Presents an assessment of Obama's foreign-policy challenges and achievements addressing questions from the outcomes of radically different approaches to American national security to the ways in which fiscal constraints have affected American power.

"Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form in the United States by Crown Publishers ... New York, in 2012"--Page vi.

Prologue --Part I. Afghanistan and Pakistan: the curse of unfinished business. Chapter 1. Blowing smoke -- Chapter 2. "Afghan good enough" -- Chapter 3. The bomb scare -- Chapter 4. Getting bin Laden, losing Pakistan -- Chapter 5. The long game: getting out, without really leaving -- Part II. Iran: the zone of immunity. Chapter 6. The secret war -- Chapter 7. "Cut off the head of the snake" -- Chapter 8. Olympic games -- Chapter 9. "The land of lousy options" -- Part III. Drones and cyber: the remote-control war. Chapter 10. The dark side of the light footprint -- Part IV. Arab spring: the revolts, and the rise of the Brotherhood. Chapter 11. "You sold out the revolution" -- Chapter 12. Searching for the "right side of history" -- Chapter 13. The riddle of the brotherhood -- Chapter 14. What works once doesn't always work twice -- Part V. China and North Korea: the rebalancing. Chapter 15. Restraining the tiger, containing the Kims -- Epilogue.