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 The release of the document, followed by a speech from Obama's top
national security adviser, Susan Rice, will be closely parsed by
foreign policy experts and the Republican-controlled Congress.
The new document will update one issued in 2010, when he was only 15
months into the job. Since then, Obama has been frequently
criticized at home and abroad for an overly cautious approach to
foreign policy.
Obama is expected to recommit himself to lead the international
coalition to degrade and defeat Islamic State militants, and to work
with European allies to isolate Russia over its moves in support of
rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Rice is also expected to stress Obama's policy of shifting more
economic, military and diplomatic resources to Asia.
 "I believe that you will hear a full-throated affirmation of
President Obama's strategic commitment to deepening American
engagement and investment in the Asia-Pacific region," a senior
State Department official told reporters, speaking on background.
Obama proposed an increased $534 billion budget for the Pentagon
earlier this week plus $51 billion in war funds, reflecting security
challenges in the Middle East and Ukraine and plans to station more
forces in the Asia-Pacific to respond to the rise of China.
If past strategies from Obama and previous presidents are any guide,
the document will be long on sweeping statements and short on
specific plans.
"In their aspirations, generalities and rhetoric, they often
resemble most a really, really long speech," wrote Richard Fontaine
and Shawn Brimley, former White House officials from the George W.
Bush and Obama administrations, respectively, and now with the
Center for a New American Security.
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"Don’t get your hopes up," Fontaine and Brimley wrote in Foreign
Policy magazine on Thursday.
The document is required annually under a 1986 law but in practise
is delivered more sporadically.
In Obama's 2010 strategy, which ran 52 pages, he sought to set his
approach apart from that of former President George W. Bush, who
asserted the right to wage pre-emptive war against those deemed a
threat after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In broad terms, it discussed the need to defeat al Qaeda, get troops
out of Iraq, pursue Middle East peace, and seek a "stable,
substantive, multidimensional relationship" with Russia.
The 2010 strategy also focused on the need to get the United States
back on firmer economic ground after the financial crisis.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Ken Wills)
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