Obama Delivers Anticipated War Speech Before Norwegian Royal Family
Did you hear that Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech was his clearest formulation of the "Obama Doctrine" to date? Because that's what every pundit is saying! Every president needs his own Military Doctrine, and sure, this'll do.
The Obama Doctrine appears to be "War is bad, but also good when there's a really really tough enemy like Hitler, but make no mistake war is tragic, but again, sometimes necessary, but still, so much blood, and yet that blood is important..." etc. Here's a clip with the gist of it.
It would be nice if one of these military doctrines helped explain the biggest formally unanswered question since 9/11: how does "war" change when it's between a nation and a stateless enemy? We're not at warwithAfghanistan or Iraq -- we're at warinsideof these countries. Militarized foreign police work requiring diplomatic solutions with enemies with whom there can be no negotiations, and where Victory is subjectively defined by generals. It is what it is. But let's stop comparing it to a head-to-head battle with the rogue German state sixty years ago.
[ The Guardian , YouTube ]