WHEN Barack Obama addressed the graduates of West Point, the army’s elite academy, in 2009 he told the assembled cadets that he “would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow” if he did not think that the country’s security was at stake. That day he announced a plan to send 30,000 extra troops to fight in Afghanistan. Four of the cadets who were in the audience lost their lives there. On May 28th he gave a fresh class of West Point graduates another message: “You are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may not be sent into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

At the beginning of Mr Obama’s presidency nearly 180,000 American troops were fighting wars. On current planning, that number will be reduced to a few thousand by the time he leaves office. Under what circumstances then, might the assembled cadets in their grey uniforms and white caps be sent to fight?

Mr Obama argued that America should use military force when its security or that of its allies is threatened, and may do so unilaterally if necessary. This is uncontroversial: no president would sit back if America were to be attacked. His administration is also bound to defend some of its allies by Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty. Where America’s security and interests are not directly threatened but conscience urges the country to act, such as when a dictator is killing a large number of his own citizens, America should not act alone and only use force if there is a good chance of success. This too is safe territory: no president would deliberately send troops to carry out an impossible task.

These rules do not, on their own, determine the circumstances under which America would go to war. Interests look different to different presidents, as does what can be achieved with bombs and bullets. Some commanders-in-chief believe that military might can be used to make the world a better place; others fret about the unintended consequences of well-meaning wars. Mr Obama is one of the latter. “Since world war two,” he argued at West Point, “some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences.” Some of these escapades, he argued, have been counter-productive. In future, America must be sure that its wars do not “create more enemies than we take off the battlefield”.

Mr Obama’s idea of America’s interests looks different from those held by some of his predecessors. His notion of national security takes in climate change, obedience to maritime law and other international treaties. As China and other non-Western powers rise, his administration reasons, it is in the interest of America to create a set of rules that they will follow. Military action, he reckons, has in the past tended to undermine that effort. This is not as clean a break with the era of desert camouflage uniforms as it might seem. Mr Obama agrees with his immediate predecessor that terrorism will be the biggest threat to America for the foreseeable future.

In less abstract terms, what does this policy look like? The administration will seek authorisation from Congress for $5 billion to fund counter-terrorism partnerships with willing governments, from Yemen to Mali. As during the cold war, this will no doubt involve giving military aid to some unpleasant regimes. In Afghanistan, the president plans to leave 9,800 American troops in place at the beginning of next year, once a security agreement to that effect can be signed with the new Afghan government, which will be elected in mid-June. By the end of 2015 half that number will remain, and by the end of 2016 American troops will not venture beyond its embassy and consulates (see article).

Not our problem any more

Thereafter, support for Afghanistan’s government will take the form of $4 billion-6 billion a year for the Afghan National Security Forces. Compared with the nearly $120 billion America spent on the war in 2011, this is good value, but it is more than is spent on military aid to Israel. Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations recently spoke to 70-odd congressional staffers who follow Afghanistan, and asked them if they thought funding for the country’s army would stay at this level. None did. “We have to recognise that Afghanistan will not be a perfect place,” said Mr Obama on May 27th, “and it is not America’s responsibility to make it one.”

In Syria, having concluded that America’s interests are not directly threatened by a civil war that has so far cost over 100,000 lives, the administration is considering offering more assistance to the opposition. The CIA already trains some rebel fighters, something the White House is careful not to provide too many details on as the operation is covert—a sensitivity to the ways of spooks that was undone by a bit of bungling when the White House press office included the name of the CIA’s station chief in Kabul in an e-mail to reporters detailing the president’s schedule. Increasing the number of fighters that can be trained requires the involvement of the army, which will in turn require funding authorisation from Congress.

It is not clear why the administration is taking this step now, three years after the war began and almost as long since Mr Obama was first urged to do something similar. John Kerry, the secretary of state, has argued for the change and seems to have got his way. This suggests that despite what Mr Obama’s speech suggested, his foreign policy resembles a continual process of trial and error rather than the application of clear principles.