President Bush National Security Strategy

"The united States possesses unprecedented and unequaled-strength and influence in the world. Sustained by faith in the principals of liberty, and the value of a free society, this position comes with unparalleled responsibilities, obligations, and opportunity." (President Bush, National Security Strategy, June 2002)

In the turn of the 20th century, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the most powerful nation; it prospered economically, militarily, and politically. With this increase in power came a great consideration over how the United States would deal with foreign affairs. After the attacks on the World Trade Center the idea of preemptive measures became the highlight of the Bush's National Security
The most important factor of the strategy, one which scholars have called "revolutionary" is that of preventive attack: the united states will prevent their enemies from threatening them or their allies with weapons of mass destruction. In other words, the United States will go after and attack those countries which are threatening before those countries can attack the United States. This is important because it is the ideology being used today to justify the war on Iraq and it also the strategy that has caused strong conflict in both inside the Unites States and internationally around the
This means that smaller states join the stronger nations instead of rebelling against it. In "Imperial Temptation", Snyder disagrees that bandwagons exist. He defines it as one of the myths in the strategic ideas of previous empires, he states that "despite the difficulties that the Unites States has had in lining up support for an invasion of Iraq, the administration nonetheless asserts that its strategy of preventive war will lead others to jump on the U.S. bandwagon."(4) He then goes on to say that "preventive war will attract a bandwagon of support that creates an imbalance of power in America's favor." The United States must be careful in trying to take the sole responsibility for making democracy better for America. This leads to another myth, pointed out by Snyder in "Imperial Temptation", about strategic ideas of previous empire that is becoming evident in the NSS. The myths of promised ideological benefits of imperial expansion. For example America's mission, as stated in NSS, is to make the world safer for democracy, which is a ideological promised benefit that in is simply a strategic myth. "This sounds like a public relations in light of candidate Bush's warning against the temptations of nation-building abroad."