At this point, not even the self-styled Wonk Class was staying up late in anticipation of the Obama Administration’s release of its long-overdue National Security Strategy (NSS), which has at last been published. The last one came out five years ago, and the president has been promising an update since the fall of 2013.

Even though much of the purpose of such formal documents is to avoid making headlines, there are inevitable news nuggets that do reflect the unique ways in which administrations consider America’s security challenges; a good example would be the passages on preemptive war in George W. Bush’s 2002 NSS.