President Bush has ordered a dramatic change in the way the United States will go to war. In the past, whether going after the Barbary pirates, fighting the Germans in World War I and the Germans and Japanese in World War II, or intervening in a civil war in Vietnam, or fighting Iraq in the Gulf War, this country held its fire until it or its allies were attacked. Mr. Bush now has declared that it will feel free to go to war, “if necessary,” whenever it decides another country already has weapons of mass destruction or plans to acquire them and may use them to attack us or our friends. American policy has never been to turn the other cheek. Now the policy is to protect the first cheek by striking first.

Iraq is Mr. Bush’s immediate target, and the war there appears to have already started. U.S. planes are reported to have been bombing scud batteries in Iraq to protect Israel from attack if the war spreads there. He said the United States had irrefutable proof that Iraq planned to acquire nuclear and biological weapons, but he did not explain the proof. He mentioned also North Korea and “other rogue regimes” as parts of “a looming threat to all nations.”

The new strategy is set forth in a 33-page document titled “The National Security Strategy of the United States.” Outlining a policy of disrupting and destroying terrorist organizations, the document said, “Our immediate focus will be those terrorist organizations of global reach and any terrorist or state sponsor of terrorism which attempts to gain or use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or their precursors.” It thus included not only the weapons but even preparations to develop such weapons. While seeking international support, the United States “will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorist to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country.”

Suggesting self-restraint, the document said that the United States “will not use force in all cases to preempt emerging threats.” It added that other nations should not “use preemption as a pretext for aggression.” (Russia has suggested lately that it might make a preemptive attack against its contentious neighbor, Georgia.) But the statement goes on: “Yet in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.”

The new Bush doctrine made it clear that the United States is the world’s only superpower and must remain

so. But it pledged that this “unparalleled military strength and great economic and political influence,” would seek not unilateral advantage but instead “a balance of power that favors human freedom.”

In a Dutch-uncle manner that some might consider condescending, the document admonished Russia to clean up its “uneven commitment to the basic values of free-market democracy” and its “dubious record in combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” It welcomed “the emergence of a strong, peaceful, and prosperous China” but added that China was following “an outdated path that, in the end, will hamper is own pursuit of national greatness” and would find in time that “social and political freedom is the only source of that greatness.”

Here at home, the new declaration reads like a call to war against Iraq for starters and an open-ended plan for other conquests. Abroad, it serves notice that the U.S. way is the best and only and that, as Mr. Bush has said repeatedly, if our allies won’t help we will go it alone.