Soren McCarty/WireImage.com (Obama); Manny Ceneta/Getty (Cheney)

This morning, even as the man whose misguided sense of justice started this whole “mess” was preparing to beat him back down on the issue, President Obama sought to distance himself more than ever before from the last administration on detainees — and what the hell to do with them. “Decisions over the last eight years developed an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable,” Obama said in a major speech moments ago, “a framework that failed to trust in our institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.”

And despite more answers than ever before on the most controversial issue of the day, the president might as well have been talking to himself when he said “there are no neat or easy answers here.” In fact, when it comes to the thorniest nuance of the detainee issue — not their release, but their trial in Bush administration-invented military commissions — he didn’t offer many good answers at all.

President Obama’s decision to stick with a modified version of these tribunals — “an appropriate venue for trying detainees,” as he called them today — seriously undermines his campaign pledge to turn the page on Bush-Cheney’s deeply flawed approach to terrorism. No matter how many times he enumerates the “swift changes” by his administration to ditch its predecessor’s out-of-thin-air concepts — “war on terror,” “enhanced interrogation methods,” “unlawful enemy combatants” — Obama continues to promote Bush-Cheney’s isolating notion that detainees should be tried in a special, U.S.-executive-branch-controlled system ofalternative justice that lies outside of two proven pillars of traditional justice: the military’s ever-effective courts martial and our civilian court system, which is held in place by the same safeguards of the Constitution that Obama invoked so many times this morning.

Beyond the rhetoric, then, Obama has told the world that America’s definitions of terror remain its own. He says it’s not a reversal? It is. The president has reminded the world of a Cheney-ism: We know terrorism when we see it, and when we see it, we’ll let you know.

Clearly, this approach undercuts our international moral authority on the subject of terror, making our efforts seem less an attempt to bolster international rules and more a continued rationalization for going anywhere and doing whatever to whomever we choose to define as enemies of our state. By continuing to justify an exceptional system, Obama chooses to perpetuate nothing less than an international version of the same sort of dictatorial practices that America routinely condemns “bad” regimes for using within their own borders.

Hedging on Absolutism, More Power in the Opinions of Men

Obama made a point of noting in his speech today that the Bush-Cheney calculation of Guantanamo-plus-military-tribunals-equals-safety has yielded only three convictions in seven years. If that’s his rationale for closing the detention center, then why give the tribunals a pass at all? Here’s a hint from Cheney, who followed Obama’s speech with one of his own: “I think the president will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret for years to come.”

Obama’s smart enough to foresee the Willie Horton-like ads (“designed to frighten the American people,” as he noted today) that the Republicans will broadcast en masse in the run-up to next year’s mid-term elections. No wonder Congressional Democrats voted to deny the President the funds he needs to close Gitmo down by next January.

So the president’s invocation of “decisions based on fear rather than foresight” may have been aimed as much at his own party as at the man following his speech, but the political wrangling, the Guantanamo funding votes, and even Obama’s promises of more procedural safeguards for defendants at his commissions all miss the larger point: America continues to ignore the utility of building up case law with regard to terrorism — either within our own military/civilian systems or across the international system as a whole, where the International Criminal Court remains a wholly untested option.

Worst of all, Obama seems to be letting the tail wag the dog on this one: In order to keep his more prominent campaign pledge of shutting the doors at Guantanamo, his administration is bowing to the immediate challenge of figuring out how to process this current batch of terrorism suspects in as politically expedient a manner as possible. And to the glee of some Republicans, that sense of urgency has led Obama to essentially bless Bush-Cheney’s past use of special military commissions by correcting it only on the margins. “These reforms,” Obama said today, “will make our commissions a more credible and effective means of administering justice.”

What reforms, you ask? And to what end? Less use of hearsay (Obama now wants prosecutors to bear the burden of proving its reliability), more defendant rights to pick their own lawyers, and more protection for defendants if they choose not to testify on their own behalf. These are slim improvements to a system that Candidate Obama once described as “an enormous failure.” These are indications that President Obama feels the pang of reality — that he must retain this extraordinary option for cases he fears won’t end in convictions in standard military or civilian court settings.

This “modified” approach smells much like Obama’s nuanced take on the CIA’s controversial rendition program by which Bush-Cheney routinely shuttled terror suspects around the world to both regimes known to engage in torture and the CIA’s own infamous “black sites” where agency employees or contractors did much the same. Obama has closed down the CIA sites and banned the torture techniques but has nonetheless indicated that his administration will continue the rendition program. It just promises not to send suspects to places where bad things will happen to them.

What constitutes “bad”? Ah, there again the public is asked to trust Obama-Biden in ways not dissimilar to the trust once abused by Bush-Cheney: instead of trusting the rule of law, we are asked to trust the opinions of men.

I don’t know about you, but that’s not my definition of a republic.

