“The Deal”: The Balance of Power, Military Strength, and Liberal Internationalism in the Bush National Security Strategy

The Bush National Security Strategy, even as it calls for ‘‘a balance of power that favors freedom,’’ in truth rejects a balance of power approach to international order. It foresees instead the cooperation of all Great Powers under American leadership in furtherance of a common agenda imagined to be founded in universal values. Such rejection of a genuine ‘‘balance of power’’ approach represents a coherent evolution from America’s long tradition of foreign policy thought. Emerging from its founding tradition of separation, U.S. strategic thought was influenced both by Theodore Roosevelt’s advocacy of military strength in the service of good and Woodrow Wilson’s ideological conviction that American engagement in the world could be made conditional on the pursuit of global reform in line with an idealized conception of American values and practices. The conviction that this notional ‘‘deal’’ is still valid provides this administration’s ideological bedrock. The Bush worldview should not be seen as a radically new phenomenon, but as a logical outgrowth from the American foreign policy tradition