Obama Buttresses Case for U.S. Resilience With Book From Unlikely Source

Now, as he runs for re-election, President Obama has latched on to a new foreign policy book, which offers a more appealing narrative for a leader facing fresh charges — this time from Mitt Romney and the other Republican candidates — that he is leading the United States into its twilight of global influence.

The book, “The World America Made,” makes the case that the nation’s decline is a myth, a reaction to the financial crisis of 2008 rather than to any genuine geopolitical shifts. In a delicious coincidence for the White House, the author is Robert Kagan, a neoconservative historian and commentator who advises Mr. Romney. The president has brandished Mr. Kagan’s analysis in arguing that the nation’s power has waxed rather than waned.

The truth about the United States’ place in the world, of course, is more complex than either Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney would portray it in the heat of a political campaign. The United States is not the unchallenged global power that it was after the fall of the Soviet Union, most foreign policy experts agree. And China, which is on track to have the world’s largest economy by 2030, will soon be a genuine rival.

The United States also faces a host of problems — global security obligations, towering debt, a tattered education system and economic growth — all of which have the potential to sap its resources and power.

Yet every other country, including China, has problems that are arguably as serious, if not more so. And as Mr. Kagan chronicles with numbers and history, the United States remains the world’s dominant power by virtually every benchmark, with a resilience that has belied earlier predictions of decline. The Soviet Union and Japan, he notes, both appeared poised to overtake the United States at various points.

Although they may disagree about prescriptions for ensuring American primacy, most conservative and liberal analysts agree that the United States has the strength to remain the world’s leading power for decades. That message has permeated the White House, where aides say that Mr. Obama has been determined to rebut the Republican critique about a declining America since before excerpts of Mr. Kagan’s book appeared in The New Republic magazine. The book will be published on Feb. 14.

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr. Obama struck an optimistic, almost Reaganesque tone, proclaiming that “America is back.”

“The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe,” the president said, listing what he said were renewed alliances, a commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, an effective counterterrorism strategy, a stronger presence in Asia, and even the recent diplomatic opening to Myanmar.

“Anyone who tells you otherwise,” Mr. Obama said, clearly alluding to Mr. Romney, “anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned; doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

For a Democratic president facing re-election, there are clear political imperatives at play. Since at least 1972, when Richard M. Nixon accused George McGovern of being a defeatist and an isolationist, Republicans have sought, with somewhat consistent success, to tar Democrats for not adequately projecting American power.

“This is a potent issue in American politics, and has been for a long time,” the presidential scholar Michael Beschloss said. “A Democratic president who does not defend himself on this, woe betide him.”

Mr. Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republican candidates have certainly made it a recurring theme during the campaign, arguing that not only is Mr. Obama skeptical of the notion of American “exceptionalism,” but that he is pursuing policies that will hasten America’s irrelevance.