Dispatching of Tribunals, More Opportunity for the International Criminal Court

Here’s how I would modify Obama’s modifications:

First, get rid of the military commissions altogether. Any court that doesn’t build up case law — either at home or on an international scale — is a judicial sinkhole not worth digging.

Second, divide up prosecutions as follows:

1. If suspects commit or plot terrorism directly against the United States (and last night’s arrests reminded us this is still happening actively), they should be tried in U.S. criminal courts — no matter where they’re snatched up. Existing federal laws provide sufficient protection regarding the preservation of classified intelligence-gathering techniques.

2. If suspects do the same inside countries where America’s military is currently conducting operations, they should be tried in U.S. courts martial. Terrorism inside recognized war zones (always a subjective definition) should be handled on the spot. The United States military has used courts martial successfully in virtually every major intervention it has conducted in the post-Cold War era, and its Uniform Code of Military Justice’s protection of due process is admired around the world.

3. In situations when neither of those two conditions are met, and local judicial systems aren’t up to the task (because we’re talking a failed state or a rogue regime that either allows such terrorism or commits it itself), the International Criminal Court (ICC) should be encouraged to step in on the basis that such terrorism constitutes “crimes against humanity.” Most international legal scholars accept this rationale — straight out of the court’s founding treaty — as a legitimate entry point for the ICC, so long as further, clarifying amendments are added to the 2002 Rome Statute. The ICC was set up for exactly this purpose: extend the global community’s legal norms into those frontier-like situations where local governments, such as they are, don’t provide fair trial. Where functioning states exist and such crimes are suitably prosecuted, the ICC — by definition — has no purview. It is designed to fill in the judicial “blanks” on a global basis, which is why virtually all of its cases to date have focused on Africa — ground zero for the world’s failed states. Ultimately, I think we should funnel as many terrorism cases as possible to the ICC, encouraging fellow great powers to do the same, because the more the United States can do that, the faster we collectively build up international case law on transnational terrorism.

Having said that, I don’t harbor any illusions about America — that long-serving military Leviathan of Planet Earth — wanting to prioritize the ICC in the short run. So long as globalization continues to advance around the planet, it will generate localized friction (i.e., attempts to preserve collective identity in the face of globalization’s “dangerous” individual freedoms) that routinely manifests itself as terror-based resistance. And so long as America plays globalization’s bodyguard, we will remain the most universally recognized target of such groups. Those are just the cold, hard facts.

Nonetheless, America needs to recognize that there is a half-life attached to the flawed ideological equation that states the following: Globalization = Westernization = Americanization. The future dictates that our days of serving as the No. 1 target of anti-globalization forces around the planet eventually come to an end. With the rise of globalizing agents such as China and India and Brazil, we’ll inevitably see these states share some of that body-guarding burden. And when they do, I guarantee you that America will prefer those states submit to an international legal code of our patient shaping than having them add their own, self-serving definitions of “universal” justice.

History’s clock is ticking, whether President Obama hears it or not.

Esquire contributing editor Thomas P.M. Barnett is the author of Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.

George W. Bush had his “axis of evil,” while Obama seems to find nuclear weapons to represent a kind of natural evil unto themselves — no matter who possesses them. Now the twentysomethings in Prague may have cheered his invocations of “hope” and “change,” and others may bejumping on board, but I’ve discovered something in my years of global-strategy analysis, and it’s not the deadly fatalism Obama describes — it’s the modern realism he ignores: Nuclear weapons are the single best thing that has ever happened in mankind’s long history of war.

Globalization existed prior to World War One, but then nukes arrived with their own “crystal-ball effect,” previewing the suicidal destruction of modern war between great powers. And if globalization’s economic interdependence was a “great illusion” back then, it’s become a rock-solid strategic reality in recent decades — and our recent global financial contagion has only made that more indisputably clear. Meanwhile, the world’s great powers have come to understand that nuclear weapons are for having, not using. And that is why no nuclear power has ever directly gone to war against another.

If Obama simply wants to reengage Russia on further warhead reductions, fine. But it seems to me that his nuclear utopianism is not so much an extension of his youthful optimism as a vestige of the generational guilt promoted by Cold Warriors like Henry Kissinger — “wise men” who seek to end America’s hypocrisy in preaching non-proliferation while relying on nuclear weapons as strategic back-stop. This vision isn’t just a backwards one; it’s a dangerously destabilizing policy agenda that makes conventional great-power war conceivable once again. Here’s why Obama’s nuclear ideals put World War III back on the table:

1. The “increasing speed” of proliferation is a myth.

As far as a world filled with nuclear powers is concerned, we’re just reaching double digits (as in, ten!) with North Korea and Iran. Meanwhile, roughly three-dozen additional states have achieved nuclear power while eschewing weaponization.

Ah, but we are told that when “irrational” regimes reach for the Bomb, likeTehran’s mullahs or Pyongyang’s whacked-out Kims, we enter into a new, far more threatening era. And yet history remains clear on this subject: When nuclear monopolies are ended and existing rivalries are nuclearized, stability tends to break out — time and again.

