Noble Peace Prize - Ambitions that will serve us well

IT IS far too early to say whether Barack Obama’s election was a victory for promise over substance. He freely acknowledged as much yesterday when he accepted the Noble Peace Prize in Oslo.

This has not, however, dissuaded those bitterly opposed to the great achievement he represents doing everything they can to undermine him and his office, despite his democratic mandate.

As he accepted the award, he suggested that it was premature and that others might be far more deserving. However, he pledged to continue working on issues that are important for the US and for building lasting peace and security in the world, such as halting the spread of nuclear weapons, addressing climate change and stabilising Afghanistan.

Any one of these challenges is daunting enough but President Obama must also work towards rebuilding the American economy and reducing the superpower’s critical dependence on Chinese credit.

How he achieves this – dare we say, if he achieves this – will define America’s place and influence in the world for generations to come.

Unless he manages to re-establish the kind of robust economic independence that facilitated American ambitions for most of the last century – as well as helping settle World War II and doing so much to rebuild a devastated Europe through the Marshall Plan – it is difficult to see how America can remain as influential as it once was. No doubt the usual voices will advance the usual arguments – more a reflection of a demographic rather than an argument – saying that a diminished America is no bad thing.

Despite this, the alternative may be far less attractive.

Though America never shied away from using whatever resources it had to achieve its aims – especially in Central America – it was never the authoritarian, uncompromising, single-party state that its primary financier was, or as some maintain, is.

No matter how deep the cultural abyss that divides America and these islands is – encapsulated perfectly in the phrase two peoples separated by a common language – it is nothing compared to the vast seas of incomprehension that divide a primarily social democrat, liberal, largely humanitarian and tolerant Europe from even the more open, more welcoming China.

That is why we must all hope that President Obama succeeds in sustaining American hegemony because whatever hope we have of attracting American jobs to these shores, we have little or no chance of attracting that kind of investment from the east where there are almost limitless supplies of skilled and cheap labour; labour that’s becoming more educated by the year.

Even though it is difficult to argue for one kind of imperialism over another, it is very difficult to imagine a Chinese Marshal Plan coming to the aid of a beggared Europe, especially in the light of that country’s relentless accumulation of African natural resources.

The hope represented by Barack Obama was highlighted when, last October, the Nobel committee announced Mr Obama had won the peace prize less than nine months into the job, because they recognised his aspirations to reshape the way the US deals with the world much more than his actual achievements.

It may be that our apprehensions regarding China are based on ignorance and unfamiliarity – the great driving forces of fear – but the aspirations championed by Obama, as history shows, offer the best hope for us all.