Ryan Lizza's latest must-read New Yorker piece is framed as the story of President Obama's abandonment of the doctrine of foreign policy realism and adoption of "consequentialism." It's filled with a lot of reporting that doesn't really advance that narrative but is really interesting anyway. I was amused by one advisor's attempt to boil this doctrine down to a bumper sticker:

“The project of the first two years has been to effectively deal with the legacy issues that we inherited, particularly the Iraq war, the Afghan war, and the war against Al Qaeda, while rebalancing our resources and our posture in the world,” Benjamin Rhodes, one of Obama’s deputy national-security advisers, said. “If you were to boil it all down to a bumper sticker, it’s ‘Wind down these two wars, reëstablish American standing and leadership in the world, and focus on a broader set of priorities, from Asia and the global economy to a nuclear-nonproliferation regime.’ ”



I'm not sure Rhodes understands what bumper stickers look like. Let's have TNR's crack graphics squad try that one out:

Might need some trimming.