Thus far, President-elect Barack Obama should be commended.  Many people, including me, were very concerned that he came from the far left wing of the Democratic party and would be unwilling to really look at all components of national power.  This included both diplomacy and that ubiquitous phrase “soft power” as well as the hard power of military arms.  My fear was that he would tilt too far from the willingness to use force when needed.  In most ways, I thought he would be a mirror image to President Bush who may have been too willing to use force.

However, President Obama’s national security team appears to not represent that type of turn.  Rather, it appears he is assembling an extremely competent team that will adjust the excesses of the Bush years and calibrate a shrewd foreign policy for a time when the waters of international relations seem especially troubled and magnified by the worst economic crisis in a generation.

Here, here, here, and here are several media accounts of this team.  Of course, much press goes to his selection of vanquished democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and his keeping President Bush’s second Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.  However, his selection of retired Marine and NATO commander James L. Jones as National Security Advisor is no less auspicious in its own way. 

Each speaks to an understanding that we can and must upgrade our diplomatic efforts, but that we also cannot be perceived as “weak” by potential adversaries (a point well illustrated by the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks).

Obviously, time will tell how shrewd the incoming President is, however, thus far, he has been politically sensitive and wholly practical in his measured statements on major policy issues and his selection of national security advisors.  I hope the best for this Administration, it will have quite the canvas on which to paint as we are definitely in a historically meaningful time if for no other reason than that all certainty has been thrown out the window.  With capable ministers at hand, President Obama may be uniquely positioned to reap quite the reward and shape a new world.  While failure is always a possibility for any new administration, it is certainly not preordained in this case.

I wrote in a previous posting that Sen. Obama and his seeming “messianism” could be problematic and that empty rhetoric of “change” would not be enough to confront the dangers that really exist in the world, however, Obama seems to not want to fall into this trap.  He is showing that he does “get it” and is willing to do what is necessary to be a success in the real world as well as the campaign trail.