It says "the President has no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago". The document, titled The National Security Strategy of the United States, declares the policies of containment and deterrence - staples since the 1940s - all but dead. There was no way in this changed world to deter those who "hate the United States and everything for which it stands". "America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones."



The document delivers Mr Bush's first comprehensive rationale for shifting military strategy towards pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups developing weapons of mass destruction. He also seeks to answer the critics of growing US muscle-flexing by insisting that it will exploit its military and economic power to encourage "free and open societies" rather than seek "unilateral advantage". The document calls this "a distinctly American internationalism".

Mr Bush put the final touches on the strategy last weekend at Camp David, after working on it for months with his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and with other members of the national security team. It is the first wide-ranging explanation of the Administration's foreign policy - from defence strategy to global warming. Much of the document focuses on how public diplomacy, the use of foreign aid, and changes in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank can be used to win what it calls a battle of competing values and ideas - including "a battle for the future of the Muslim world".

It describes a commitment to bolster US foreign aid by 50 per cent in the next few years in "countries whose governments rule justly, invest in their people, and encourage economic freedom". A senior White House official said Mr Bush had edited the document heavily "because he thought there were sections where we sounded overbearing or arrogant".

But its hawkishness is clear. "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States." With Russia no longer able to come close to matching US military spending, the doctrine seems aimed at rising powers like China. It cites the non-proliferation agreements that have failed to prevent Iran, North Korea, Iraq and other countries from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. It says the US will never subject its citizens to the new International Criminal Court, "whose jurisdiction does not extend to Americans".

The document makes no reference to the Kyoto accord but sets an overall objective of cutting US greenhouse gas emissions "per unit of economic activity by 18 per cent over the next 10 years". The New York Times