We could overhaul our approach to national security, creating a more strategic, collaborative, less-is-more, and system that features engagement and soft power while we still have most of the decision power to do so, or simply wait for events to overtake us and be handed our fate.

As the administration did with its recent National Security Strategy—in which the enemy was identified only as Al Qaeda and any reference to Islamism was left out—the Obama team seems eager to paint the Muslim world as largely blameless for the actions of a few deranged individuals. It is part of Obama’s broader strategy of winning back the affections of the Islamic world.

Among the slew of strategy documents from the Obama administration this spring, full of academic analysis and verbal flourishes, Congress has rightly detected a certain lack of substance. Case in point: The question of whether the U.S. government needs a Center for Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy.

Last month, President Obama released his first National Security Strategy...This National Security Strategy (NSS) goes to great lengths to discuss the complex and intertwined global and governmental environments...However, the imperative of creating understanding and shaping influence at all levels, from individuals to governments, is at best a subtle inclusion throughout and at worse a passing thought.

The Obama administration's first National Security Strategy emphasizes a multilateral approach to solving international problems in contrast to the Bush years. But it is an adaptation of traditional thinking rather than a completely new approach.