"Cameron's speech is very interesting way of arguing that although the multilateralists got nearly every one of their past objectives wrong and were blind to nearly every threat in the past, that thank you very much, now that the way has been shown they would like to take the driver's seat on the grounds of their obvious superiority. Jacques Chirac was recently overheard on an open microphone muttering that there would be no danger to the French troops in Lebanon for the immediate future because the Hezbollah had been so gravely weakened by the Israelis. When politicians are eager to take over an enterprise they have a spent a career denouncing it's usually a sign it was a good idea to start with.

But I don't think Cameron is ill intentioned. His problem is more basic. While he correctly understands that more than military power will be required to defeat terrorism he still doesn't realize that the institutions of diplomacy, huge multilateral organizations headquartered in Europe and lumbering agencies like the UN are wholly incapable of providing the missing dimensions which he rightly understands are required.

If the US military has learned any lesson "painfully", it is that while all the elements of "soft power" must be integrated in the field, they are not being provided by existing institutions."