Listening to the President's speech, I kept asking myself what happened to the global economy. What happened to the globalization that has been such an important part of our economic growth in the past 20 years? What happened to American leadership? The President was inwardly focused at a time when that orientation most likely will not solve our economic problems.
The global economic crisis has wiped out 325,000 financial sector jobs worldwide. Greater confidence in the U.S banking system isn't going solve the bigger problem of global confidence.
An investment in energy-saving infrastructure isn't going to help Caterpillar, a company whose sales come from mostly outside the United States. It's a global economic crisis.
"The nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it" was one of Obama's most powerful lines. The President went on to say that he is committed to a retooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. While this is excellent rhetoric, it fails to describe what the vision is for the U.S. place in a global economy.
I wonder if the President saw the Christian Science Monitor article on February 17 with the headline, "U.S. Automakers' Future Tied to the Global Economy" or if anyone in the new administration saw the interview with a Ford executive in Russia who said yesterday that it could take five years for auto sales in Russia to recover, because of the negative impact on the Russian economy of low oil prices.
Certainly, it's valid to argue that a retooled auto industry is important, but that Ford executive reminds us of the meaning of the global economy. Ford’s health is connected to the health of the Russian economy.
In his recent testimony before the Senate, the new Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, dropped a shocker. He said the current global economic crisis is the most serious short-term security threat facing the United States. He said it was even more serious than the threat of terrorism. The instability that could come from rising unemployment and falling incomes could threaten us.
The President seems to have missed the warning of his top intelligence officer. Certainly, it's valid to say the recession is about a single parent who can’t make mortgage payments, but it's a serious error to miss the bigger picture.
President Obama did mention the global economy in a passing way. He said the United States would work with the other G20 states to address global economic issues. That feels like being part of a committee. That does not feel like leadership.
Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana gave the Republican response which offered an even smaller leadership vision of the role of the United States in the interdependent global economy. Early in the speech he made reference to "the economic storms ragging around us." That connected to a personal story about what he did during Katrina — not to a description of U.S. leadership responsibilities. In his words, leadership comes from cutting taxes and smaller government.
Maybe I am too critical. Maybe I was expecting too much, but there have been times in our history other than when Lincoln was president when greatness shown. I wish I had heard more of the kinds of words George Marshall used in his 1947 Harvard speech introducing the American people to their role in a global economy:
An essential part of any successful action on the part of the United States is an understanding on the part of the people of America of the character of the problem and the remedies to be applied ... With foresight, and a willingness on the part of our people to face up to the vast responsibility which history has clearly placed upon our country, the difficulties I have outlined can and will be overcome.
Obama spoke much about the responsibilities of bankers, individuals, and government in this current fiscal crisis. But the lack of focus about the vast global responsibilities we have as a nation, especially from a President who campaigned on a new type of global engagement was shocking. Let us hope that the fiscal crisis doesn’t turn our country inward, ignoring the perils we face from a global financial meltdown.
Sam Gardiner, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is a retired Air Force colonel who has taught military strategy and operations at the National War College, Air War College, and Naval War College.
