Coletta, Damon, and Paul Carrese

Abstract
The end of Pres. Barack Obama’s first term coincided with the five hundredth anniversary of The Prince (1513) by Niccolò Machiavelli. Some analysts combined these milestones and praised the president’s foreign policy performance as heeding Machiavelli’s classic advice: the president, impressively, adapted lessons of The Prince in crafting a realistic and prudent first-term grand strategy. Avoiding major war or new commitments, he never agonized over legal or moral niceties when focused violence was necessary, as in the operation to eliminate Osama bin Laden. In the second term, however, the president’s highly cautious strain of defensive realism fared poorly—a verdict upheld by commentary from his former lieutenants. This unwelcome turn of fortune calls into question whether strategy pundits and scholars correctly interpreted Obama’s overcorrection, much less Machiavelli’s imprimatur, during the first term. Contrary to the administration’s recent justifications for “common sense” risk avoidance, Machiavelli’s sophisticated notions of realism and statesmanship demand a strategy that more astutely blends daring and caution, including the articulation of an ambitious public purpose for US power. A genuinely prudent strategy, according to Machiavelli, accepts some near-term military risk to do good—and do well—in the long run.
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