scale attacks on the united states and our homeland is more secure. few of our troops are in harm s way and over the next 19 months they will continue to come home. our alliances are strong and so is our standing in the world. in sum, we are safer because of our efforts. now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. from benghazi to boston we have been tragically reminded of that truth. but we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and he a involved from the way that came to our shores on 9/11. with a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions. about the nature of today s threats and how we should confront them these
so neither conventional military action nor waiting for attacks to occur offers more safe harbor. and neither does sole reliance police or security services and indeed have no functioning. this is not to say that the risks are not real any u.s. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies and impacts public opinion overseas. moreover, our laws constrain the power of the president. even during war time. i have taken an oath to defend the constitution of the united states.
givens with understanding the current threat that we face. today, the core of al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan is on the path to defeat. remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us they did not direct the attacks in weapon gaze or boston. they have not carried out a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11. instead what we have seen is the emergence of various al qaeda affiliates from yemen to iraq from somalia to north africa. the threat is more diffuse with al qaeda s affiliates in the arabian peninsula. aqap the most active in plotting against our homeland while none of aqap s efforts approach the scale of 9/11 they have continued to plots of
periodic attacks diplomats, companies and other soft targets or resort to kidnapping and other criminal enterprises to fund their operations and finally we face a real threat from radicalized individuals here in the united states whether it s a shooter at a sikh timple temple in wisconsin. plane flying into a building in texas or the extremists who killed 168 people at the federal building in oklahoma city americans have confronted many forms of violent extremism in our history. deranged or alienated individuals, often u.s. citizens or legal residents can do enormous damage particularly when inspired about larger notions of jihad. that pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at fort hood and the bombing of the boston
our troops will come home other combat mission will come to an end. and we will work with the afghan government to train security forces and sustain a counter terrorism force which ensures that al qaeda can never again establish a safe haven to launch attacks against us, or our allies. beyond afghanistan would must define our effort not as a boundless global war on terror but rather as a series of persisted targeted efforts to dismantle persistent networks of extremists that threaten america. in many cases this will involve partnerships with other countries already, thousands of pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting extremists. in yemen we are supporting security forces that have reclaimed territory from