So, yeah, let’s manage Iran’s ascension to the great-power club (and Israel’s temptation to wipe it off the map preemptively) and encourage Beijing to rid the world of Kim’s war-crime-worthy regime (lest South Korea and Japan go nuclear, too), but let’s not pretend that a nuclear-free world facilitates either evolution.

2. One nuke in a nuke-free world is more usable.

If nuclear weapons are suddenly in short supply by the destabilized great powers, any regime that rapidly fields them would become, overnight, the strategic equivalent of the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

As much as some experts hype the dangers associated with Iran and North Korea, the fact that Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear warheads, while Pyongyang’s potential opponents own them in the thousands, keeps these threats reasonably deterred (Ahmadinejad being no more rhetorically aggressive than Mao was in his nuclear debut).

3. An America with fewer nukes breeds a new class of military powers.

By reducing “barriers to entry” to the marketplace called great-power war, I believe we would actually encourage the proliferation of nuclear weaponry. If Obama and his successors were to withdraw America’s virtually global nuclear umbrella, numerous middle powers would become highly incentivized to fill that security gap.

Of course, the dream would be to include all such states in a global rejection of nuclear weaponry, but that’s not likely if the system’s clear Leviathan (the United States) demotes itself to the status of a de-nuclearized great power. That scenario (Obama’s scenario) instantly elevates a slew of suddenly “near-peer” military powers in a manner that smaller states will likely find strategically unpalatable. As in, they could be blown into oblivion — strategic or literal — at any moment.

4. A new class of military powers breeds a new round of local wars.

The fallout from the collapse of our nuclear umbrella would be as frightening as it would be immediate: the resumption of great-power rivalries and proxy wars in regions once again subject to profound spheres of influence. That would further complicate the strategic landscape and undo so much of the Obama administration’s diplomatic success between now and then.

5. An America without nuclear retaliation doesn’t keep enemies scared.

It’s not that fear-mongering accomplishes much, really. But a superpower needs an outwardly fearless image beyond this one that Obama offered in Prague: “As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.”

Even if the capability remains, Obama’s words eliminate the existential threat of massive American retaliation to disabling strikes, be they directly mounted by nation-states or indirectly by their proxies. And without the threat of our “unhinged” or “angry” response, the U.S. arguably encourages further asymmetrical responses from likely opponents, cyberwarfare being preeminent among them.

6. Getting rid of old-school nukes won’t stop the rise of new-school biological weapons.

This century’s scientific advances in warfare will certainly be centered in biology — not in physics, which defined that great twentieth-century advance known as the atom bomb. These new advances will lead to weapons likely destined to the same fate as chemical weaponry: unusable in any deterrent sense because of their uncontrollability (once unleashed, who knows where they spread?).

So if the only players crazy enough to use warfare’s new scientific weaponry are nihilistic terror groups — groups that don’t care where the blowback hits because their aim is widespread instability and fear — undoing nuclear capabilities won’t diminish that danger whatsoever.

7. The threat of “loose nukes” is for Jack Bauer to worry about, not Barack Obama.

In his speech, Obama described a scenario in which a nuclear weapon falls into the hands of terrorists “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” But the historical record here is equally clear: Recognized nuclear powers do not share technology indiscriminately, while unrecognized ones (e.g., North Korea, Pakistan) are tempted to cash in.

Recognized nuclear states don’t just pass bombs to terrorists, because that would negate the primary reason for having them: keeping the state safe from any attacks by fellow nuclear powers (in Iran’s case, from the U.S. and Israel).

The Obama administration wants to separate itself from the Bush-Cheney legacy of rejecting nuclear arms control while, at the same time, obsessing over the dangers of nuclear terrorism. I understand this. But there are better ways to bridge those two dangers than seeking to turn back the clock on nuclear weapons, which — counter-intuitive as it may seem — have actually kept us free of great-power war for well over six decades and counting.

Don’t underestimate the power of America’s large nuclear arsenal; it constitutes a very big stick that allows our leadership to speak softly as the world’s sole military superpower. For a president of Obama’s temperament and ambition, this is a match made in heaven. Now all he has to do is appreciate it, because with enough on his plate to consume five or six terms, Obama needs to husband his political capital at home and his diplomatic capital abroad to focus more on pressing matters and immediate threats.

I mean, this man is attempting to unwind America’s two military quagmires while finessing Iran and North Korea. As Obama makes Afghanistan-Pakistan his war, he disappoints the Left. As he’s forced to engage Iran more equally, he angers the Right. And promising a “nuclear-free world” preemptively apologizes in both directions. Instead, America should remain committed to the strategic concepts of nuclear deterrence and continue our decades-long policy of being openly ambiguous about the conditions that will trigger our use of such weapons. Because if the threat is out there, America — and Obama — has to remain in control of it.

Esquire contributing editor Thomas P.M. Barnett is the author of Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.