Between the lines of the new security strategy and the Pentagon's earlier Quadrennial Defence Review is a recognition that military force is not going to be the most useful means to achieve what Ms Rice has called “a balance of power that favours freedom”. America fully intends to remain the world's pre-eminent military power. But the most thoughtful talk now is of more coherent diplomacy, with soldiers and diplomats working more closely both in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction. And this from a team that used to insist, disparagingly, that America didn't “do windows” (or, as others would put it, nation-building).

Above all, allies are back in vogue.