Obama Links Military to Diplomacy in 'New' Foreign Policy

Speaking at the prestigious West Point military academy, President Obama outlined a 'new' foreign policy that is sure to be the subject of many discussions domestically and globally, from the parliaments of nations to the caves of Pakistan.

Put simply and politely, the policy is a very sharp double-edged sword that paradoxically both negates and continues the foreign policy of his predecessor, George W. Bush, but also negates and continues his campaign promises going on two years ago now.

With the country's best and brightest future military leaders in front of him, and the video cameras of the world focusing on his every brilliantly articulated syllable as usual (with a rare exception being the blundering BP blame acceptance speech), Obama put the negation of Bush's foreign policy this way: "The burdens of this century cannot fall on our soldiers alone. It also cannot fall on American shoulders alone."

By this he was referring to the quasi-unilateral approach, or unilateral with multilateral window dressing, that the Bush administration championed, for example in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. "My way or the highway," that policy was called. Now, apparently, it's "our way or the highway."

Another negation came in the form of a re-engagement with the diplomatic and humanitarian arms of U.S. foreign policy, with Obama, in a strange turn of phrase, insisting that "The rest of us must do our part," that is the non-military rest of us. Nice to know that part still exists in the mind of the President, whose administration's knee-jerk reaction to the BP oil spill was to send in the military.

This hopeful but so far unrealized re-engagement is also, in part, another only verbal fulfillment of Obama's campaign promises to shift the burden of action abroad away from the military, and toward socioeconomic, political and cultural solutions that Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have discussed in speeches much less covered in the media than this West Point one. However, he stressed that the U.S. military is the "cornerstone of our national defense," inextricably linking its muscle to the ventures of nonviolent diplomatic and other minds.

The most potent refutation of the foreign policy of the recent past, however, had to do with its relations to domestic issues. "We should not discard our freedoms because extremists try to exploit them," Obama said, in implicit reference to the Patriot Act and other Bush administration infringements on civil liberties. Funny thing is, with the Obama family visiting Chicago for the Memorial Day Weekend, the city turned into the closest situation I've ever seen to a police state here, and this in the city with a distinguished tradition of unwarranted police presence and the most surveillance in the world.

There is little in the world today that is more extremist than America's militarism, at home and abroad.

The high point continuation of lines of thought and action expounded on the campaign trail was a vow to reintegrate the U.S. into what Obama called the world's "currents of cooperation."

"We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face the consequences when they don't," the President said.

It remains to be seen whether the longstanding rule of American exceptionalism will again apply. If this speech is an indication, it will.

Photo credit: U.S. Army