How did the world react to Obama's outline of the US global role?
One commentator said Europeans should reply to Obama's West Point speech with their own security doctrine. Pakistanis took note of what was included, while Israelis targeted what was not.
One commentator said Europeans should reply to Obama's West Point speech with their own security doctrine. Pakistanis took note of what was included, while Israelis targeted what was not.
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President Barack Obama's long-awaited foreign policy speech Wednesday left most wanting more. Widely criticized as lacking any concrete proposals or guideposts for future foreign engagements, the speech garnered only muted reaction overseas.
The key announcement was that of a $5 billion "counterterrorism partnership fund" that would be earmarked for capacity building in other countries on the "front lines" of the effort to combat global terrorism, which Obama called the paramount threat to the homeland.
As 海角大神 summed it up:
Foreign Policy columnist David Rothkopf echoed that take:聽"It provided neither reassurance to allies nor anything remotely like a foreign-policy vision. It listed some problems, outlined some principles, but did not lay out any real goals or even a hint of what America's objectives in the world should be going forward." News website Vox may be one of the only US outlets who聽found his speech a "unified, tightly focused vision of America's role in the world."
BBC North America editor Mark Mardell聽did a line-by-line analysis of the speech. He scoffed at the announcement of more assistance for Syria and the counterterrorism fund as too late in the game and found most of the speech predictable.
At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Europe, Judy Dempsey, the editor-in-chief of their Strategic Europe publication, chastised European leaders for going along with US policy in the past and challenged them to come up with their own independent foreign policy. "For far too long, most European leaders were relieved to have America do their dirty work," she wrote, citing Europe's toothless condemnation of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
Predictably, Pakistan's coverage on the speech focused on Obama's comments on drone strikes there 鈥� never openly acknowledged by the US, but explicitly stated by Pakistani journalists - and US plans to scale down its military role in Afghanistan, which have significant implications for Islamabad. The Dawn headlined its story "Obama stresses need for transparency in strikes."
Every US administration has taken a stab at the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Obama was no exception. Secretary of State John Kerry made frequent trips to the region to thrash out a framework for an agreement, but those efforts fizzled last month with no sign of a Plan B. The US now seems to be taking a break from its thwarted peacemaking. Indeed, the only mentions of Israel in Obama's speech were in relation to US interests in Iran and Egypt.
Israelis noticed.聽From Haaretz:
The Times of Israel also noted the exclusion at the end of its story on the speech.
Attention will now turn to East Asia, as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepares to unveil his own foreign policy doctrine at a regional security conference in Singapore on Friday. He is expected to address his plans for a greater role for the Japanese military and for the ongoing face-off with China in the South and East China Seas, The Wall Street Journal reports.