Obama’s Syria dilemma showed that for foreign policy to be successful, the management of information is just as important as the substance of ideas

Last month, after a seemingly inevitable march towards U.S. military invention in Syria, a Russian brokered deal was made for the Assad regime to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control. While many have critiqued what they term President Obama’s ‘improvisational’ foreign policy, Sam Hazelgrove argues that Obama’s actions on Syria are a result of a pragmatic approach that should be seen in the wider context of growing questions over America’s role in the world. He writes that in order to formulate a more coherent foreign policy strategy, Obama’s administration must move to a more centralised decision making process so that immediate national interests can be reconciled with longer term interests.