How is Obama like Eisenhower?
Will Inboden has an interesting post comparing the two:
While both presidents commissioned major strategic reviews upon taking office, Eisenhower's "Project Solarium" assessed the U.S. grand strategy for the entire global Cold War, in contrast to Obama's strategic review(s) of just one theater: Afghanistan-Pakistan. An accurate analogy would be if the Obama White House had done such a strategic review of the entire Global War on Terror (other than just giving it a new acronym). The Obama administration instead largely adopted wholesale the Bush administration's strategic framework for the war on jihadist terrorism: pre-emptive attacks, holding states accountable for terrorist actions, renditions, law-of-war detainees, support for reformist and peaceful Muslim leaders, and promoting governance and development as long-term antidotes to Islamist ideology.
I'm not sure if the Obama administration has embraced the "holding states accountable" paradigm (and in truth, President Bush didn't either, as such a standard would have plunged the U.S. into many more ground wars) but in general, the administration has indeed refrained from a wholesale overview of American strategy with respect to Islamic terrorism. But why?
