Consider it a superpower survival guide. Weighing in at some 30 pages, the Bush administration's new National Security Strategy is a manifesto for U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War, post-September 11 world. It is both philosophy and threat, call it the Bush Doctrine.
At its center, the concept that Cold War tactics of containment and deterrence are finished, that in a world filled with rogue states and terror, U.S. might and the willingness to use it are the keys to global security.
Critics call the strategy an unseemly flexing of military muscle in a world of 90-pound weaklings. Others say it's high time the U.S. shook off its "superpower shame" and started making good on the promise of democracy and dignity for all.
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Thomas Donnelly, fellow at the Project for A New American Century
Joseph Nye, Dean of John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and author of "The Paradox of American Power"
