The Emerging Obama Doctrine - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor
As President Obama carves out his own foreign policy, there are signs that his use of military force overseas will be tempered by his views on the limits of American power.
Mr. Obama is leaning toward a pragmatic approach that limits military deployment of the kind used by former President Bush in the "war on terror," while remaining open to humanitarian aid and security training, especially in places such as Darfur. This approach departs from Mr. Bush but also synthesizes policy elements from Bush's later years.
"It is a very balanced, pragmatic understanding that America's interests and her ideals don't always coincide and so you have to make some trade-offs," says John Nagl, a former Army officer who now heads the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington...
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