Obama’s West Point Vision: Or, How to Retreat from Military Intervention and Democracy Promotion
“Ultimately, Obama’s stance represents an accommodation to the current reality that at present, America is unwilling and unable to pay the potential economic, military and political costs of a more expansive strategic and ideological posture.”
The Cold War and the Origins of US Democracy Promotion
“However, previous strategic tensions re-emerged as the George W. Bush and Obama administrations both soft-pedalled democracy promotion in friendly Middle Eastern states such as Egypt when it clashed with immediate geopolitical objectives, and were able to do so because the US government funds the NED and now implements the bulk of US democracy promotion programs. Due to this back-tracking the fall of the authoritarian Mubarak regime was followed by a power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military rather than a pro-US democratic successor elite.”