This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/us/politics/obama-foreign-policy-west-point-speech.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Obama to Defend Foreign Policy in West Point Speech ‘America Must Always Lead,’ Obama Tells West Point Graduates
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to use a speech at the West Point military academy on Wednesday to lay out a foreign policy vision for his final two-and-a-half years in office, defending his approach against a wave of criticism that he has been too passive on the world stage. 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.
A day after Mr. Obama outlined plans to pull troops out of Afghanistan before the end of his presidency, he will argue that he is steering the United States away from what he considers the overreach of his predecessor without sacrificing American leadership in the world. Speaking under leaden, chilly skies, Mr. Obama delivered the commencement address at the United States Military Academy.
As part of the transition out of Afghanistan, Mr. Obama will announce on Wednesday a request to Congress for a new $5 billion fund to train, equip and otherwise help nations in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia fight terrorism on their own, aides said. It was unclear how much of that would be money on top of other counterterrorism programs or a shift from current activities. “America must always lead on the world stage,” he said in remarks prepared for delivery. “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.”
The commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point comes at a time when Mr. Obama has been increasingly under fire from many foreign policy specialists for his handling of issues like the civil war in Syria, the political crisis in Ukraine and the struggle against terrorism. Critics have complained that Mr. Obama has not exerted enough leadership in a world they see as still dangerous more than a dozen years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 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.”
Mr. Obama has expressed frustration with such assertions, contending that his critics seem intent on using military power to solve problems despite the enormous costs in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. At a time when Americans seem weary of overseas intervention, Mr. Obama maintains that the country can still play a vital role in international affairs without resorting to unilateral force or retreating to isolationism, an argument he plans to make at the academy. 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.
“I’ll travel to West Point and speak to America’s newest class of military officers to discuss how Afghanistan fits into our broader strategy going forward,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday as he announced his withdrawal plan. “And I’m confident that if we carry out this approach, we cannot only responsibly end our war in Afghanistan and achieve the objectives that took us to war in the first place, we’ll also be able to begin a new chapter in the story of American leadership around the world.” 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.
The plan Mr. Obama announced on Tuesday will leave 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after the end of this year when he says the American combat mission will end. After a more limited role of training Afghan troops and conducting targeted counterterrorism missions, the American force will be cut by roughly half by the end of 2015. By the end of the following year, as Mr. Obama prepares to leave office, all troops will be withdrawn except for a force to guard the American embassy. 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.
The plan will allow Mr. Obama to claim that he ended the American wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, drawing to a close an era that began with the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics complain that he has all but abandoned Iraq to terrorist forces that have surged there since American troops pulled out at the end of 2011 and that his plan may have the same result in Afghanistan. “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 lashed out at critics during a recent trip in Asia, defining his foreign policy as trying to hit singles and doubles rather than swinging for the fences and decrying the calls to use American power to resolve global issues. “Why is it that everyone is so eager to use military force after we’ve just gone through a decade of war at enormous costs to our troops and to our budget?” he asked. “And what is it exactly that these critics think would have been accomplished?” 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.
The West Point speech comes just days before Mr. Obama heads overseas again, this time to Europe where his international leadership will be tested as he tries to pressure Russia to stop disrupting a new pro-European government in neighboring Ukraine. He will leaveWashington on Monday night headed for Warsaw, where he will reassure Poles and other Eastern Europeans that the United States will stand by its NATO allies against any potential Russian aggression. 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.
From there, he will head to Brussels to meet with other leaders of the major industrial powers known as the Group of 7 for its first annual summit meeting since suspending Russia, which was to have host the gathering. Mr. Obama has strained to coordinate the American response to Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine with European allies who have been more reluctant to take action that could jeopardize their economic ties with Russia. West Point, with its 1,064 cadets in dress whites, 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 will end his trip in Normandy, France, to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, which turned the tide in World War II. That may be the most awkward stop because among the leaders planning to attend is President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. 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.
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.”