“Obama was aware of the undoubted influence of Saudi Arabia in the region, an influence that resulted from the absence of a comparable regional power. The rehabilitation of Iran could serve to fill this void and, in accordance with the strategy followed, could result in a situation where these two regional players cancelled each other out”. Obama also actively engaged his interest in the emerging countries, in particular, in the Asia-Pacific region. Sharing the concern of those countries with regard to Chinese expansionist ambitions in the region, he committed the United States to strengthening the network of alliances in the region in accordance with the “pivot” strategy. Professor Santander Cites the agreements concluded with States in the vicinity of China such as India, South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia. It should also be noted that, based on this policy, the United States backed the Indian candidate for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Finally, because Asia has become a strong actor economically and commercially, a transpacific partnership programme (TPP) was created while excluding China. This future free-trading area will be similar to the United States and other American countries such as Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile with the countries of Oceania (Australia, New-Zealand) South-East Asia (Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei) and East Asia (Japan).

“Light footprint”

Finally, while the interventionism of his predecessor had been lauded, Obama engaged in a more discrete method of combatting terrorism known as the “light footprint” approach. This term means that maximum use of technological resources was made with the aim of reducing the human cost life to “zero deaths”. Therefore under the Obama regime the use of combat drones was multiplied by ten. Some of the Sahel countries or countries of the Horn of Africa such as Djibouti serve as a Launchpad for these drones for many kinds of operations including “secret” and sometimes illegal wars. The latter point leads us to draw the conclusion that the Bush and Obama administrations were not so different after all because in both cases, there is the belief that it is legitimate to resort to force outside of all legal constraints when pursuing the enemies of America deem such a course of action necessary. In a more general way, Professor Santander draws attention to a certain form of continuity between consecutive Whitehouse administrations: “It should be noted that Bush’s advisors were already there at the time of Nixon. Therefore there are links between the different administrations. Administrations that completely erase the past are very rare”. This is food for thought in the context of the forthcoming American elections.