ABSTRACT
The publication of the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America on 17 September 2002 was one of the most significant and controversial foreign policy events of recent years. The document is wide ranging and many parts are predictable. Much of it is concerned with how to respond to ‘shadowy networks of individuals’ and ‘rogue states’. There is a defence of free markets and free trade that, it is claimed, will ‘ignite a new era of global economic growth’. There is a strong link made between development and democracy. However, one paragraph stood out. This stated that ‘to forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively’. It was this idea that summed up ‘the Bush Doctrine’, a label in use since a presidential speech at West Point in June 2002. As Madeleine Albright (2003a: 2) has noted, it appeared that ‘reliance on alliance had been replaced by redemption through prevention’.
