A recent Gallup poll showed that the world's powers were overwhelmingly in favour of an Obama presidency. And Obama has throughout his campaign talked of repairing America's shattered prestige, or rebuilding old alliances and crafting new ones, and of using these alliances to lessen America's foreign policy load, starting with the two wars it finds itself embroiled in.
Easily said -- but when push comes to shove, which of the nations that have happily endorsed his candidacy will want to step up and put its money, and its military, where its mouth is?
World leaders, aware of the news value of being seen with America's first black president, will queue up to grip and grin, but Obama needs them to do more -- and with pockets to let and an army that is overstretched, the US is short on both carrots and sticks as aids to persuasion.
Image: Kisumu residents take to the streets on November 5, as they celebrate the victory of Barack Obama in the US presidential election. Swinging twigs and chairs in the air, men cheered and clapped while women ululated and shouted 'Obama! Obama!' in the village where his grandmother lives and where his late Kenyan father was born.
Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: 'America, we have come so far'
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