"Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail." Thus opined President Barack Obama in a May 2014 commencement speech at the United States Army's famous officer cadet academy, West Point. Perhaps because of the setting, Obama and his advisors felt the need to articulate a wider doctrine in relation to American foreign policy. Especially during his second term, critics have derided a perceived indecisiveness to the president's foreign policy. The apparent lack of response by the United States government to the endless and bloody conflict in Syria has been particular grist for this list of criticism and, in a rather predictable fashion, Obama took the opportunity to attack both rampant isolationism and rampant interventionism. Instead, like Goldilocks' preferred bowl of porridge, his administration would offer "just right" foreign policy. But that "just right" foreign policy includes the future of American counter-terrorism, especially beyond U.S. borders. After winning predictable applause over his administration's main counter-terrorism triumph, the demise of al-Qaeda's core leadership and the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, the president delved into not just what would come next, but in a real sense a scorecard of what is occurring and what has occurred beyond efforts against al-Qaeda over the last few years. Despite Russian expansionism against its neighbour and China flexing its muscles around the Pacific, Obama noted that an old foe remained the top security threat: "For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism." How then to respond to this threat? At this point, Obama began to assemble straw men in order to subsequently disassemble them. In that sense he really didn't provide a preview of the future but sought to justify a counter-terrorism strategic course already being followed by his administration. First, he dispensed with the unacceptable: "a strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naïve and unsustainable." That, of course, was a knock at the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The unilateralism of the Bush era (although in fairness it never really was that unilateral as Tony Blair can attest) was also no longer tenable as the United States needed "to more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold." The counter-terrorist future, or really the Obama present, is one of partnerships that allow the United States to avoid overcommitting its military force or generating "local resentments." "We need partners to fight terrorists alongside us," implored Obama, and he proceeded to announce that he had called upon the United States Congress to establish a $5 billion fund to support a range of counter-terrorism activities stretching from Asia to Africa, including French activities in Mali and the training of security units in Yemen. The justification for such a decentralized and potentially "lead from behind" approach to counter-terrorism Obama explained next. It is because the threat that is terrorism no longer emanates from "a centralized al Qaeda leadership" but emerges from "decentralized al Qaeda affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focused in countries where they operate." Thus, Washington, explained its leader, needs an approach that reflects this "diffuse threat." Of course, a logical problem emerges in his words. If a centralized al-Qaeda leadership no longer represents the top terrorist, having been supplanted by scattered threats, then the potential for another 9/11 is clearly diminished. Aware of this potential contradiction, Obama readily admitted the reduced threat of "large-scale 9/11 style attacks against the homeland." The replacement risk is to Americans abroad or to "less defensible targets" such as a shopping mall. However, that raises the question as to how terrorism can possibly be the top security threat to the United States under such circumstances and don't American interventions abroad in the name of counter-terrorism increase the opportunities for Americans to be attacked by terrorists? And Obama's speech suggests another complication. If the threat of terrorism is now diffused that is to a large extent because of American counter-terrorism policies. The drone strikes in Pakistan, for instance, are responsible for the decline of al-Qaeda's central position while U.S. efforts in Africa, including the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi, have helped spread weapons and radicalism to neighbouring countries. The president's speech raises one final troubling question that will outlast his administration: what if the counter-terrorist policies being pursued actually make America less safe by increasing hostility towards the United States instead of reducing it. Obama attempted to address this, warning that "our actions should meet a simple test: We must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield." But elsewhere in his speech he indirectly suggested this is happening. He noted U.S. drone strikes in "Yemen and Somalia" but curiously did not mention Pakistan where the vast majority of strikes have occurred for nearly a decade now, in the process creating anger toward the United States on the part of ordinary Pakistanis. Why the anger? It might have something to do with the deaths of civilians, something the American president said his policies sought to avoid. Ultimately then, Obama's speech represented not a preview of the future but a justification of the present and the immediate past. The problem for him and his administration is that it is not words but actual policies that affect people and it is those policies that will be the real determinant of the future of American security in relation to terrorism.
