to build and maintain influence wherever necessary.

More recently, though, Saudi policy has been dominated by bombs, bone saws and bellicose rhetoric, guided by impulsive reactions to personal insults instead of a considered approach based on politics and national well-being. As a consequence, traditional alliances have been strained and the desperately needed reforms struggle to gain steam.  If that was not enough, MbS is eroding the al Saud family’s historical  strength – its unity. Imprisoning relatives and changing the line of succession aren’t chapters one and two of How to Win Friends and Influence People. He has let ego cloud his judgement, putting the whole reform agenda at risk. That would be a disaster for millions of Saudis and for none more than bin Salman himself, whose political future hinges on the success of the reforms.

Thanks, Obama

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

Every president has defining characteristics of their presidency: Eisenhower laid the foundations for the United States’ famed interstate highway system; Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon; Carter helped negotiate the Camp David Accords. With Obama leaving the White House, his achievements will be compared to the legacies of the giants on whose foundations he has built. As the first black president, he is already in the history books. In addition to this though, Obama was also the first president to endorse same-sex marriage, the first to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, and the first president to visit Hiroshima. Obama played an important part in improving the United States’ international standing after the cumulated disasters of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and the 2008 financial collapse (Pew Global, 2016).[1]  However, despite the fact that the Obama presidency was hailed as a new step for a more united and equal America, he leaves office with a population believing the nation to be more divided than ever(Gallup, 2016).[2] Obama’s legacy might not rank among the true greats: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt, but it is a legacy which will last and a legacy to be proud of. The title of this piece was a phrase coined by Obama’s critics, but the millions of citizens who received healthcare thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the millions of LGBT-community members who can now legally marry and the thousands of troops who did not have to fight another war during his presidency have used it sincerely, and will continue to do so well into the future.

“On behalf of my mother” – Making healthcare affordable

Those were the words President Obama used when signing his healthcare reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), given the name Obamacare by Republicans, into law. The PPACA was the largest overhaul of the US healthcare system since the introduction of Medicaid in 1965. It had the goal of making health insurance more available and cheaper, while severely restricting actions by healthcare companies which many would consider unethical (Economist, 2010).[3]  Despite the fact that the United States spent 18 percent of its GDP on healthcare[4] in 2010, five times more than the country spends on modernizing, using, and maintaining the most expensive, advanced, and powerful army the world has ever seen(World Bank, 2016),[5]  18% of the population, or 57 million people, were uninsured in 2010 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016).[6]  Thanks to the ACA, this dropped to 11% in the first quarter of 2016 (Gallup, 2016).[7] While it is clear the American healthcare system is a disastrously expensive patchwork of presidential executive orders, partisan legislation, and unequal implementation, it has been beneficial for the US economy to implement the ACA. It is often said that prevention is the best cure, and healthcare is no different. Insurance allows people to seek a doctor when complications arise without having to worry that it will bankrupt the family, which in turn means that sick people will be more likely to seek preventative care. If they did not have insurance, the same people would only visit the doctor as a last resort, leading to high costs which are passed onto the consumer in the form of increased insurance premiums for the people who do actually have coverage, as they will need to cover the costs of the uninsured. A study done by Families USA in 2009 shows that the average insured family was paying $1,000 a year for treatments for the uninsured (Families USA, 2009).[8]  In short, then, by introducing the Affordable Care Act, an additional 22 million Americans got insurance, and those already insured could avoid footing the bill for other people. Despite these benefits, the Republican-controlled congress has tried to repeal the ACA at least 60 times since 2011 (Goodman, 2016).[9]  However, even if the ACA was, by most metrics, very successful, it suffers from several major drawbacks, ranging from people losing their insurance to premiums actually becoming more expensive. The ACA requires employers to insure their workers, but for many it remains cheaper to simply keep paying the fines imposed by the government for uninsured workers than actually pay for the workers’ health insurance. This was caused by the ACA’s well-meaning 10 essential health benefit system, which forces employers to insure their employees for things they might not need, such as maternity care or addiction treatment (Healthcare.gov, 2013).[10]  Furthermore, the fact that insurance companies now have to cover pre-existing conditions, ranging from a perpetually runny nose to cancer, meant that premiums rose in order for the companies to offset their larger expenditures (Wilensky, 2015).[11]  This was also directly contrary to Obama’s often-repeated promise of “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” (Politifact, 2013).[12]

The Affordable Care Act has been dragged through the mud and beaten to death by both parties, and both groups have valid points. As with all things political, saying a change is “good” or “bad” is both biased and plain wrong. It is not as big a disaster as the 60-plus attempts to repeal it would imply, nor is it the holy grail which some people claim it is, but it was certainly a much-needed step in the right direction.

Obama’s Middle East

The Arab Spring was a world-changing series of events which permanently changed the balance of power in the Middle East. It saw the fall of regimes in Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya and led to civil war in Yemen, Libya, and Syria. The effects of American involvement in these countries have had wide-ranging consequences, for example the Benghazi hearings which hung around Hillary Clinton’s neck like a millstone during her presidential bid. The Obama administration was also heavily criticized for both its arming of rebels in Syria and its lack of intervention against the bombing of civilians.

