US President Barack Obama has conjured the prospect of an eventual end to the perpetual, largely covert, global “war on terror” launched by his predecessor, George W Bush, in response to the 9/11 attacks.

But while promising greater transparency on counter-terrorism, the closure of the Guantanamo prison and restrictions on targeted assassinations by drones, Obama’s heavily trailed and leaked policy speech yesterday in Washington was expected to make clear that, on his watch at least, the US will continue to employ unapologetically unilateral, extra-judicial and lethal means to neutralise anybody it deems a threat to its national security.

In his address to the National Defense University, the main points of which were disclosed on Wednesday by White House officials, Obama appeared to bow to growing pressure to both justify and curtail drone strikes against suspected Al Qaeda operatives and like-minded people. For the first time, the White House has acknowledged that American citizens have died in drone attacks, notably Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in Yemen in September 2011.

Obama’s reported commitment to shift control of drone warfare from the CIA to the Pentagon, which is subject to more rigorous and more public Congressional scrutiny, and to restrict instances when drones are used in countries that are not “overt” war zones, will be particularly welcome in Pakistan, where widespread anger about unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks on Pakistani soil became a hot issue in this month’s general election.

Obama’s decision to raise the bar by allowing the use of lethal force only against those who present “a continuing, imminent threat to Americans” and who cannot feasibly be captured, could also bring a reduction in opportunistic drone strikes on supposed terrorists, which critics say have caused large numbers of civilian casualties. This shift moves the emphasis away from the no-holds-barred, extra-legal counter-terrorism warfare of the Bush era towards traditional concepts of legitimate self-defence.

After the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, Pentagon strategists evolved a doctrine known as “the long war”, postulating a titanic global struggle against terrorists and their rogue state backers that they predicted could last 50 years. Obama has always appeared uncomfortable with that dismaying idea. In foreign policy, the main focus of his first term was ending the Iraqi and Afghan wars, and avoiding new ones (such as in Syria or Iran).

Now, in his second term, Obama seems bent on gradually de-escalating and de-emphasising the “war on terror” (a phrase he has disowned) on the basis that Al Qaeda has been routed, if not wholly defeated, and America’s defences are more formidable than ever. Obama is not claiming all-out victory. He does not offer a solution. How could he, with the Boston marathon bombing still causing violent repercussions? Rather, in his typical professorial fashion, he appears intent on institutionalising and managing the problem.