‘America Must Always Lead,’ Obama Tells West Point Graduates
WEST POINT, N.Y. — President Obama on Wednesday tried to regain his statesman’s mantle, telling graduating cadets here that the nation they were being commissioned to serve would still lead the world and would not stumble into military misadventures overseas.
Speaking under leaden, chilly skies, Mr. Obama delivered the commencement address at the United States Military Academy.
“America must always lead on the world stage,” he said. “But U.S. military action cannot be the only – or even primary – component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.”
Under pressure from critics who say the United States has been rudderless amid a cascade of crises, the president said that those who “suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away – are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics.”
A day after announcing that the last American soldier would leave Afghanistan at the end of 2016, the president told this latest class of Army officers that the United States faced a new, more diffuse threat in an arc of militancy stretching from the Middle East to the African Sahel.
Obama Announces Counterterrorism Plan
President Obama pledged $5 billion for a network of partnerships to help train countries in the Middle East and Africa to carry out operations against extremists.
Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times
Mr. Obama singled out Syria, which he said had become a dangerous haven for terrorists, some linked to Al Qaeda. While pledging to strengthen American support for the opposition, he did not discuss expanding the C.I.A.'s covert training program for the rebels by bringing in the military, which is being debated inside the administration.
Obama Foreign Policy Speeches Past and Present
Wednesday’s speech at West Point offered President Obama an opportunity to offer a broad view of how he wants to steer American foreign policy in his last years in office, as well as a chance to rebut his critics. But with much of his presidency taking place against a turbulent international backdrop, it was just one of many occasions Mr. Obama felt the need to explain his foreign policy views.
| Speech | Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| On the Afghanistan troop surge | Dec. 1, 2009 | President Obama, after an intense debate, announced he would send an additional 30,000 troops to turn the tide in Afghanistan. But he coupled it with a pledge to begin pulling out troops 18 months later, to help speed the transition to Afghan security forces. Full Text » |
| On intervening in Libya | March 28, 2011 | Mr. Obama explained his decision to back NATO airstrikes on the Libyan regime, which were intended to avert slaughter in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. He laid out a set of criteria for intervention in cases where American national security interests are not directly at stake. Full Text » |
| On the Arab Spring and the Middle East | May 19, 2011 | With popular uprisings convulsing the Arab world, Mr. Obama sketched out the American response, including his decision to withdraw support for a longtime ally, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. And he offered a formula for reviving peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Full Text » |
| On counterterrorism at National Defense University | May 23, 2013 | Saying it was time to take the United States off a war footing dating to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the president offered a vision of counterterrorism policy focused on new threats in the Middle East and Africa. He defended the use of drones but set conditions for their use.Full Text » |
The president did announce a counterterrorism partnership, funded with up to $5 billion, to help train countries in the Middle East and Africa to carry out operations against extremists.
“Today’s principal threat no longer comes from a centralized Al Qaeda leadership,” Mr. Obama said. “Instead, it comes from decentralized Al Qaeda affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focused in the countries where they operate.”
Mr. Obama’s speech, which was weeks in the drafting, was a wide-ranging rebuttal to critics who say he has yielded American leadership in a world tossed by storms, from Syria’s civil war to Russia’s incursions in Ukraine.
Obama Announces New Afghanistan Plan
The president said the United States planned to leave 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after 2014 and complete the withdrawal of all combat troops by the end of 2016.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
But it was also meant to reject arguments that the United States should retreat from its post-World War II centrality in global affairs. Mr. Obama instead called for a middle course between isolationism and overreach, citing the international coalition he had mobilized to counter Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as an example of how to use American muscle without putting its soldiers at risk.
West Point, with its 1,064 cadets in dress uniforms, offered a grand backdrop for Mr. Obama to present his foreign policy blueprint. But his theme was very different than in 2009, when he came here to announce that the United States would send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama sought to present Afghanistan as a mission all but completed and described a world filled with threats that require a more targeted American response.
Mr. Obama has been deeply frustrated by the criticism of his foreign policy, which during his first term was generally perceived as his strong suit. He has lashed out at critics, whom he accuses of reflexively calling for military action as the remedy for every crisis.
On a trip to Asia last month, Mr. Obama described his foreign policy credo with a baseball analogy: “You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run.” But, he added, the overriding objective is to avoid an error on the order of the Iraq war.
Obama on Combating Climate Change
President Obama discussed climate change in his speech at West Point, saying he intends “to make sure America is out front in putting together a global framework to preserve our planet.”
Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In private conversations, the president has used a saltier variation of the phrase, “don’t do stupid stuff” – brushing aside as reckless those who say the United States should consider enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria or supplying arms to Ukrainian troops.
In the speech, Mr. Obama described an array of priorities, ranging from the Iran nuclear negotiations to a new global climate change accord, which he said would occupy his final two-and-a-half years in office.
He also spoke of the need for the United States to look eastward to Asia, promoting his long efforts to negotiate a trans-Pacific trade agreement and pledging to defend American allies in the region in their territorial disputes with China in the South and East China Seas.
He said the United States had successfully isolated President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe,” the president said. “But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away.”
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