Barack Obama's foreign policy speech looks to me to be the most substantive thing he's said on anything this important since I first learned who Barack Obama was in 2004. Unfortunately, after giving several hundred speeches about hope and the need to address fundamental issues without actually saying how, the press reports of his speech are focusing entirely on the ethereal stuff and not at all on the substance.
The New York Times coverage is full of sentiments like this: "“The disappointment that so many around the world feel toward America right now is only a testament to the high expectations they hold for us. We must meet those expectations again, not because being respected is an end in itself, but because the security of America and the wider world demands it.”
But the speech itself is impressively full of stuff like this: "We know that Russia is neither our enemy nor close ally right now, and we shouldn’t shy away from pushing for more democracy, transparency, and accountability in that country. But we also know that we can and must work with Russia to make sure every one of its nuclear weapons and every cache of nuclear material is secured. And we should fully implement the law I passed with Senator Dick Lugar that would help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world. While we work to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, we should also negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material."
His five point plan (half of a ten-point plan, so still somewhat suspicious on the decimal-worship front) is full of great policy: End the Iraq war, increase the size and effectiveness of the military, combat nuclear proliferation, work within international institutions to improve the global commons, and eradicate to the greatest extent possible the humiliating and dehumanizing causes of strife, secular violence, and terrorism that plague the third world. He was most detailed on the nuclear stuff (which is great) and least detailed on the ways to ease global suffering (which is understandable).
It's a good speech to hear, but I'm not sure we'll get to see what really distinguishes him from (mainly) John Edwards in terms of their comprehensive approaches to foreign policy until the debates just around the corner.
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