When a NATO helicopter accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last week, most commentators declared it a disastrous military mistake. But The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart sees a clear foreign policy doctrine finally emerging from the White House. The airstrike was obviously a mistake, but Obama gave up long ago on trying to remake Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Obama doctrine appears to be to ditch expensive nation-building in favor of combating enemies with naval and air power. This approach is less brazen, but it tends to reemerge “when the money and bravado have run out.”
Read it at The Daily Beast