US President Barack Obama on Friday released an updated national security strategy that committed the United States to lead on pressing world issues but reflected his cautious policy toward foreign intervention.
The 29-page memo to Congress, required under law, broadly outlined Obama’s foreign policy priorities for the final two years of his presidency, Reuters wrote.
Obama described the most pressing challenges of violent extremism, Russian aggression, cyberattacks and climate change and said they were best addressed by mobilizing international coalitions.
But he said the US needed “strategic patience and persistence” as it does not have infinite resources and said many problems could not be resolved through military might.
“We must always resist the overreach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear,” Obama said.
In the long run, he said US efforts to counter the ideology behind violent extremism were “more important than our capacity to remove terrorists from the battlefield.”
The document updated a lengthier one issued in 2010, when Obama was only 15 months into the job. Since then, he has been frequently criticized at home and abroad for excess caution.
Meanwhile, top White House national security adviser Susan Rice said the White House and European allies were assessing how to ramp up pressure on Moscow through sanctions or military aid.
“We have not taken a decision yet to up that, the nature of that assistance, to include lethal defensive equipment,” Rice said in a speech at the Brookings Institution think-tank. Any decision would be taken only after consultation with European allies, she said.
