Obama's Grand Strategy

This article opens by questioning Obama's grand strategy, or what is seen as a lack of strategy. Being the successor of President Bush with an extremely clear grand strategy, although not exactly a great one, it is hard to make your strategy as vocal. I found it rather interesting that Drezner dropped the line, "Grand strategies are not nearly as important as grand strategies like to think, because countries tend to be judged by  their actions, not their words." A country can say what it wants, but it will over all do whats in their best interest.
        Now, with that said, Obama did in fact have a grand strategy, or two. The first one was a multilateral retrenchment, designed to curtail our overseas commitments, restore its standing in the global sphere, and shift burdens away from the US and onto global partners. Unfortunately, although it sounds good, it has accumulated underwhelming policy results.
       His second strategy is focusing on "counterpunching", the administration willing to assery its influence and ideals across the golbe when challenged by other countries, how unlike America, and using this as an opportunity to reassure allies and signal resolve to our rivals.  But again, this has not been strongly articulated. It is observed that if Obama and his advisers don't clearly define the strategy and implement it directly, that it will just give more leeway for critics to define it as unsucessful. It seems to be that matching up a global policy with the rhetoric of a simplistic US foreign policy may not be the easiest thing to accomplish. Relationships can often be more then just "enemies" "friends" or "rivals" with deep historic, political, and economic backgrounds that aren't exactly friends or foes, Saudi Arabia for example, they are our "friend" because of oil, but they go against every ideal we "stand for" as a nation.
      Aside from all of that, renewing the United State's domestic strength may be a more salient problem. Some say poltics stop at teh water's edge, but with the administration arguing that the key to United States foreign policy is in fact domestic economy, then this increases the likelihood of domestic unrest. If demographic and politcal shifts occur within the United States, it makes it a bit more difficult to build and support a liberal internationalist based grand strategy. An economic downturn is one way to discourage the rest of the world from engaging with Americans, making any activist foreign policy a tough seller, without a strong economy, why would another nation want of acts of activism if we don't have a solid foot to stand on in the first place?
       The administration has adopted the "leading from behind" method in its grand strategy, which honestly, I am not sure if it is helping or hurting us. Economically, I would hope to say that it is helping by not putting our boots on the ground if it is not absolutely necessary. Although, Libya kind of sticks out in this sense, granted it is justified, but Libya was not exactly a core national interest, making it hard for Obama to explain his foreign policy while justifiying the first war he seems to have started.
        Since Obama is not clearly defining his strategy, this gives headway to foreign policy critics and political opponents to define it for him, which is absolutely not helping him at all. Allowing your critics to tell the public what you are doing, is never the right way to convey.... well, anything. After sending in the US Special Forces to eliminate bi Laden. Obama did in fact gain more public support for his foreign policy, but if he does not define a clear strategy himself, it will be difficult to get Americans onboard with him.