Obama's Young Team

The team of key office bearers announced by President-elect Obama is indeed something to watch when the New Year unfolds. The average age is about 55 years and this group will certainly bring a new perspective to the White House. In fact this is about the first time that the White House will be steered by such a large group of post-War leaders whose experiences and perspectives will hopefully bring a new freshness into US role as a leader in world politics.

Hitherto the US has been brandishing its might and roared at anyone who gets in its way. No doubt the US has shown its willingness to sit on the negotiating table in several instances, and North Korea nuclear talks is one good example, but its patience often fall short after a while. Dealing with others in the past by dangling aid and other incentives might have worked, but not so for Pyongyang whose pygmied leader seems to apply a different brand of negotiation skills. The mainland Chinese were famous to the point of notoriety for delaying in coming to an amicable conclusion. They would procrastinating in the hope that the opposite party would eventually give in out of frustration. The Koreans are worse. They don't show what they are willing to put on the table and you end up getting frustrated for coming to the table to talk. Suffice to say, there would have been Think Tanks who would have studied the psychology and the techniques of the Korean negotiating style to be able to advise the US negotiators a key that would fit the hole to open up Pyongyang. However, so far this seems to have eluded the Americans. I had occasion to negotiate in a trade dispute with a South Korean. Certainly there is a difference between the northerners and the southerners, but if the techniques adopted by the south is anything to come by, I can understand the difficulties face by the US nuclear negotiators. The stand taken by my counterparty was that their position was non-negotiable, and there was no such thing as a win-win outcome.

Perhaps Obama's young team would have some tricks up their sleeves that may well undo what the outcoming US administration has not succeeded over the past years. Or, am I putting too much expectations on Obama's new team...