President Barack Obama has offered the most-detailed description yet of his foreign policy, in a major address to military cadets at West Point in New York.
Stung by critics who argue the President's international outlook lacks coherence, he argued the United States can remain the dominant player on the world stage without resorting to the use of force.
Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks reports.
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It was a curious event occasioned by the White House admitting the US public - and presumably the wider world - doesn't truly understand President Obama's global outlook.
And so he journeyed to the West Point Military Academy in New York - the same venue where in 2009 he famously announced the troop surge that would help stabilize events in Afghanistan.
This time round his task was broader: to persuade people that while he believes in US leadership on the global stage, he doesn't believe that it should often be enforced at the point of a gun.
Here is how President Obama defined what he called his "bottom line".
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That means, said President Obama, not rushing into military adventures without thinking of the consequences.
It also means a commitment to a multilateral approach to foreign policy challenges…especially terrorism, which he characterized as the most potent threat facing America.
He unveiled a $5 billion Counter Terrorism Partnerships Fund that he says will help US allies respond to terrorist threats around the world.
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Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at Washington's Brookings Institution says he doesn't think Barack Obama did very much in the speech to win over those people who say his foreign policy doesn't add up.
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But what Barack Obama did make clear is that no one should expect him to deploy US boots on the ground in his remaining time in office.
His supporters say he's adapting US foreign policy to a changed global environment.
His detractors will continue to argue that he's giving a green light to men like Bashar Al Assad of Syria and Vladimir Putin of Russia to act without fear of US military retribution.
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