Slouching Towards Irrelevance

Heritage Foundation

Earlier this month while in Brussels, Vice President Joe Biden told the European Parliament that while "some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, DC as the 'capital of the free world' ... it seems to me that this great city, which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title." How revealing. The European Union is a profoundly anti-democratic institution, created and forced on member states by internationalist leftist elites despite widespread public disapproval. It should be no surprise that the same administration that can't bring itself to enforce our laws and protect our borders would give such strong support to an institution that has so undermined national sovereignty in Europe. And given that the EU's unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy employs more people than the entire British Army it is no wonder that NATO member nations have been unwilling/unable to pull their weight in the Long War.

One might hope that the Obama administration would look at the path Europe has gone down (a bloated welfare state that saps economic growth and bleeds military spending) and decide to change course. But President Barack Obama's speech at West Point on Sunday quashed any such hopes. Speaking to graduating Cadets, President Obama laid out the increasingly identifiable pillars of the Obama Doctrine: greater reliance on international institutions; substituting soft power for hard power; and a more subdued and less self-reliant America – a scheme designed more to manage American decline than to ensure its people remain safe, free and prosperous.

Last Friday Charles Krauthammer gave us a whirlwind tour of what the Obama Doctrinehas looked like in action: failed engagement with Iran, surrender to Russia on missile defense, appeasement of Syria, support for pro-Chavez leftists in Honduras, and a gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falkland Islands. And what has it secured? A completely fake deal between Turkey, Brazil and Iran that will do nothing to slow Iran's nuclear weapons program but has already made new meaningful sanctions next to impossible.

Instead of cutting domestic spending and reining in entitlements, President Obama passed a $862 billion failed stimulus and created a brand new health care entitlement all while laying the ground work for future cuts to our nation's defenses. As Krauthammer wrote Friday: "This is retreat by design and, indeed, on principle."

Perhaps, the worst thing about the speech was that the President made it in front of the men and women who will have to live with the immediate consequences of his actions. The Obama Doctrine will put them in harm’s way without the modern equipment they will need; with allies who will increasingly doubt our resolve; and at the mercy of an international order that will value their lives for less than the power which the White House wants to put in their hands.