world tour(s).

a moment of clarity.

words. 

"It would be equally accurate to say that Obama, for the most part, has been following a consistent strategy—but one that many foreign-policy experts don’t like, because it mitigates against American interventionism. This strategy, which some would call “realism,” is based on cold-hearted self-interest. It’s equally skeptical of far-flung military entanglements and high-minded liberal nostrums. It’s a way of looking at the world that dates back to Machiavelli, and one which, at this moment in history, happens to have the overwhelming support of the American public.

 ...The war in Vietnam taught the United States that military force is a very blunt instrument, and that exercising it casually can backfire horribly. For some reason, the neoconservatives and the liberal interventionists both eventually forgot this lesson—but Obama, having risen to the Presidency largely on the back of his hostility to the war in Iraq, never did. Where declared enemies of the United States can be located and targeted, such as in Yemen and in the tribal areas of Pakistan, he hasn’t hesitated to use U.S. drones to attack them. Elsewhere, though, he has acted with caution.

...Where Obama sees vital U.S. interests at stake, such as in the progress of the Iranian nuclear program or the need to reassure Asian allies about the rise of China, he is willing to go out on a limb and show assertiveness. Even in the case of Ukraine, which is not an overriding U.S. concern, he has played the key role in bringing the Europeans together to support sanctions. For the most part, however, he follows the admonitions of his electors and keeps his eyes focussed on the home front. To the rest of the world, that’s sometimes frustrating. But compared to the actions of his predecessor, it’s a small fault."

THE NEW YORKER: Obama’s Foreign-Policy “Failures”: A Word for the Defense