A Post Obama Presidency

The 2016 road to the White House has already wound through one of the most contentious and rhetoric filled primary seasons in recent memory. 

But now, as the nation settles into the reality of a choice between Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, it is time to deal with some hard questions in an increasingly belligerent and hostile world of global politics. 

If the eight years of President Obama's two terms in office will be remembered for anything outside of his domestic policies, it is likely to be for taking the softer approach to global politics and attempting to either to ignore or to appease violent actors in the hope that they will mend their evil ways. 

Barrack Obama campaigned on a platform of change and if this repeated sound bite can be taken as anything but empty sloganeering, it must be seen as a rejection of the United States' role as a true global superpower and the acceptance of its role as a paper tiger on the world stage. 

The new President, man or woman, will confront a world that is threatened by numerous factions bent on threatening global security, each of them emboldened by an administration that preferred to ignore threats to global stability rather than confront them as they fought to assert themselves and undermine American hegemony. 

Whoever wins the election in November this year will have to make a choice either to continue the policies of détente diplomacy and watch the country slide into obscurity or reassert America's hegemony across the globe before it is too late.

Comparisons between the American empire of the 20th and 21st century and the Roman empire come frequently and easily to political scholars and historians on both sides of the ideological divide. 

The Pax Romana of the ancient world became the Pax Americana of modern times as a strong American economy and military enforced some semblance of global peace and prosperity. 

The sprawling geographical expanse, the brush wars against lesser states and large rivals, the culture shifts pulling at the empire internally and the intersection of economic and military power all make the comparison too easy to resist, though few in modern times have preferred the term empire to describe the dominance of global politics by the United States. 

The foes and vices that brought down the mighty Roman empire have also begun to unravel the fabric that is America and it is now an open question whether, as with Rome before, the American empire will fall to the barbarian hordes at the gates or surrender control to those lusting for it in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran.

East Asia now contends with a resurgent China that everyday asserts more claims over the South China Sea and sends cyber spies to purloin the industrial secrets from Western governments and companies. 

North Korea, ever teetering on the brink of between starvation and war, has edged closer to armed conflict through American docility in the face of its constant threats. 

Yet for the first time in decades, Kim Jung Un's political allies in both China and Russia have rebuked the despot for his threats of nuclear annihilation. 

Will the next American President capitalize on this opportunity for diplomacy from strength or will he squander it with more concessions to a madman?

Russia has invaded two countries in the past eight years, first Georgia in 2008 and then Ukraine in 2014, and is now bombing Assad's enemies in Syria, the same fighters the United States supplied a few short years ago. 

The Berlin Wall notwithstanding, one could be excused for not realizing the Cold War had ended given the hostility between Russia and the West, yet it is now Russia that has shown itself willing to expand in the face of European and American weakness. 

Many Russians yearn for the days of Stalin, the Man of Steel, and in Vladimir Putin they have found a man of strength, though brutal and corrupt, to make Russia great again. 

Faced with a Russia not afraid to advance its own interests, violently if given the opportunity, the next American President will need to consider carefully whether ceding more territory and control is a wise strategy to appease the Russian bear or if Russia should be met with the strength of American resolve.

The Islamic State and the murderous ideology of death it represents is perhaps the best bellwether of a new President's mettle. 

The group that President Obama called al Qaeda's JV team is now a globalized terror threat that controls large swaths of several countries and has shown both its willingness and ability to strike in Europe and the United States. 

Whomever America elects President will need to question whether the same policy of pinpoint bombing and proxy warfare that has allowed the Islamic State to grow from a localized death cult to a global threat is worth continuing or if it is finally time to defend American interests and the rest of the free world.

Defending freedom and stability across the world is no small task. 

Donald Trump is admittedly weak on foreign policy experience and what little he has shared of his foreign policy platform proposes greater isolationism, though balanced with a violent response to provocation. 

Trump, who has both praised Putin and promised a trade war with China, certainly projects an image of strength, yet he also seems willing to pull back from the fight and let America's enemies assert power in its absence.

Often as aggressive as Trump in her calls for military action against the Islamic State, Clinton shows a greater willingness to intervene in world events. 

It remains to be seen if Clinton would thrust America into further foreign entanglements in an effort to reassert global hegemony, but her promises to create no-fly zones in Syria, increase sanctions against North Korea and tough dealing with Beijing all point to this.

The next US President will oversee either the continued decline of a once great empire or lead the fight to reclaim its luster in a Post Obama Era. 

In a world increasingly threatened by tin-pot dictators, violent Islamists and resurgent great powers, America cannot afford a half-hearted response or lukewarm diplomacy. 

America must do more to ensure continuance of a democratic order, yet it is an open question whether either Trump or Clinton is right for the job.