For all its superficial similarity to and rhetorical embrace of a long, bipartisan tradition of U.S. leadership, the NSS misses the most important elements of that history—and as a result fundamentally misunderstands what made the United States a great power in the first place. The language of the document may in many ways sound familiar. But the grim worldview at its core threatens to undermine the strategies that have long made U.S. global leadership work.
Melvyn Leffler
