The 2008 U.S. election was all about change. But that’s not what we’re going to get on foreign policy, says the longtime speechwriter for Condoleezza Rice. Instead of a radical departure from Bush, we’re likely to end up with a lot more of the same. And that may be just what we need.

On December 1, Barack Obama, who won theU.S. presidency as the candidate of “change,” announced his nationalsecurity team: President George W. Bush’s secretary of defense (RobertGates), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s special envoy for MiddleEast security (James Jones), and the doyenne of Democratic centrism(Hillary Clinton). Some saw this as the political cover Obama needs tolead U.S. foreign policy in an entirely different direction after Bush.Perhaps. But I doubt it. My hunch, and my hope, is that Obama will be asuccessful president, not because he’ll totally change the foreignpolicy he’ll inherit from Bush, but because he’ll largely continue it.