Yet Bush has startled friends and foes alike with the sheer abrasiveness of his attitudes toward Russia, China and North Korea, and his indifference to world opinion on issues like global warming. Last week Bush discovered that the Russians have spies, and gave 50 of them the heave-ho. He's been cool to meeting Vladimir Putin to talk arms control. They talk of selling Taiwan powerful anti-missile defences. Meanwhile, Bush has undercut South Korea's bid to get North Korea to shelve its missile program, as it has its nuclear program, in exchange for trade and aid.
Critics call it folly.
As the wreckage piles up, Republican think tanks crank out alarmist studies to demonstrate that the continental United States is open to attack and intimidation. But the Cold War era people around Bush Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld, to name two are truly ambitious patriots. They know that the U.S. is undefeatable, and has been for a decade or more. They dream of making it invulnerable as well. They don't want even to be threatened by pipsqueak powers.