Obama's Cost-Free Drone Wars

There’s little doubt that the rise of these “invisible” instruments -- special operations forces, cyber and drones -- have made it possible for Obama to walk back his predecessor’s unsustainable operational “overhang.” But those who imagine that Obama has eliminated Bush’s dream of primacy are clearly kidding themselves, for in diminishing its scale he has nonetheless expanded its operational reach.

And that is what disturbs me most about Obama’s alleged “innovations,” for they suggest a dangerous tinkering with perceptions surrounding the acceptable threshold of great-power war just as two new superpowers rise precipitously in Asia. America’s embrace of these invisible instruments is sure to be replicated by both China and India, to the detriment of all great powers.

And that is likely to become Obama’s most lasting foreign policy legacy.