An old Soviet joke described the Kremlin’s approach to policy under Leonid Brezhnev as “pull the curtains and pretend the train is moving”. The US National Security Strategy just issued by the Bush administration expresses the same general philosophy.

It would seem, to judge by this document, that the train of US official thinking has not moved for four years. For this NSS basically restates, in somewhat milder language, the notorious National Security Strategy of 2002. This is in spite of the fact that the analysis and strategy set out then have – to put it mildly – not been borne out by subsequent events.