The secretary of state is in line with Bush on some issues but won't be part of a complete shift to the right in foreign policy. As President Bush pulls U.S. foreign policy to the right, Secretary of State Colin Powell is following a moderate line, projecting continuity and stability to a watchful world. Analysts say that after only three months of the Bush administration, it is a little early to make judgments about what might not be serious divisions between Powell and Bush and the president's other top advisers. So far, there is a sense Powell is not completely with the program. Powell is an enthusiastic booster of Bush's dream of a futuristic shield against missiles to protect the United States from attack.
Critics consider it a costly fantasy and a threat to existing curbs on nuclear weapons.
Powell shares his foreign policy views privately with the president, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser. Other administrations have been marked by differences among presidential advisers. Under former President Carter, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was inclined to a harder line abroad than Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The emergence of the security adviser job as a powerful one under Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration added another possibly discordant note of advice to the president. And now, Cheney, a former defense secretary, is playing an unprecedented role in foreign policy for a vice president.