WASHINGTON — President Obama doesn’t mind China being a “big dog” in Asia, and described Russian President Vladimir Putin as operating from a “position of weakness” in Ukraine.
He described his impressions of the world’s power politics in an interview the same day he delivered a formal foreign speech at West Point intended to rebut critics who have slammed his foreign policy as listless. The interview aired Thursday morning.
Describing Putin’s successful effort to annex Crimea, Obama told NPR, “What you saw was a scrambling, a reaction to people in the Ukraine saying, we want a different way of life,” a reference to street protests that erupted in Kiev.
He said the rule of law and US-style economic systems were ascendant, and “the other side is going to be on the defense.”
Asked whether he had the ability to make Russia give Crimea back, Obama responded: “Well, you know, I think we’re going to have to see how it plays itself out.” He said it would be a topic of discussion when he meets Ukraine’s newly elected president.
Obama said he didn’t object to China’s rise as a power in Asia, so long as it lives by international norms.
“At some level, they’re going to be a big dog in that neighborhood, and we welcome China’s peaceful rise. In many ways, it would be a bigger national security problem for us if China started falling apart at the seams,” he said.
On Syria, Obama spoke of training moderate opposition forces that are in rebellion — but wouldn’t say conditions were any better for this task than they were a few years ago.
“Well, I wouldn’t say the conditions are better. I think, in many ways, the conditions are worse. But the capacity of some of the opposition is better than it was before, which is understandable,” he said.
Obama, who has taken flak for saying foreign policy sometimes requires hitting singles and doubles, expanded on his sports metaphor.
“Every once in a while, a pitch is going to come right over home plate that you can knock out for a home run. But you don’t swing at every pitch.”
On the Guantanamo Bay prison — which he has vowed to close but hasn’t been able to amid congressional opposition and resistance from the home countries of prisoners — Obama described progress.
“Just chipping away at it,” he said.
When NPR interviewer Steve Inskeep noted that just 12 prisoners had been released over the last year, Obama said he didn’t want to hand the problem to his successor.
“It is a hard problem. It’s a tough legal problem. It’s a tough security problem.”