Noah Feldman, Columnist

What Tillerson Won't Admit: The U.S. Has No Leverage

His year-end wrap-up of diplomatic success in fact illustrates American weakness.

December 28, 2017 at 7:56 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Where's the strategy?
Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Bloomberg

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may think his year-end summary of U.S. foreign policy is a tale of success. But the remarkable op-ed article in the New York Times in fact illustrates the opposite: It shows in chapter and verse how the U.S. lacks leverage over many of the critical challenges it faces globally. From North Korea to China to Russia and the Middle East, American objectives are clear -- and the Donald Trump administration has no credible road map to achieve them.

Start with North Korea. Tillerson’s argument is that President Trump’s confrontational strategy has worked. His proof is that Kim Jong Un’s provocative missile launches have enabled the U.S. to get three sanctions resolutions from the United Nations Security Council.