Bush and His Vulcans

Four More Years (James Mann, Foreign Policy, 11/04)

"President Bush’s neoconservative 'Vulcans' are back for a second term in office. But this time, they will discover they have limited resources and diminished credibility."

Think Again: Bush’s Foreign Policy (Melvyn Leffler, Foreign Policy, 9-10/04)

"Not since Richard Nixon’s conduct of the war in Vietnam has a U.S. president’s foreign policy so polarized the country—and the world. Yet as controversial as George W. Bush’s policies have been, they are not as radical a departure from his predecessors as both critics and supporters proclaim. Instead, the real weaknesses of the president’s foreign policy lie in its contradictions: Blinded by moral clarity and hamstrung by its enormous military strength, the United States needs to rebalance means with ends if it wants to forge a truly effective grand strategy."