U.S. for lesser use of force

Stresses multilateralism in diplomacy

U.S. President Barack Obama said that limited counterterrorism strategies combined with a focus on multilateral cooperation would be the centrepiece of his administration’s foreign policy, in a closely-watched address to graduates at West Point Military Academy in New York on Wednesday.

India found but a single mention in Mr. Obama’s hour-long speech. He said that while the world was changing with accelerating speed and this presented opportunities and new dangers, “From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with our own, and governments seek a greater say in global forums.”

The President appeared to be eyeing his two-term legacy in the foreign policy arena when he identified a range of achievements over the last five years.

Changed landscape

He said, “Four and a half years later, the landscape has changed. We have removed our troops from Iraq. We are winding down our war in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda’s leadership in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated, and Osama bin Laden is no more. Through it all, we have refocused our investments in a key source of American strength: a growing economy that can provide opportunity here at home.”

Four tenets

Mr. Obama laid out four broad ‘tenets’ of his vision “for how the U.S., and our military, should lead in the years to come” – the eschewing of unilateral military force unless core American interests are threatened; the top priority of counterterrorism in the world of a decentralised al Qaida; a reliance on multilateralism in terms of diplomacy, sanctions, and coordinated military action; and a need to intervene internationally for humanitarian reasons or to preserve the democratic ideal abroad.

The broad-ranging speech prompted a slew of critical reactions, including a sceptical reception of Mr. Obama’s argument that his administration was “putting in place new restrictions on how America collects and uses intelligence — because we will have fewer partners and be less effective if a perception takes hold that we are conducting surveillance against ordinary citizens.”

Many on social media also pointed out that the very regions that Mr. Obama mentioned as examples requiring calibrated, non-military U.S. intervention — including Syria, the South China Sea, Ukraine and Egypt — were also instances of the U.S. effectively losing control of the outcome.