In my SF novel, Beyond Those Distant Stars (Mundania Press), Stella McMasters is finally given her first command of a starship.  However, at the beginning she has difficulty displaying firm, focused, and decisive leadership.  She lets an officer continue to question their orders during her first executive meeting.  Sensing her deficiencies, Stella asks her first officer for a candid assessment of her performance and is told, “Our physician is your subordinate.  He answers to you, not the other way around.”  Later, Stella’s leadership is threatened further when she becomes romantically attracted to a dashing pilot and finds herself distracted when it comes to her duties.

These particular scenes remind me of similar problems involving our highest leaders: President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Nile Gardiner, Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, states that Clinton “has been the most low-key secretary in recent times.”  Certainly, she has been upstaged and sidelined repeatedly by figures such as her own husband traveling to North Korea to negotiate the release of two imprisoned Americans, and Virginia senator Jim Webb embarking on a similar mission in North Korea and Burma.  The perception is that there has been a sharp detour around Clinton’s State Department, which has been marginalized and ignored.  Some observers’ confidence in Clinton has been shaken.  “Who’s in charge?” they ask. “Who’s really representing the Obama administration?”

Some have argued that Hillary Clinton is not at fault here, particularly in the case of North Korea  which requested Bill Clinton’s visit and has a contentious relationship with his wife.  Still, the impression created is that of weak and ineffective leadership, a dangerous situation in the shark-filled waters of international relations.  Furthermore, Hillary did not help her own case any when she compared the North Koreans to “unruly children” requiring attention and correction.  Pyongyang’s sexist foreign ministry seized the opportunity by calling her a “funny lady” who “is by no means intelligent.”  The worst element of such an exchange is that it is personal name-calling that demeans and dilutes the prestige of Clinton’s position.

When it comes to President Obama, the failure in leadership may be even graver.  I voted for the man, though I was troubled by his slender resume and lack of foreign affairs experience.  Obama has repeatedly apologized for Arrogant and Impolite America, usually overlooking the historical sins of those he wishes to charm.  To young Europeans in Strasbourg, he announced, “there have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”  To Russian Prime Minister Putin, he said, “I think it’s very important that I come before you with some humility,” and “in the past there’s been a tendency for the United States to lecture rather than to listen.”  Though honesty and self-criticism are admirable, they can be extremely harmful when you are the sole super-power in a world of nations that almost never admits fault or apologizes for anything.  President Ronald Reagan once said, “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only incites aggression.”  This is a truth that leaders—whether they’re fictional ones like Stella McMasters, or real, contemporary ones like President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton would do well to remember.

 

 

 

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