Mr Powell has talked of a "new benchmark": how governments now respond to America's requests for help in the war against terrorism "will be a means by which we measure our relationship with them in the future".Cold war parallelsIn many ways, the nearest parallel to America's new thinking is the determination to contain communism that marked the cold war.
And being two-pronged, with the Pentagon waging a spy- and kill drone campaign that's more "public" than that being carried out by the CIA, America's rapidly-evolving robot wars have Hagel and Brennan's impending oversight positioned to solidify Obama's legacy as one steeped in all the moral, ethical, and legal quandaries marking the cold, autonomous technology, if it wasn't already.
Here the pollutant -- the mark left by the cold war and its aftermath upon a divided Germany -- is more evident.
MARK LEIBOVICH Braving the Cold The State of the Union tradition affirms many important tenets of public life, none more important than this: Politicians love being on television.
There is none of the paranoia and fear that marked the early cold war, and little desire to return to it.
Many people expect that this would mark the beginning of cold war II.
It is still full of would-be reformists anxious to make their mark after years in the cold.
Down on St. Mark's Place, in the cold darkness, the world still intact, I carried his question all the way home.
Several features of the system mark it out from the Cold War era, when international terrorism was much less of a threat.
"The world was looking for something big to mark the millennium - the cold war was over, Nelson Mandela had been released from prison".