The 2011 Libyan Civil War was a textbook example of Obama’s style of leadership, where the focus was on a limited goal: in this case the stated protection of civilians. Central to this goal was the Leading from Behind approach, where the US facilitates operations of its (NATO-) allies, be they France, anti-government rebels, or Qatar. This approach had three benefits for the US: it avoided another Iraq or Afghanistan, it saved money, and it ensured the US would not be accused of acting unilaterally. However, this approach, for all its good intentions, was a catastrophe. After Gadaffi’s death, Obama claimed the US had “reached their objectives” without “putting a single US service member on the ground” (Kuperman, 2015).[13] This meant that there was nobody to maintain the peace after a moderate government had been elected, and the warlords who had previously been united in their hatred for Gadaffi were now fighting among themselves (Ibrahim, 2016).[14] Obama had campaigned on the promise of “no more Iraqs”, and announced the full withdrawal of Iraq-based troops only two days before the Libya operation ended (MacAskill, 2011).[15]  He could therefore not send ground troops to Libya without breaking a core campaign promise, and instead had to watch as the country went from a dysfunctional state under Gadaffi to a failed state under the rule of a host of warring tribes and extremist groups. The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that Human Rights Watch is claiming crimes against humanity have been committed (Human Rights Watch, 2016).[16] It is therefore not surprising that, in an interview with Fox News, he called his handling of the Libya Crisis his worst mistake (Tierney, 2016).[17]

Libya was only the first in a series of massive Middle Eastern headaches for the Obama administration, with the largest and most durable one being the Syrian Civil War. The war, whose origins can be traced back to the capture and torture of 15 boys aged ten to 15, had by February 2016 wounded or killed an estimated 11.5% of the Syrian population (Black, 2016),  with the UN claiming both Assad’s regime and the Islamic State have been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity (Guardian, 2014).[18]  Obama’s legacy will be stained by failing to the stop Syrian War’s evolution from local revolt to a proxy war with regional and global powers supporting different sides. However, the US government’s logic behind non-intervention at the beginning was expressed by the German deputy chancellor, who drew a line between “America’s flawed interventionist policy” and the refugee crisis (Olterman and Luhn, 2017).[19]  Obama, like most people, did not want to have another Iraq, and after the loss of faith in the Responsibility to Protect doctrine after 2011, gaining enough favour within the UN to involve boots on the ground became impossible (ICSS, 2001).[20]  Of course, Obama is not solely to blame for the lack of Syrian peace. Russia has vetoed five security council resolutions, often joined by China, and in October 2016 rejected a resolution which called for the halt of all air strikes (Al-Jazeera, 2016).[21]  Another important thing to consider is the relatively novel nature of the Syrian War, and how it has complicated matters immensely. Previous American interventions, and wars in general, have the purpose of weakening the enemy state to ensure it cannot fight back. This was the case for Vietnam and Iraq wars, and has been the case for just about every conflict in history. In Syria, however, it is different. The Western coalition is dropping bombs on the very country they are trying to save. The growth of social and global media has ensured that the brutality of war can be seen by anyone, anywhere, and it while it has always been hard to justify intervention, it has become just as hard to rationalize inaction. The United States and the West are simultaneously at war with a country, or at least elements within it, while they also have to be responsible for the refugees originating from there. This becomes especially painful when one considers the fact that two countries which have played an important role in lengthening and escalating the war, Russia and Iran, have done “virtually nothing to help” the refugees (Human Rights Watch, 2013).[22] Obama’s handling of the situation has been far from stellar, but the global community has joined him in sitting on the side lines while another Rwanda unfolds.

Obstructing Obama and executive orders

Senator Rand Paul claimed Obama was acting “like a king or monarch” due to his perceived excessive use of executive orders (CBN, 2013).[23]   Historically, executive orders have been used by the likes of Eisenhower to desegregate schools, Reagan to defund abortion, and Clinton to create enormous nature reserves. Their controversy stems from the fact that it allows the president to introduce legislation without consulting congress, avoiding one of the three branches of government. This is obviously not the right way to run a democracy, but Obama has had to run an abnormally resistive government for the majority of his two terms.

In 2010, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican Majority Leader, stated that the most important thing he wanted to achieve was “for Obama to be a one-term president”, although he did also mention a desire to meet Obama half way (Kessler, 2012).[24]   However, it is hard to see say that this spirit of compromise shown any signs of life: according to a 2013 report from the Congressional Research Service, there have been a total of 168 cloture motions on nominations for government positions since 1949, with 82 (or 49%) of those happening between 2009 and 2013 (CRS, 2013).[25]  If simplified a great deal, cloture motions are filed when one wants to avoid a filibuster, which is when a Senator quite literally talks a nomination or bill to death by blabbering on for so long that the time allotted for the bill runs out. An extreme example of this being Senator D’Amato reading from a phonebook for 15 hours in 1992 to avoid jobs being moved to Mexico. An increase in cloture motions is symptomatic of an increase in filibusters or filibuster threats, which are often used to hamper members of the senate from passing legislation. With a senate unwilling to do their job, and a House Speaker who said “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can” about Obama’s health care reform in 2010 (Henry, 2010), [26] it is not entirely surprising that the ex-president felt he had to rule through executive orders. One more thing worth mentioning: Rand Paul’s claim of Obama ruling “like a king” is quite unfounded, with Obama being the two-term president with the least EOs since 1877, and the least EOs overall since Bush Senior (Peters and Wooley, 2017).[27]

“Yes we can”

Obama’s ascension to the presidency inspired a generation. The New York Times claimed racial barriers had fallen, while Eugene Weekly wrote “Our Long National Nightmare is Over”. He ushered in a period of hope for millions, and Obama led the United States through good times and bad, from the legalisation of gay marriage to the nation-wide despair felt after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016. When Obama became president, he only had three years of federal political experience as a Senator from Illinois. Inheriting challenges ranging from two seemingly endless wars to an economy in freefall, it seemed as if the young senator was well out of his depth. However, one death of Osama bin Laden later, one introduction of the largest healthcare reform in 60 years later, and one successful Iran Nuclear Deal later, Obama and the United States can safely say: yes we can, yes we did.