The Return of Statecraft

How Obama proved his mettle at the G20 summit.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, April 2, 2009, at 6:49 PM ET

---

Vast multinational conferences, like the G20 summit in London, are useful mainly for the "bilaterals"—the one-on-one side-room conversations—and, in these forums, President Barack Obama is living up to high expectations.

Which is to say, the United States seems to be returning to diplomatic basics—a development that in the wake of the last eight years is practically revolutionary.