Score another one for George W. Bush — and Barack Obama. After excoriating his predecessor during the 2008 campaign, President Obama has adopted most of his policies on fighting terrorism and other national security issues. The latest evidence comes courtesy of North Korea which sent a ship suspected to be carrying missile technology to Mynamar (the country once known as Burma). The vessel — flagged in Belize — was tracked by a U.S. Navy destroyer. Because Belize is a member of the Proliferation Security Initiative — a Bush initiative to create an “alliance of the willing” to stop WMD–the U.S. received permission to board the vessel.

The Obama administration blinked by refusing to carry out the boarding for fear of an armed confrontation with North Koreans. But the NSC point man on proliferation issues (my former boss Gary Samore), then brought the ship’s existence to the attention of various Southeast Asian nations, including Burma. Before reaching its destination, the vessel turned back, all the while being tracked by U.S. surveillance aircraft and satellites.

The New York Times, which broke the story, doesn’t make explicit what led the ship to turn back. But whatever the case, this is a victory for the Proliferation Security Initiative — and a tribute to the continuity in American foreign policy. Whatever the campaign rhetoric, winning candidates usually find once in office there are good reasons why their predecessors acted as they did. Obama is only the latest to make that discovery. Given how left-wing his views are, it is very much to Obama’s credit that, on a number of foreign-policy issues (though not all: Israel remains an unfortunate exception), he has not allowed himself to be blinded by ideology.