Others describe his political views as being more in line with "republitarian" philosophy that embraces incrementalism domestically, and a generally interventionist foreign policy based on self-interest, national defense and the expansion of freedom.
"I believe in a foreign policy based on our national interests that focuses on American security and regional stability instead of using our military to create democracies in countries with no democratic history and couldn't care less about democracy," he said.
Foreign policy based on "narrow self-interest" is outdated, he asserts.
Ironically, this is especially true of some of our multinational corporations, which call on the federal government to negotiate favorable trade treaties that allow them easy entry into foreign markets and to defend their commercial interests around the world, but then use these foreign bases to avoid paying taxes.
"America's foreign policy is based on domestic interests, rather than what's good for the whole world," he said, adding that the United States sees China as an adversary for reasons of its own.
Indeed, some of the most senior officials who supported the invasion of Iraq, including Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney, are operating these days more in the traditions of Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Scowcroft, the Republican apostles of realism whose foreign policy was based on national interests rather than American values.
Are 1,000 U.S. foreign bases really necessary?
That decent 1990's impulse to do good in Bosnia and Kosovo, even at the price of alienating Russia and China, was already, before Sept. 11, giving way to a foreign policy based on an unsentimental notion of our national interest.
Moreover, the markets that once dealt in eggs and cheese now deal in futures and options based on interest rates, foreign exchange and all kinds of other things.
A community based on interests?
Coalitions are based on interests.
