“WASHINGTON — This is the speech President Obama did not make on his foreign policy (with thanks to Stephen Heintz, a shrewd observer of America’s role in the world):My fellow Americans:I have based my foreign policy on some tough realities that are hard to talk about because no American likes to hear about the limits of our power. But those limits have grown. American power in the 21st century cannot be what it was in 1945 — or even in 1990.To say this is to be accused of defeatism, of managing American decline and of giving up on American exceptionalism. That is why I have pursued an implicit foreign policy rather than an explicit one. That is why I waited so long to give this speech on my doctrine of restraint. No president wants to make a speech called “The Consequences of the End of the American Century.” It’s political suicide.”
Source: Obama’s Implicit Foreign Policy – The New York Times
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