Barack Obama expected to take few risks in final year

As Barack Obama prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address tomorrow night, the US President and his aides have insisted he will not be content simply to run out the clock on foreign policy and is acting decisively to tackle crises piling up around the globe.

But former US officials and experts familiar with the White House’s thinking say he appears locked into policies aimed more at containing such threats and avoiding deeper US military engagement in the last year of his presidency.

This, they say, all but guarantees that the toughest geopolitical challenges will be inherited by Obama’s successor.