Obama's strategic denial

Mark Moyer:

It's the fourth quarter of the Obama presidency, and Obama's national security team is losing 35-0. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the global terrorist threats to the United States now exceed those from 2001. From the Levant to the East China Sea, Iranian, Russian and Chinese power creep forward at America's expense.

One might expect team Obama to run a hurry-up offense using a new, more daring playbook. The newly released National Military Strategy, however, shows that the White House is sticking with the same old plays. Indeed, were the document read in isolation, the reader would conclude that team Obama was actually winning, and that its playbook accounted for its success.

Back in 2011, administration strategists called for a reduction of America's military "footprints" on the theory that drones and special operations forces could finish mopping up Al Qaeda.

Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq, which led to the disintegration of Iraq's security apparatus and the rise of the Islamic State, and he pulled back from Afghanistan before eastern Afghanistan could be pacified, which led to a resurgence of the Taliban and Haqqani Network. Obama limited U.S. military activities in Yemen to surgical strikes, allowing insurgents to overthrow the government and drive out all U.S. military and intelligence personnel.

More recently, the Obama administration attempted to regain lost ground in Iraq by sending a "light footprint" of U.S. forces to train Iraqis and help with intelligence, surgical strikes and logistics. That approach has also come up short, as the Islamic State has retained its strength and gained critical territory. Limited U.S. military support for friendly forces in Syria and Yemen has likewise failed to curb the spread of extremists.

Yet according to the new military strategy, "The best way to counter [violent extremist organizations] is by way of sustained pressure using local forces augmented by specialized U.S. and coalition military strengths such as ISR, precision strike, training and logistical support."

The new military strategy touts war by coalition as the key to defeating extremists without mentioning that coalition warfare failed to deliver in Afghanistan and Libya. "The United States is leading a broad coalition of nations to defeat" violent extremists in Islamic countries, the document states.
...

Democrats have had a coalition fetish for some time.  One of John Kerry's gaffes in 2004 was to complain that Bush failed the "global test" which is sort of like living in a coop where the guy who is willing to do the least sets policy.  Instead of real leadership it becomes an excuse for doing little or nothing to defeat an enemy threat,  It has become a strategy of wishful thinking and under resourcing the military.