US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has set out a new national security strategy described as a clean break with the Bush doctrine of unilateralism
The strategy addresses fresh challenges, including home-grown terrorism, cybersecurity and the rise of India and China.
The report says the US has been hardened by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that in future the emphasis will be on diplomacy, with war as a last resort.
“Our long-term security will not come from our ability to instill fear in other peoples but through our capacity to speak to their hopes,” it says.
Mr Obama identifies nuclear proliferation, al-Qaeda, economic collapse and climate change as the main threats, and suggests a shift in military thinking away from traditional warfare to counter-insurgency.
The 52-page report, entitled A Blueprint for Pursuing the World that We Seekand posted on the White House's website, is Mr Obama's first. White House aides contrasted it with a report by former president George Bush in 2002 that paved the way for the pre-emptive strike against Iraq in 2003, and another report in 2006.
Foreign policy analysts expressed scepticism, saying its lofty aspirations were not reflected in the hard reality of the world, such as the failure to close Guantánamo Bay and the use of drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They asked what Mr Obama would do if his policy of diplomatic engagement with Iran and North Korea failed to produce results.
Others questioned whether it marked as big a break from the Bush doctrine as the White House suggested. Although it stressed international co-operation rather than unilateralism, it had not abandoned the use of pre-emptive strikes.
Lieut-Gen David Barno, head of allied forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, said: “In many important ways, this document provides a grand strategy for the United States looking ahead to an uncertain and turbulent century.”
But he added that the challenge would be showing the will for such changes to be accepted by Congress and the executive.
Mark Lynch, associate professor of international relations at George Washington University, writing on the Foreign Policy website, welcomed the strategy. “It marks a clean break with the past . . . [It] gets the big things right and offers a clear and effective framework for American foreign policy and national security.”
The thrust of the new policy is to engage with China and India, and with former enemies, of which the most important is Russia. “We will continue to deepen our co- operation with other 21st century centres of influence – including China, India, and Russia,” the report says. – (Guardian service)