Obama’s Oslo Speech and Climate Change

11 December 2009, 0036 EST

Dan Drezner encourages us to analyze what he said for references to policy prescriptions from IR theories. Steve Walt tells us let’s focus not on what he said but on what he does. I’m with those who would focus on what he didn’t say as an indicator of what he might or might not do. (Not to be contrarian, but hey.)

Namely, with the Copenhagen summit at hand, I’d have liked to see more than just a passing reference to the relationship between the environment and war, and the fact that mitigating the impacts of climate change will be one of our most urgent security problems in the next century. How do readers interpret the relative marginalization of climate issues in the speech?