Barack Obama yesterday issued formal burial rites for the George W. Bush neoconservative era with the release of his first national security strategy, which calls for a “renewal of American leadership” by working with other countries and reinvigorating the domestic US economy.

The four-yearly review, which is Mr Obama's first chance to create an “Obama doctrine” summarising his approach to the world, says that the key to America's future security will hinge on its ability to reinvent its rusting domestic economy.

In contrast to Mr Bush's controversial first national security strategy (NSS) in 2002, which issued an aggressive call to prolong the US's hegemony even by undertaking pre-emptive wars, Mr Obama's first take brings the US back to more traditional ways of conducting foreign policy.