About every forty to fifty years the United States goes through a major debate about its national strategy and place in the world. We are in the middle of one right now. We had a huge debate at the time of the First World War and the League of Nations, which many thought didn’t go well at all.
Then, after the Second World War, the US adopted a containment policy which lasted until the end of the Cold War. Since then we have witnessed a chaotic period with no real governing set of rules. In September, President George Bush released the new National Security Document, which outlines what he and his administration hope will be the defining set of principles for the US for the next forty or fifty years.
