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Foreign policy often plays a bit part in State of the Union speeches. That has been especially true for President Barack Obama, whose first term was consumed by economic crisis and partisan trench warfare. Chief among the foreign-policy achievements he has touted in his three previous annual addresses have been disengagement from Iraq and Afghanistan, an agreement with Russia cutting nuclear arsenals, and the killing of Osama bin Laden and hundreds of other terrorists and militants. Yet notwithstanding a commendable decision to pay more attention to Asia, progress on other fronts has been meager. Moreover, a litany of withdrawals, reductions and assassinations doesn’t offer the U.S. public much inspiration for the future. The scant lines on world affairs in Obama’s feisty second...