America’s Extended Hand: Assessing the Obama Administration’s Global Engagement Strategy. Center for a New American Security, June 2010

Engagement is a pillar and guiding principle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. At the beginning of Obama’s presidency, the United States faced a global public widely angry at America and distrustful of its motives. An unpopular war in Iraq and a controversial war on terror threatened America’s moral authority overseas and divided even America’s allies.