page_title: Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration / Europe
caption_attribution_description: President Barack Obama talks with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine in the Oval Office, March 12, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
context_page_description: The foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 2009 to 2017, during the Presidency of Barack Obama. The term Obama Doctrine is frequently used to describe the principles of the Obama administration's foreign policy.
  Obama inherited the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, and various aspects of the War on Terror, all of which began during the Bush administration. He presided over the gradual draw down of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, culminating in the near-total withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq in December 2011. After increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan during his first term, Obama withdrew all but approximately 8,400 soldiers from Afghanistan during his second term. In 2011, Obama presided over a mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, the organizer of the September 11 attacks. The number of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp fell dramatically during Obama's tenure, but, despite Obama's hopes to close the detention camp, 41 inmates remained at Guantanamo by the time that Obama left office.
context_section_description: Fabbrini in 2011 identified a cycle in anti-Americanism in Europe: modest in the 1990s, it grew explosively between 2003–2008, then declined after 2008. He sees the current version as related to images of American foreign policy-making as unrestrained by international institutions or world opinion. Thus it is the unilateral policy process and the arrogance of policy makers, not the specific policy decisions, that are decisive.
caption: President Barack Obama talks with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine at the conclusion of their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, March 12, 2014.
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