U.S. President Barack Obama smiles as he arrives to deliver his State of the Union speech on Capitol Hill in Washington (REUTERS/Larry Downing).
Blog Post
Obama’s State of the Union Speech and the Seductiveness of Limited Intervention
January 29, 2014, Vanda Felbab-Brown
The president’s State of the Union address underscored a foreign policy doctrine of surgical, constrained U.S. military engagement combined with building partner capacity, writes Vanda Felbab-Brown. However, the belief that a shoe-string national security policy and quick in-and-out interventions with limited commitment will accomplish U.S. foreign policy goals will in many cases be a dangerous, seductive illusion, she argues.