This article examines the likely foreign policy initiatives of the U.S. under the leadership of George W. Bush. The new president has outlined a fairly thorough critique of America’s international behavior in the 1990s. Because a leader’s public statements arguably serve to persuade various audiences and to build support for policy change, the article takes Bush’s words quite seriously—along with those spoken or written by his closest foreign affairs advisors. Bush intends to abandon the so-called Clinton Doctrine and deploy national missile defenses. He

is critical of American policies toward China and Russia, but has not presented bold new initiatives toward those powers. Under the rubric of “compassionate conservatism,” Bush may alter U.S. relations toward the Global South in some interesting ways. The president and his advisors often purport to be realists, but the article demonstrates that their own words belie this claim as they often justify policies based on ideals rather than the pursuit of power.