Bush Doctrine

The main elements of the Bush Doctrine were delineated in a document, the National Security Strategy of the United States, published on September 17, 2002. This document is often cited as the definitive statement of the doctrine. As updated in 2006, it states: ==Components==

The Bush Doctrine is defined as "a collection of strategy principles, practical policy decisions, and a set of rationales and ideas for guiding United States foreign policy." Two main pillars are identified for the doctrine: 1.) preemptive strikes against potential enemies and 2.) promoting democratic regime change. The Bush administration claimed that the U.S. was locked in a global war; a war of ideology, in which its enemies are bound together by a common ideology and a common hatred of democracy. Out of the National Security Strategy, four main points are highlighted as the core to the Bush Doctrine: 1.) Preemption, 2.) Military Primacy, 3.) New Multilateralism, and 4.) the Spread of Democracy. The document emphasized preemption, stating, "America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few", and required "defending the United States, the American people, and our interests at home and abroad by identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches our borders." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld remarked thus in 2006, in a statement taken to reflect his view of the doctrine's efficacy: "If I were rating, I would say we probably deserve a D or D+ as a country as how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place. I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but we have not found the formula as a country." There is some evidence that Bush's willingness for the U.S. to act unilaterally came even earlier. The International Journal of Peace Studies 2003 article "The Bush administration's image of Europe: From ambivalence to rigidity" states: Attacking countries that harbor terrorists The doctrine was developed more fully as an executive branch response following the September 11 attacks. The attacks presented a foreign policy challenge, since it was not Afghanistan that had initiated the attacks, and there was no evidence that they had any foreknowledge of them. In an address to the nation on the evening of September 11, Bush stated his resolution of the issue by declaring that, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." The president made an even more aggressive restatement of this principle in his September 20, 2001 address to a joint session of Congress: White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer later wrote in an autobiographical account of that address, "In a speech hailed by the press and by Democrats, [the President] announced what became known as the 'Bush Doctrine'". The first published reference after the 9/11 attacks to the terror-fighting doctrine appeared September 30 in an op-ed by political scientist Neal Coates. This policy was used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, The stance of the Bush administration was that the harsh measures to spread the democracy worldwide are inevitable and efficacious, in which for instance, liberating Iraq would plant democracy in the area and enable it to flourish in the rest of the Middle East. Two distinct schools of thought arose in the Bush administration regarding how to handle countries such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea (the so-called "Axis of Evil" states). Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, as well as U.S. Department of State specialists, argued for what was essentially the continuation of existing U.S. foreign policy. These policies, developed after the Cold War, sought to establish a multilateral consensus for action (which would likely take the form of increasingly harsh sanctions against the problem states, summarized as the policy of containment). The opposing view, argued by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a number of influential Department of Defense policy makers like Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, held that direct and unilateral action was both possible and justified and that the U.S. should embrace the opportunities for democracy and security offered by its position as sole remaining superpower. Democratic regime change In several speeches between late 2001 and 2002, Bush expanded on his view of the U.S. foreign policy and global intervention, declaring that the United States should actively support democratic governments around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating the threat of terrorism, and that the nation had to act unilaterally in its own security interests, without approval of international bodies like the United Nations. After his second inauguration, in a January 2006 speech at the National Defense University, Bush said: "The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom." Neoconservatives and the Bush Doctrine held that the hatred for the West and the United States particularly exists not because of actions perpetrated by the U.S., but rather because the countries from which terrorists emerge are in social disarray and do not experience the freedom that is an intrinsic part of democracy. The Bush Doctrine holds that enemies of the U.S. use terrorism as a war of ideology against the nation. The responsibility of the United States is to protect itself by promoting democracy where the terrorists are located so as to undermine the basis for terrorist activities. Elections in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine happened as a result of this initiative in the sense that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and Hamas were allowed to participate in it. ==Influences on the Bush Doctrine==

Neoconservatives The development of the doctrine was influenced by neoconservative ideology, by neoconservatives, who also became disgruntled with the outcome of the Gulf War sparking them to call for change towards global stability through their support for active intervention and the democratic peace theory. Other Bush cabinet members who are thought to have adopted neoconservative foreign policy thinking include Cheney and Rice. The Bush Doctrine, and neoconservative reasoning, held that containment of the enemy as under the realpolitik of President Ronald Reagan did not work, and that the enemy of the U.S. must be destroyed preemptively before they attack—using all the United States' available means, resources and influences to do so. The book argues that replacing dictatorships with democratic governments is both morally justified since it leads to greater freedom for the citizens of such countries, and strategically wise, since democratic countries are more peaceful, and breed less terrorism than dictatorial ones. Expanding United States influence Princeton University research fellow Dr. Jonathan Monten, in his 2005 International Security journal article "The Roots of the Bush Doctrine: Power, Nationalism, and Democracy Promotion in U.S. Strategy", attributed the Bush administration's activist democracy promotion to two main factors: the expansion of material capabilities, and the presence of a nationalist domestic ideology. He claims that the Bush Doctrine's promotion of democracy abroad was held as vital by the Bush administration to the success of the United States in the "war on terror". It was also a key objective of the administration's grand strategy of expanding the political and economic influence of the U.S. internationally. He examines two contending approaches to the long-term promotion of democracy: exemplarism, or leadership by example, and vindicationism, or the direct application of American power, including the use of coercive force. Whereas exemplarism largely prevailed in the 20th century, vindicationism has been the preferred approach of the Bush administration. ==Criticism and analysis==

