Snark 2.1

Last week the White House released an updated version of the National Security Strategy, dubbed NSS 2.0 by some. In the course of my daily reading yesterday, I noticed some snarky blog posting on the subject. So snarky that in fact I wondered if the author(s) had read the document.

Here is one analysis from a journalist who it appears, has taken the time to dive into the document itself:

The March 2006 National Security Strategy -- call it NSS 2.0 -- reiterates much of the earlier document. NSS 2.0 repeats the doctrine of pre-emption: The United States "will, if necessary, act pre-emptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense."

But NSS 1.0 also called for working with other countries and international institutions when possible, and NSS 2.0 provides much more detail on how this has been done...

Note that here the administration is not limiting itself to working through pre-existing multinational organizations, where action may be blocked by others and whose bureaucracies are often hostile to the United States. Instead, it has been building coalitions of the willing to address particular problems.

Sept. 11 prompted George W. Bush to make "the most fundamental reassessment of American grand strategy in over half a century," historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote of NSS 1.0. Bush put his own particular stamp on that policy -- the relentless insistence that promoting democracy is our prime goal. NSS 2.0 provides some course corrections, but retains the same overall outlook and emphasizes democracy promotion even more strongly. However beleaguered he may be in current polls, Bush has produced a foreign policy framework that promises to be enduring.