President Obama’s commencement address at West Point on Wednesday was clearly aimed at deflecting rising criticism of his administration’s foreign policy. In particular, the speech was designed to address complaints that U.S. foreign policy under Obama has lacked strategic coherence and signaled a U.S. retreat from the international arena. The administration promoted the address as a platform for the president to describe his “vision” for U.S. foreign policy during the remainder of his term. To the extent that the speech did present a vision, it was not a particularly new one.
