The Bush administration issued a new National Security Strategy, a usefully chastened version of the 2002 document

* The Bush administration issued a new National Security Strategy, a usefully chastened version of the 2002 document. The original strategy emphasized democracy promotion and the U.S. right to preempt emerging threats. The new version retains those themes, but has some adjustments. It dwells much more on questions of ideology and the nature of Islam, making it clear that discrediting the terrorists' creed--partly through supporting democratic change in the Middle East--is crucial to the War on Terror.

It advocates the promotion of "effective democracies," a phrase meant to distinguish thoroughly democratic nations from those that simply hold elections. And it places more importance on alliances and diplomacy. All of this strikes us as sensible, and no one has yet to offer a conceptually compelling alternative to the basic Bush approach. There is an old Reagan saw about the economist who realizes that something works in practice, but wonders if it will work in theory. The Bush strategy faces the opposite, more common conundrum: It works in theory; the question is whether it can be made to work in practice.

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