VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- I spent a week earlier this month in Vladivostok, Russia, lecturing to university students. Focusing on U.S. foreign policy, I was trying -- honestly, I can say -- to convince them that American foreign policy was less unilateralist than it seemed, and that the U.S. didn't deserve much of the criticism heaped upon it in recent months. Whatever progress I made was probably undone last weekend with the publication of the long-awaited report "National Security Strategy of the United States."
This document details the Bush administration's view of the world and its framework for national-security policy. It's a spirited defense of U.S. activism in international affairs and a virtual call to arms in defense of the values and policies this administration champions. It is sure to harden the view of those who believe the U.S. is an arrogant and unilateralist power. I worry that they may be right.
The report is unabashedly muscular. It notes that "the United States enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great economic and political influence." Fortunately, it tempers that position by noting that "we do not use our strength to press for unilateral advantage. We seek instead to create a balance of power that favors human freedom: conditions in which all nations and all societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges of political and economic liberty." Given the questions that followed my talks this week, those assertions are not likely to be believed.