小歐的辯解！

(Ajin 開口)

小歐在西點的演講，變成是相當爭議的新聞，因為這太明顯是小歐為自己無能及錯誤判斷的外交政策辯解。底下兩篇是從 Atlantic 與 Washington Post 摘下來的。

美國這幾年外交政策的綏靖取向，不但沒有帶給世界任何區域更和平，反而是更加寒凍。早在普廷搞出克理米亞事件之前，白宮就一直抱著綏靖政策不放了。然而，這並不感動或嚇阻俄羅斯進入克理米亞。從這個角度來衡量，小歐的西點演講完全是美麗話一堆的集合，就好像在凱道聽那廝演講一樣，空洞無物。

換個角度，不能排除白宮的綏靖政策是違反傳統的deterrence，也因此變成製造出克理米亞事件的溫床。這點小歐一直不敢碰及。同樣的量尺，土龍在南海的蠻橫，不也是白宮綏靖溫床所孕育出來的嗎？

利用西點的演講要來辯白腦部的堵塞，小歐這次完全沒有達成CYA（Cover Your Ass）的目的啦。

相關閱讀：誰要你開戰？

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/obama-at-west-point-a-foreign-policy-of-false-choices/371748/

Obama at West Point: A Foreign Policy of False Choices

The president says he's steering a sensible course between uber-hawks and do-nothings. Don't believe it.

DAVID FRUMMAY 28 2014, 3:32 PM ET

An old joke describes the action memos the State Department prepares for the president:

Option A: Do nothing

Option B: Global thermonuclear war

Option C: Preferred State Department policy

On the evidence of President Obama’s commencement address at West Point on Wednesday, he’d have made an outstanding State Department memo-writer.

The president outlined a Washington policy debate occurring in three corners. Over in Corner 1 are those who believe in “a strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks.” Huddled in Corner 2 are those who insist that “conflicts in Syria or Ukraine or the Central African Republic are not ours to solve.” Between these obviously stupid extremes is a sensible third way, which happens to coincide perfectly with the policy of the Obama administration.

Embedded in the president’s speech is a remarkably passive view of his office.

When politicians set up false alternatives in this way, it’s an early warning that their own record of achievement is less than stellar. “Some say that our forces should never land on any beaches at all. Others would have us invade every beach on earth. I reject both extremes” is not how President Roosevelt announced the success of D-Day.

If Obama had met his stated goals in Afghanistan … if the Russia “reset” had worked … if Iran talks were indeed producing nuclear disarmament … if the president's “red line” in Syria was not being crossed and recrossed like center-ice in an exciting hockey game … if his Libyan intervention had not resulted in Libya becoming a more violent and unstable place … if his administration had sustained the progress toward peace in Iraq achieved during George W. Bush’s second term—if all this had been the case, the president would have been content to simply present his impressive record. But it is not the case.

Obama’s core defense of his record is this:

[B]y most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise—who suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away—are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics. Think about it. Our military has no peer. The odds of a direct threat against us by any nation are low, and do not come close to the dangers we faced during the Cold War.

Here, Obama is offering not a false alternative but a false claim. In 2014, China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, as measured in terms of purchasing power parity. Measured in nominal currency terms, the overtaking may be postponed until the 2020s. However measured, the economic primacy the U.S. has maintained since the 1890s is rapidly nearing its end. Rarely stronger relative to the rest of the world? No.

Notice too the slippery, multi-conditional form of the president's boast about national security. “The odds of a direct threat against us by any nation are low.” That statement reveals the imprint of editing by aides who understand that indirect threats (such as the implosion of Western-oriented Arab regimes since 2010), threats against allies (such as the Russian threat to the Baltic republics or the Iranian threat to Israel), and threats by subnational actors (including all those al-Qaeda affiliates that attacked the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya) are all worse today than they were when the president took office.

As for the claim that U.S. global leadership is not “slipping away”—well, that judgment is more impressionistic. But to offer the testimony of just one individual observer: During two recent visits to Ukraine, I was startled by how seldom anybody I spoke with made reference to the actions of the U.S government—or to the example of American society. It was to the European Union that Ukrainians looked for help and inspiration. They took utterly for granted America’s lack of interest in their situation and inability to help. The United States remains ascendant for now. But it can’t plausibly be claimed that America is as ascendant today as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

In Ukraine, I was startled by how seldom anybody referenced the U.S government.

Obama might personally think that America’s relative loss of clout is a trend beyond his control or correction. He would not be the first statesmanto guide the foreign policy of a declining power. He would not even be the first American president to believe that such was his lot. Under adverse conditions, the responsibilities of leadership become even heavier than when times are easier. Yet embedded in the president’s West Point speech is a remarkably passive view of his office.

