Much has been made of President Barack Obama’s recent trip to Copenhagen in support of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics. With the votes in, Chicago finished fourth, out of four cities. Before the vote, the question was whether such a trip was appropriate for an American President; after, the question was whether this was Chicago’s failure, or Obama’s.

It is symptomatic of the silliness of the American media that only days after the year’s greatest exercise in multilateral diplomacy, the Pittsburgh G20, the only test of Obama’s diplomatic abilities discussed is his meeting with an athletic association. Thus, trying to make too much of the Copenhagen trip is a mistake. Presidents have made trips to support seemingly minor causes since the dawn of the Republic, and the President’s pleas have fallen on deaf ears just as often. In a few weeks, this too will be forgotten as a minor exercise with minor importance.

That being said, the real interest in this story has never really been the embarrassment of Chicago losing out to Rio de Janeiro, which will likely be a terrific host. The real interest is in the loss of Obama’s seeming invincibility on the international stage. Opinion polls across the globe show the American President leading all other leaders in terms of popularity. World leaders consistently speak about the breath of fresh air and cooperative attitude that Obama brings in place of George W. Bush’s go it alone strategy. The feeling among many of Obama’s core supporters in the US was, “With this kind of popularity, how could we ever lose?”

Yet when it comes to diplomacy, Obama has been anything but invincible. Pleas to NATO allies for additional troops in Afghanistan have gone nowhere, Iran and Venezuela have been at least as erratic and anti-American as when Bush was in office, American ideas for financial reform had been derided by European allies and Obama has come in for criticism for both being too involved and too distant from the constitutional crisis in Honduras. The Olympic example is simply the easiest to illustrate, as “first country eliminated” makes a snappy line for 24 hour news channels.

So, has Obama been a failure internationally? Not exactly. In many cases Obama has been successful, and in many of the examples of failure, there was nothing he could have done to bring about a better result. Instead, the Copenhagen trip illustrates the failure of a frequent assumption in diplomacy, that personality and likability have the power to bring about the desired results.

Especially in the early part of his administration, Bush was well known for his close, personal relationships with leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Saudi Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah. The idea was that friends would be more willing to make agreements than would mere acquaintances. However, these relationships never created the diplomatic capital that was expected. While Obama is not seeking friendships as Bush did, by using personal popularity as a tool to achieve diplomatic goals, he is essentially using the same concept of likability.

The problem with the personality approach is that it distracts from the real motivations in international decision making. No amount of charm can replace state and self interest as the main motivators in interstate relations. Chicago did not lose its Olympic bid because the International Olympic Committee did or did not like Obama. Chicago lost its bid because the US Olympic Committee wanted to make its own television contracts for the games and keep a higher portion of the revenue. In the end, money was the main motivator. Similarly, Obama’s charm cannot overcome the deep unpopularity of the Afghan war in Europe, or the Iranian and Venezuelan leaders’ need for an existential enemy in the US, or the global anger directed at Wall Street for its role in the financial crisis.

To be fair, neither Bush nor Obama relied solely on personality in diplomacy. But as Bush found out by around the middle of his Presidency, friendship can get a nice photo for the papers, but little else. Effective diplomacy focuses on determining the other party’s interests, and then convincing them that their interests are best protected by the proposed agreement. Candidate Obama promised he could better diplomacy by showing the kinder, more likeable face of America. Soon, both he and the American public will realize the inadequacy of that policy, and will focus on a more realistic way of dealing.