Crisis

This chapter examines how Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama reacted when their foreign policy strategies were tested by crises and unexpected events. This chapter revisits Eisenhower’s aid to besieged French forces at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954. It also discusses his handling of two crises in October 1956 over Suez and the Soviet invasion in Hungary, just days before his reelection. It examines how Bush led the United States during the critical period of 1991—with the aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union after a failed coup in August 1991. Finally, the chapter also analyzes how Obama approached the Arab Spring, which started in 2011, specifically focusing on his response to conflicts in Libya and Syria.

Worldview

This chapter looks closely at Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama’s leadership styles and worldviews. It asks how presidents from different backgrounds and life experiences ended up in the White House embracing a similar centrist approach to foreign policy. It explores how these leaders saw themselves, tracing how their worldview evolved. It speculates on what experiences shaped them, looking particularly at Eisenhower’s work in Panama in the 1920s, Bush’s tenure as US Ambassador to China in the 1970s, and Obama’s early childhood in Indonesia in the 1960s. It also explores some of the shared attributes of their leadership worldview, specifically pragmatism, empathy, and tragedy.

Introduction

This chapter explores the centrist tradition that unites Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama, revealing a distinct foreign policy lineage forged by presidents who served during inflection points in American history. It summarizes the Middle Way as an outlook and draws the connections between these three presidents. Finally, it previews the five different angles of statecraft—worldview, strategy, crisis, politics, and legacy—the book uses to study the thematic similarities between each president’s approach to foreign policy.

Legacy

This chapter discusses the legacies that Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama left behind. It traces how perceptions of these presidents changed over time and evaluates how their example of leadership stands in history’s light, making the case for the enduring relevance of the Middle Way. It subsequently extrapolates lessons these presidents offer for presidential leadership and US foreign policy today: recognizing the limits of power; appreciating the value of incremental change, rewarding strategic foresight, maintaining tragic optimism, embracing moderation as a virtue.

Strategy

This chapter explores what Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama set out to achieve in foreign policy—explaining the initial strategic choices they made once in office, how they formulated them, and what influenced their thinking. It analyzes Eisenhower’s effort to build a foundation for US foreign policy in the early Cold War years and devise a sustainable concept of containment; Bush’s attempts to understand the nature of change in the Soviet Union and the possibilities for superpower cooperation, especially how to define American foreign policy after the Cold War; and Obama’s work to promote a foreign policy based on “smart power” and to “rebalance” US foreign policy to address twenty-first-century geopolitical shifts after inheriting a catastrophic economic crisis at home.

Politics

This chapter focuses on the politics of foreign policy. It recounts the bitter, and ultimately crippling, political brawls that Eisenhower, Bush, and Obama fought over their foreign policies. The chapter dives into Eisenhower’s battle with “America First” nationalists and his disagreements over national security with Senators Robert A. Taft and Joseph McCarthy. It discusses some of the forces undergirding Bush’s humiliating defeat after only one term in office, including the wounds inflicted by a resurgent “America First” movement and populist leaders such as Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. The chapter documents the political turbulence of the Obama years, including his defining struggle against those who ridiculed his foreign policies as weak and defeatist. Finally, the chapter charts the role of Taft, McCarthy, Buchanan, and Perot in shaping the combustible politics of foreign policy in the 2010s and today.