Obama just announced the most anti-war foreign policy doctrine in decades.

[elleng]

(Ezra Klein's Vox)

President Obama made a commencement speech at West Point on Wednesday that the White House had aggressively billed as a grand articulation of Obama's foreign policy vision. This was not the first time he had attempted to lay out a foreign policy doctrine, and few expected much more than the usual vague policy mish-mash — when it's year six of your presidency and you still need to explain your doctrine, it's not a great sign that you really have one.

So it was a legitimate surprise when Obama articulated a unified, tightly focused vision of America's role in the world. And while it's not a vision that will thrill many foreign policy hands, including perhaps some of those in his administration, it is the clearest Obama foreign policy doctrine he's made in years: no war, no militarism, no adventurism. With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter's 1977 Notre Dame speech, it may well have been one of the most dovish foreign policy speeches by a sitting US president since Eisenhower.

Obama argued, directly and repeatedly, that the US would have to reduce its use of military force as a tool of foreign policy. Obama argued that the US could not and should not use military force, including even limited actions such as off-shore strikes, except when absolutely necessary to defend "core interests" or to "protect our people, our homeland, or our way of life."

That's a very high bar for the use of military force. Obama didn't just make the point abstractly, going through several major US foreign policy changes to explain why, in each, military force was not and should not be applied.

http://www.vox.com/2014/5/28/5757630/obama-foreign-policy-anti-war-speech-doctrine

[frazzled]

1. The silence is deafening

I guess this just doesn't fit conveniently into the narrative here.

[elleng]

2. Mebbe, frazzled,

but it's posted elsewhere! Will find it.

Got it. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025014216

NOW I MAY read the posts!

[frazzled]

3. Heh, thanks

I guess no one reads this forum much.

[Doctor_J]

5. I would prefer to wait and see if he follows through on this

He has a habit of announcing populist policy visions and then enacting same-old-same-old practices (comfortable shoes). I know this doesn't fit conveniently into the narrative here, but your victory lap is a tad premature. If it actually comes to pass, I will join you then.

[Maedhros]

4. His words do not jibe with his actions with respect to Africom:

http://www.thenation.com/article/179050/why-us-military-averaging-more-mission-day-africa

The numbers tell the story: ten exercises, fifty-five operations, 481 security cooperation activities.

Whenever one considers U.S. military operations, what the Government says...

For years, the US military has publicly insisted that its efforts in Africa are small scale. Its public affairs personnel and commanders have repeatedly claimed no more than a “light footprint” on that continent, including a remarkably modest presence when it comes to military personnel. They have, however, balked at specifying just what that light footprint actually consists of. During an interview, for instance, a US Africa Command (AFRICOM) spokesman once expressed worry that tabulating the command’s deployments would offer a “skewed image” of US efforts there.

...means very little.

What the Government does is what is important:

It turns out that the numbers do just the opposite.

Last year, according AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez, the US military carried out a total of 546 “activities” on the continent—a catch-all term for everything the military does in Africa. In other words, it averages about one and a half missions a day. This represents a 217 percent increase in operations, programs and exercises since the command was established in 2008.

The current Administration has overseen a tripling in military activities in Africa while simultaneously claiming only a "light footprint" there.

In addition, the Administration is prolonging our involvement in Afghanistan to at least 2016 and has budgeted $400 million to finance “Expeditionary Warfare; Irregular Warfare; Special Operations; Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations.”:

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/28/exclusive_new_document_details_americas_war_machine_and_secret_mass_of_contractors_in_afghanistan/

On Tuesday, following his surprise Memorial Day visit to Bagram Air Force Base outside Kabul, President Obama announced that the United States plans to keep at least 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan until 2016, further delaying the end of what he calls “America’s longest war.”

But in his remarks at the White House, the president didn’t say that the nearly 10,000 U.S. troops he’s asking to remain in an “advisory role” will be augmented by a huge army of private contractors. As they have in Iraq, contractors will vastly outnumber the U.S. uniformed forces training Afghan troops as well as the special operations forces providing counterterrorism operations against what the president called “the remnants of al-Qaida.”

The role of contractors in the Afghanistan war is spelled out in a document obtained by Salon from SAIC, one of the nation’s largest military and intelligence contractors. The document, an unclassified PowerPoint presentation, shows exactly how contractors have been used in that war since 2009, when Obama endorsed a surge of 33,000 troops and a counterinsurgency strategy in the war against the Taliban. Those policies increased the U.S. presence in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 troops.

One of the PowerPoint slides defines the four “mission areas” of the company’s five-year, $400 million contract with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, which provides contracted services to other combat commands, special forces and other parts of the U.S. military. They are “Expeditionary Warfare; Irregular Warfare; Special Operations; Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations.”

There, in black and white, is proof positive of how deeply contractors have penetrated the U.S. war machine.

[JayhawkSD]

6. Ezra is doing some cheerleading there.

The only thing Obama actually changed is engagement in massive land wars and "invading every nation that harbors terrorists." Use of Special Forces and counterterrorism will not be reduced by one scintilla. If you give a moment's thought to it, the use of military force to "protect our people, our homeland, or our way of life" is utterly absurd in today's world. We simply cannot kill everyone who doesn't like us because, if nothing else, doing so makes even more people dislike us.