President Obama delivered the commencement address to the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY this afternoon. The speech was a much-anticipated view into the President’s new, “postwar” foreign policy strategy.
In the speech, President Obama made his bottom-line explicit:
Here’s my bottom line: America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will. The military that you have joined is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership. But U.S. military action cannot be the only — or even primary — component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.
This approach seems to include American leadership on addressing the national security risks of climate change, which President Obama also made explicit:
That spirit of cooperation needs to energize the global effort to combat climate change, a creeping national security crisis that will help shape your time in uniform, as we are called on to respond to refugee flows and natural disasters, and conflicts over water and food, which is why, next year, I intend to make sure America is out front in putting together a global framework to preserve our planet.
You see, American influence is always stronger when we lead by example. We cannot exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everyone else. We can’t call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if a whole lot of our political leaders deny that it is taking place. We can’t try to resolve problems in the South China Sea when we have refused to make sure that the Law of the Sea Convention is ratified by the United States Senate, despite the fact that our top military leaders say the treaty advances our national security. That’s not leadership. That’s retreat. That’s not strength; that’s weakness. It would be utterly foreign to leaders like Roosevelt and Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy.
I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.
The full transcript of the speech is available here.
Rightly and historically true President Obama said : “If we don’t, no one else will.” It is significant that these words were uttered it in Military Academy in West Point. It should be noted (IMHO), that the most important audience for military term is the term ” doctrine .” In the context of the general problem of “national security” can play a special role ” Climate Doctrine “; the more so – on the initiative of the Secretary John Kerry – is planned to organize international cooperation involving the UN and the use of a shared document – instead of surviving the time of the Kyoto Protocol . Structure ” Climate Doctrine ” – common : 1. Formal description of the appearance of sources of risk to national security, grouped according to the types of “physical senses” and the dynamics of change in the future; 2 . Projected results of climate change impact on life-support systems and related infrastructure ; 3 . Structured – in form and application areas – activities to address the impacts of climate change ; 4 . Reasonable and specific composition capacities and technologies to meet the challenges of paragraph 3 ; 5 . Structured list of works to minimize the risks from climate change , not excluding the implementation of climate stabilization technology .
I believe that this document (” Climate Doctrine “) can provide support in practice initiatives Secretary John Kerry, and the approval of President Obama : “If we don’t, no one else will.”