In a September 23, 1999, speech at the Citadel military academy in South Carolina, presidential candidate George W. Bush “laid out his thinking about the nation’s armed forces… It was a blueprint for a humbler, more restrained use of American power, a rejection of [President] Clinton’s humanitarian interventionism and nation building, which Bush considered distractions from the mission of the military. ‘That mission is to deter wars–and that mission is to win wars when deterrence fails,’ Bush told the cadets. ‘Sending our military on vague, aimless and endless deployments is the swift solvent of morale.’ While disavowing an isolationist ‘retreat from the world,’ Bush said he would be more ‘selective in the use of our military’ to relieve ‘the tension on an overstretched military,’ sentiments that would not survive long into his presidency. But Bush foresaw what would become the defining challenge of his time. ‘I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil. The federal government must take this threat seriously.’ ”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 50