Remember the Bush Doctrine? Bush’s handlers had their monkey dancing a few years ago. This bit was written in January, 2003, when it was clear that Bush was going to go kick some booty.
The Bush Doctrine, which is likely to shape U.S. policy for decades to come, reflects the realities of American power as well as the aspirations of American political principles.
Does the Bush Doctrine represent a new course for American policy or simply an elaborate justification for the administration’s actions? Why attack Iraq but not North Korea? What is the real role of preemption? What is wrong with the tried-and-true concepts of deterrence?
If nothing else, the Bush Doctrine, articulated by the president over the past eighteen months in a series of speeches and encapsulated in the new National Security Strategy paper released in September, represents a reversal of course from Clinton-era policies in regard to the uses of U.S. power and, especially, military force. So perhaps it is no surprise that many Americans–and others in the rest of the world as well–are struggling to keep up with the changes. Indeed, it often appears that many in the administration cannot keep up with the president. But in fact the Bush Doctrine represents a return to the first principles of American security strategy. The Bush Doctrine also represents the realities of international politics in the post-cold-war, sole-superpower world. Further, the combination of these two factors–America’s universal political principles and unprecedented global power and influence–make the Bush Doctrine a whole greater than the sum of its parts; it is likely to remain the basis for U.S. security strategy for decades to come.
They had Bush dancing, but they could never get him to tango. All of these high fallutin’ words, and only thing true about any of it is the first sentence. Yes, the Bush Doctrine will shape U.S. policy for decades. It has ruined the ground forces, bankrupted the treasury, poisoned relationships with other countries.