Does the Bush foreign policy revolution have a future? In search of monsters

For the past three years, and especially since the September 112001 attacks, a common critique of American foreign policy under President George Bush has run as follows. The administration's foreign policy is all brawn and no brain; military force has replaced diplomacy and negotiations as Washington's main foreign policy instrument. The president is a foreign policy lightweight who knows little about the world. Therefore, foreign policy is run by Bush's advisers, especially Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For all intents and purposes, Bush has been the puppet of darker forces in his administration, above all the neo-conservatives, who in Senator Joe Biden's words' captured the heart and mind' of the president. While we share many of these criticisms and very much fear the chosen direction, we believe that this caricature of Bush's foreign policy is profoundly mistaken. The problem is not with the people the president has chosen to have around him, but with the president himself. Bush has launched a revolution in foreign policy and it is he, rather than his advisers, who is the true revolutionary. A complete understanding of this revolution, its impact and likely future requires a thorough examination of the conventional view to see where it is right and where it is off-base.