The Bush Doctrine resulted in criticism and controversy. Peter D. Feaver, who worked on the Bush national security strategy as a staff member on the National Security Council, said he has counted as many as seven distinct Bush doctrines. One of the drafters of the National Security Strategy of the U.S., which is commonly mistakenly referred to as the "Bush Doctrine", demurred at investing the statement with too much weight. "I actually never thought there was a Bush doctrine", said Philip Zelikow, who later served as State Department counselor under Secretary of State Rice. "Indeed, I believe the assertion that there is such a doctrine lends greater coherence to the administration's policies than they deserve." Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, said he thought there was no "single piece of paper" that represents the Bush Doctrine. Experts on geopolitical strategy note that Halford Mackinder's theories in "The Geographical Pivot of History" about the "Heartland" and world resource control are still as valid today as when they were formulated. In his 2007 book In the Defense of the Bush Doctrine, Robert G. Kaufman wrote: "No one grasped the logics or implications of this transformation better than Halford Mackinder. His prescient theories, first set forth in Geographical Pivot of History, published in 1904, have rightly shaped American grand strategy since World War II. Mackinder warned that any single power dominating Eurasia, "the World Island", as he called it, would have the potential to dominate the world, including the United States." Kaufman is a political scientist, public policy professor and member of The Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee. He said in an interview about the book: "I wrote this book because of my conviction that the Bush Doctrine has a more compelling logic and historical pedigree than people realize." The Bush Doctrine was polarizing both domestically and internationally. Foreign interventionism The foreign policy of the Bush Doctrine was subject to controversy both in the United States and internationally. Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson argued that it reflects a turn away from international law, and marks the end of American legitimacy in foreign affairs. Others have stated that it could lead to other states resorting to the production of WMDs or terrorist activities. This doctrine is argued to be contrary to the just war theory and would constitute a war of aggression. Pat Buchanan writes that the invasion of Iraq had significant similarities to the 1996 neoconservative policy paper A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. Political scientist Karen Kwiatkowski in 2007 wrote in her article "Making Sense of the Bush Doctrine": We are killing terrorists in self-defense and for the good of the world, you see. We are taking over foreign countries, setting them up with our favorite puppets "in charge," controlling their economy, their movements, their dress codes, their defensive projects, and their dreams, solely because we love them, and apparently can't live without them. Radical departure According to Buchanan and others, the Bush Doctrine was a radical departure from former United States foreign policies, and a continuation of the ideological roots of neoconservatism. Initially, support for the U.S. was high, The representation of prominent neoconservatives and their influences on the Bush Doctrine had been highly controversial among the American public. Critics, like John Micklethwait in the book The Right Nation, claim that Bush was deceived by neoconservatives into adopting their policies. Polarization Anti-war critics have claimed that the Bush Doctrine was strongly polarizing domestically, had estranged U.S. allies, Compassionate belief and religious influence Bush often talked about his belief in compassionate conservatism and liberty as "God's gift". Charles R. Kesler writes, "As he begins his second term, the president and his advisors must take a hard, second look at the Bush Doctrine. In many respects, it is the export version of compassionate conservatism." Sociopsychological strategy and effects There is also criticism on Bush Doctrine practices related to their sociopsychological effects saying they create a culture of fear. Naomi Klein writes in her book The Shock Doctrine about a recurrent metaphor of shock, and she claimed in an interview that the Bush administration continued to exploit a "window of opportunity that opens up in a state of shock", followed by a comforting rationale for the public, as a form of social control. Democratization Some commentators argue that the Bush Doctrine has not aimed to support genuine democratic regimes driven by local peoples, but rather U.S.-friendly regimes installed by diplomats acting on behalf of the United States and intended only to seem democratic to American voters. For example, in the case of Afghanistan, it is argued that parliamentary democracy was downplayed by the U.S. and power concentrated in the hands of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, a U.S. ally. The election of Karzai has been described as the result of manipulation on the parts of the U.S. government and American policy maker Zalmay Khalilzad. At the same time, these commentators draw attention to the number of unpopular (but U.S.-friendly) warlords achieving "legitimating" positions under United States supervision of the elections. Some commentators interpreted voter turnout figures as evidence of "large-scale fraud". Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls have written, "It remains to be seen if U.S. policymakers will ever allow anything approaching democracy to break out in Afghanistan and interfere with their plans." Of the elections in Afghanistan, Sima Samar, former Afghan minister of Women's Affairs, stated, "This is not a democracy, it is a rubber stamp. Everything has already been decided by the powerful ones." Most studies of American intervention have been pessimistic about the history of the United States exporting democracy. John A. Tures examined 228 cases of U.S. intervention from 1973 to 2005, using data from Freedom House. While in 63 cases a country did become more democratic, in 69 instances the country became less democratic—and the plurality of interventions, 96, caused no change in the country's democracy. ==See also==