“We can’t call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if so many of our political leaders deny that it is taking place.” Can’t we? If unanimity at home is a precondition for achieving international objectives, then no international objective will ever be achieved. It’s in the nature of democracy that many things the government of the day wishes to do will be opposed by other political leaders. Successful presidents find ways to surmount wrong-headed opposition. Unsuccessful ones don’t. If Obama feels strongly about climate change—and he should!—then he has to devise a plan (and accept the risks) of action and persuasion. If he can’t persuade and won’t act, then he can’t shift blame for the failure of his office onto the obstinacy of other leaders. The other leaders are always there, and are always obstinate.

And sometimes those “other leaders” even turn out to be more astute and farseeing than the president they oppose. At West Point, Obama opened his discussion of Iran by claiming credit for the sanctions regime against Tehran. “[A]t the beginning of my presidency, we built a coalition that imposed sanctions on the Iranian economy,” he said. Yet the most effective of those sanctions—the Kirk-Menendez measures that isolated Iran from the international-payments system—were strenuously opposed by this president. He signed them into law only after the Senate attached them to the2012 defense-authorization bill by a vote of 100-0.

Obama praised those who ask “tough questions.” But he himself escapes some of the toughest questions by offering pleasing but unreliable assurances: “America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.” Must it? The evidence of the past few years shows that oftentimes America won’t or can’t. Nobody else will? That’s half -true: Nobody else will lead the world in directions that most citizens of most democracies still want to go. But there are plenty of other candidates who will lead the world in other, less congenial, directions. In recent years, those dangerous candidates have enjoyed disquieting success. The president’s speech at West Point inadvertently exposed how they have gotten away with it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-obama-in-his-west-point-speech-binds-americas-hands-on-foreign-affairs/2014/05/28/f3db48fe-e66d-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html

At West Point, President Obama binds America’s hands on foreign affairs

By Editorial Board, Published: May 28

PRESIDENT OBAMA has retrenched U.S. global engagement in a way that has shaken the confidence of many U.S. allies and encouraged some adversaries. That conclusion can be heard not just from Republican hawks but also from senior officials from Singapore to France and, more quietly, from some leading congressional Democrats. As he has so often in his political career, Mr. Obama has elected to respond to the critical consensus not by adjusting policy but rather by delivering a big speech.

In his address Wednesday to the graduating cadets at West Point , Mr. Obama marshaled a virtual corps of straw men, dismissing those who “say that every problem has a military solution,” who “think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak,” who favor putting “American troops into the middle of [Syria’s] increasingly sectarian civil war,” who propose “invading every country that harbors terrorist networks” and who think that “working through international institutions . . . or respecting international law is a sign of weakness.”

During the 2014 West Point commencement address, President Obama declared that the U.S. remains the world's most indispensable nation, even after a "long season of war," but argued for restraint before embarking on more military adventures.

Few, if any, of those who question the president’s record hold such views. Instead, they are asking why an arbitrary date should be set for withdrawing all forces from Afghanistan, especially given the baleful results of the “zero option” in Iraq. They are suggesting that military steps short of the deployment of U.S. ground troops could stop the murderous air and chemical attacks by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. They are arguing that the United States should not beconstrained by Cyprus or Bulgaria in responding to Russia’s invasion and annexation of parts of Ukraine.

To those doubters, the president’s address offered scant comfort. Reiterating and further tightening a doctrine he laid out in a speech to the United Nations last fall, Mr. Obama said the United States should act unilaterally only in defense of a narrow set of “core interests,” such as the free flow of trade. When “crises arise that stir our conscience or push the world in a more dangerous direction,” he said, “we should not go it alone.”

This binding of U.S. power places Mr. Obama at odds with every U.S. president since World War II. In effect, he ruled out interventions to stop genocide or reverse aggression absent a direct threat to the U.S. homeland or a multilateral initiative. Those terms would exclude missions by previous administrations in places such as Somalia and Haiti and Mr. Obama’s own proposal to strike Syria last year — but not the war in Iraq, which was a multilateral campaign.

Mr. Obama made one new practical proposal: to set up a $5 billion fund to “train, build capacity and facilitate partner countries on the front lines” of fighting terrorism. The initiative is worthy of support as a way of checking emerging threats in places such as Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Mali. But just as a U.S. invasion is not needed for every terrorist haven, not all can be eliminated by training other countries’ forces.

Mr. Obama also pledged to “ramp up support” for the Syrian opposition. But he made the same promise last year and failed to follow through. Those U.S. allies who worry about Mr. Obama’s foreign policy retreat — and those who have exploited it — will be impressed by a change in U.S. behavior, not the president’s rhetoric.

Other reading:
President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy