A Return to Realism: The Failure of the Bush Doctrine as a Paradigm for United States Post - Cold War Foreign Policy
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in Political Science
University of Regina
By
Michael C. Ducie
Regina, Saskatchewan
May 2009
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1+1 Canada UNIVERSITY OF REGINA
FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH
SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE
Michael Charles Ducie, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science, has presented a thesis titled, A Return to Realism: The Failure of the Bush Doctrine as a Paradigm for United States Post - Cold War Foreign Policy, in an oral examination held on May 15, 2009. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.
External Examiner: *Dr. Bruno Dupeyron, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Yuchao Zhu, Department of Political Science
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Tom Mcintosh, Department of Political Science
Committee Member: Dr. Ann Ward, Department of Political Science, Campion College
Chair of Defense: Dr. Yiyu Yao, Department of Computer Science
*Extemal in absentia ii
Abstract
During the Cold War the realist theory of international relations as formulated by
Hans Morgenthau provided the theoretical underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s the U.S. searched for a new paradigm to guide its foreign policy. Many people argued that the nature of the post -
Cold War international system with its many transnational issues that did not fall within the Cold War definition of national interests which meant that a realist foreign policy was no longer appropriate. The Clinton foreign policy had lacked a theoretical cohesiveness and as such was much more reactionary in responding to international issues and crises.
In response senior members of the neoconservative foreign policy establishment formed the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) to present what they believed U.S. foreign policy should encompass. The election of George W. Bush and the attacks of
September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity for former members of PNAC and now senior administration officials to implement their ideas in the form of the Bush Doctrine.
The Bush Doctrine can be defined as an approach to U.S. foreign policy that is a form of militant idealism or neo - idealism based on the concept of unrivalled military power and U.S. exceptionalism, supported by two principles; pre-emption and democratization. Pre-emption holds that the U.S. may institute regime change in any state that it deems a threat even if that threat is not imminent. Second, that the U.S. has the responsibility to foster the spread of democracy and free market economic systems.
This thesis will demonstrate that the U.S. has been unable to address a broad range of global issues because of its inability to move beyond the narrowly defined concept of national interests that has framed its historical foreign policy decisions. The iii
Bush Doctrine maintains a narrow definition of national interests that has a greater degree of global engagement, but does so largely within the scope of national security affairs and the so - called "war on terror". This represents a narrow definition of national interests and lacks an understanding of the interconnected nature of international issues. The failure of the Bush Doctrine over the past eight years and the reasons for this failure illustrates why the U.S. needs to return to a realist paradigm but with a broader definition of national interests to guide its foreign policy.
The war in Iraq is the primary application of the Bush Doctrine, in many ways the
Doctrine was developed to provide justification for the war and to supply the framework for the future application of U.S. power. Success in Iraq was short - lived, within months of the invasion the limitations of U.S. strategy became evident. Too few soldiers and the lack of a comprehensive post - invasion reconstruction plan led to the collapse of Iraq into a sectarian civil war with the U.S. trapped in the middle. The adherence of senior neoconservative members of the Administration to the failed strategy for three years resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, billions of dollars and the displacement of millions of refugees. The eventual recognition of this failure resulted in the removal of many of the neoconservatives with realists and the de facto end of the Bush Doctrine.
The failure of the Bush Doctrine represents how U.S. foreign policy needs to recognize the interconnected nature of international issues. As a result it is necessary to have a broad definition of national interests. This can best be accomplished within the realist foreign policy paradigm that has traditionally guided U.S. foreign policy, to which the
American people have grown accustomed and has become part of the political culture as illustrated by the broad acceptance of the Weinberger - Powell Doctrine. IV
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Tom Mcintosh for his support both as an advisor and for the financial support that made this work possible. I also want to extend my appreciation to Dr. Yuchao Zhu whose guidance in the production of this thesis has been invaluable. I want to thank Dr. Ann Ward for her participation on my committee and for her insightful comments on this thesis. A special thank you to Dr. Howard Leeson who provided advice and support during the early stages of this work. I want to thank the Department of Political Science for the teaching assistantships, which have provided me with valuable experience. Finally, I want to thank my fellow graduate student, Nathan
Klassen for his time and for providing comments on this thesis. V
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 7
2. Historical Context 15
3. Realism in its American Context 3.1 Pre - Morgenthau Realism 24 3.2 Morgenthau's Realism 30 3.3 Post - Morgenthau Developments 33 3.4 Application of Realism during the Cold War 39
4. The Development of the Bush Doctrine 4.1 Pre - 2001 Neoconservative Foreign Policy Discussions 47 4.2 September 11, 2001 and the National Security Strategy of 2002 54 4.3 Robert Kagan and the Bush Doctrine 61 4.4 Charles Krauthammer and the Bush Doctrine 64 4.5 Michael Ignatieffand the Bush Doctrine 66 4.6 Niall Ferguson and the Bush Doctrine 69
5. The Bush Doctrine in Practice 5.1 Pre-2001: The United States and Iraq 74 5.2 The Justification and Lead Up to War 77 5.3 Realist Opposition to the War 83 5.4 The Invasion of Iraq and the Lost Three Years 85 5.5 The Iraq Reassessment: The Iraq Study Group 92 5.6 The Bush Administration Responds: The Surge 96 5.7 Two Years Later 97 5.8 The Bush Doctrine - Assessments or Mea Culpa: Rice, Ferguson, Krauthammer, Kagan, and Ignatieff 101
Conclusion 112
Appendix: Chronology 119
Bibliography 126 vi
Acronyms
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
IED Improvised Explosive Device
ISG Iraq Study Group
MAD Mutual Assured Destruction
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIE National Intelligence Estimate
NSC National Security Council
NSS National Security Strategy
ORHA Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
PNAC Project for a New American Century
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction 7
1. Introduction
To overcome dangers in our world, America will encourage economic progress, fight disease, and spread hope in hopeless lands
George W. Bush (2006, State of the Union Address)
It don't matter who did what to who at this point, the fact is we went to war and now there ain't no going back, I mean its what war is you know once you in it, you in it, if it's a lie then we fight on that lie, but we got to fight.
"Mission Accomplished" The Wire By David Simon
Realism has been the predominant theoretical basis for United States foreign
policy for forty years during the Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union, but is it the
best approach for the post-Cold War era? The Cold War defined U.S. national interests
from 1947 to 1990, which enabled the U.S. to benefit from a high degree of domestic and
bipartisan support for its foreign policy. In the wake of the Cold War the United States
has entered a phase where it has found its foreign policy did not easily align with its past
definition of national interest. The result is a lack of domestic support that has
constrained the ability of the U.S. to act on a diverse range of post-Cold War issues.
Challenges such as: global health, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, human rights, and
trade are transnational issues that cannot be dealt with by a bipolar Cold War worldview.
The constraints of the realist paradigm upon U.S. actions are evident in the immediate
1 It could be argued that realism has guided U.S. foreign policy since the beginning of the republic. Washington in his farewell address presents a realist prescription for future foreign policy. As does the Adams Administration and even Jefferson who presents himself as anti-realist created a realist foreign policy with an emphasis on the role of the national interest. Robert J. Meyers, "Hans Morgenthau's Realism and American Foreign Policy", Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 11 (1997). p. 255. 2 Robert J. Meyers, "Hans Morgenthau's Realism and American Foreign Policy", Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 11 (1997). p. 255. and Louis Klarevas, "Political Realism", Europe, Vol. 26 (3) Fall 2004, http://www.harvardirguide .org/articles/1252/2/ 3 Robert Gates as quoted in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10gatest.html?scp=l&sq=the%20professional&st=cse 8
post-Cold War era and the failure of the Bush doctrine's interventionist foreign policy.
Key to the United States' actions during both of these periods has been a foreign policy
shaped by narrowly defined national interests. At present realism "greatly underestimates
the critical role played by non-state actors. In our globalized world of asymmetrical
hazards, we must rethink our priorities to include unconventional rogue networks
alongside traditional great power threats."4 This thesis will demonstrate that the United
States has been unable to address a broad range of global issues because of its inability to move beyond the narrowly5 defined concept of national interests that has framed its historic foreign policy decisions. The Bush Doctrine represents a greater degree of engagement in global affairs this is largely focused on national security issues and it is
still limited to a narrow definition of the national interest. While different from the definition, which guided Cold War foreign policy, the Bush Doctrine presents a limited course of action, which contributed to the failure of the Doctrine. Besides its deviation from realism, the Doctrine is ideologically constrained and is therefore unable to adapt to global dynamics that do not conform to its ideological basis. As a result the U.S. should return to a realist paradigm for its foreign policy but this paradigm should encompass a
4 Louis Klarevas, "Political Realism", Europe, Vol. 26 (3) Fall 2004, http://www.harvardirguide .org/articles/1252/2/. 5 The definition of narrowly defined national interests is based on the U.S. Cold War experience which, focused on national security related issues, military power, access to resources and issues surrounding the maintenance of the balance of power with the Soviet Union. In defining a narrow concept of national interests as part of the Bush Doctrine security issues are still at the core of the definition but in relation to the "war on terror" the principle of pre-emption increases the level of international engagement though it is within the narrow scope of the "war on terror". This definition is narrow in scope but deep in engagement. 6 The Bush Doctrine can be defined as the foreign policy doctrine of the George W. Bush Administration created in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. This approach to U.S. foreign policy is a form of militant idealism or neo - idealism based on the concept of unrivalled military power and U.S. exceptionalism, supported by the two principles; pre-emptive and democratization. Pre-emption holds that the U.S. may institute regime change in any state that it deems a threat even if that threat is not imminent. Second, that the U.S. has the responsibility to foster the spread of democracy and free market economic systems. This definition will be explained in greater detail in Chapter 4. 9 broader definition of national interest that would enable it to engage the rest of the world in issues beyond the scope of international security.
The last half of the twentieth century has witnessed the rise of the United States, as a world power, with one of the most powerful militaries in the history of the world.
This coupled with its massive economic power allowed the U.S. to create a sphere of political influence across the globe. This expansion of American power came about in large part due to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Following WW II, the U.S. was responsible for creating numerous institutions, both domestic and international, to conduct an unconventional war of ideologies and great power politics with the Soviet
Union. The Cold War was fought in part through proxies in developing states on the periphery of the central conflict and by competing for the hearts and minds of people through out the world; a truly ideological conflict.
The central participants taxed their economies to pay for a forty-year arms race to prepare for a war no one wanted to fight. These taxation policies and developmental choices contributed significantly to the collapse of the Soviet Union and placed fiscal limitations of future U.S. government spending. Following the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War the sources of U.S. power remained and a discussion conducted in the political system, the media and among academics began in the U.S. as to what should be the role of the lone superpower in a unipolar world and how was the national interest to be defined.7
7 Examples on the right ranged from Pat Buchanan calling for a new U.S. isolationism; an appeal for the formal creation of a U.S. empire by historian Niall Ferguson, and Donald and Robert Kagan; to classical realists represented by John Mearsheimer discussing the creation of a new international balance of power. The on the left there was criticism of the right in the work of Michael Mann or Noam Chomsky, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri gave a criticism of what they perceived as the current and developing state of affairs. 10
The definition of national interest that has been presented to the public is based on
the realist theory of international relations that has guided U.S. foreign policy through out
Q
the Cold War. As Max Weber observed "Interests (material and ideal), not ideas,
dominate directly the actions of men. Yet the 'images of the world' created by these
ideas have often served as switches determining the tracks on which the dynamism of
interests kept the actions moving."9 The realist definition of national interest is flexible
and subject to interpretation by policy makers who should be attempting to maximize
utility for the state.
The foreign policy debates following the end of the Cold War ranged from
isolationism to the development of a U.S. empire. One of these debates originated with
the neoconservative foreign policy establishment. It centered on whether the U.S. could
under some circumstances unilaterally use pre-emptive force to achieve its policy goals,
in effect becoming the world's self-appointed policeman. They did not limit the issues to
security affairs, but also to issues of economic stabilization and development. This
foreign policy discussion incorporated a range of issues, which these commentators
believed were important to the U.S. national interests. For the neoconservatives, the
issues included Iraq, missile defense, Taiwan, weapons of mass destruction proliferation,
and under what circumstances the U.S. should intervene in global affairs.
Since the end of the Cold War there have been several opportunities for American
intervention. Militarily we can look to Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. Economically we can look to the Asian and Latin American Financial Crises and African development.
8 Stefano Gussini, Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy, London: Routledge, 1998, p. 55. 9 Max Weber as quoted in Hans Morganthau, Politics Among Nations, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, (1959), p. 8. 11
The extent of U.S. involvement in each of these issues took different forms, but the
debate surrounding each involvement shared similar elements. These case specific
foreign policy decisions became part of the larger foreign policy discussion and were
used to support, or critique, the role the U.S. played, and should play, in the future.
Exploring these discussions to determine the limits of American power many
commentators asked: what is the role of the US, should the U.S. be involved, what about
the issue makes it vital to the U.S. national interest, how long will it take and how much
will it cost? These questions are vital to exploring the range of U.S. foreign policy
options and the ability of the world's hegemon to exercise its of power.
At the turn of the twenty-first century a group of U.S. commentators and political
theorists began to call for a more proactive U.S. role in world affairs.10 They argued that
the U.S. was a stabilizing force in the world and was the only state with sufficient
military and economic power to address increasingly troubling global issues that these commentators believed were in the national interest. They argued that under the best
circumstances the U.S. should or could act multilaterally with a coalition of other states and international institutions, but the U.S. should be willing to act unilaterally.11 A group called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was at the forefront of a neoconservative movement seeking to dramatically increase defense spending and have a
Max Boot, Robert Kagan, Michael Mandelbaum, Andrew Bacevich, Charles Krauthamer and Niall Ferguson are among the most prominent proponents of variations of this position. 11 Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Era". Andrew Bacevich ed. The Imperial Tense, Chicago, Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2003, p. 64. 12 Members of the Project present and former members of the present Bush Administration including Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad and other prominent Republicans, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle and William Bennett. 12 more proactive foreign policy. This group saw a future for the U.S. to conduct its
foreign policy in a more imperial manner in opposition to the traditional realist approach.
What these commentators and theorists failed to understand was that this departure from the realist paradigm of U.S. foreign policy, and its tradition of a narrowly defined national interest, accounts for the historical decline in domestic support for large- scale long-term international commitments.14 The military leadership that came of age during and in the wake of the defeat of the Vietnam War began to express a new policy governing the use of military force. In the 1980s they presented the new policy framework to the American people. The Weinberger-Powell Doctrine stated that military engagements would be short, would use a massive level of force to ensure victory, have limited U.S. casualties and would not be entered into without an exit strategy and most importantly, U.S. national interests must be at stake. In effect it argued there would be no more Vietnams.15
The first Gulf War was an example of this policy put into action and the
American public believed because they were told that this would and should be the model for future activities not only in military affairs but also in many aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Therefore, while Weinberger-Powell started as a guide for military policy its principles have been applied to a broad range of foreign policy initiatives ranging from
HIV/AIDS in Africa, trade disequilibria, human rights, genocide, development assistance and even global environmental issues. These initiatives are vital to global, and in fact
13 These two issues were their primary criticisms of the Clinton Administration's foreign policy; cuts in defense spending and a reactive foreign policy. 14 Examples include Vietnam, Beirut in 1983, the 1991 Gulf War and 1992 Somalia. 15 James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, New York: Viking, (2004), p. 221. 16 An excellent source on U.S. foreign policy during the period from the end of the Cold War to 9/11 is Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier, America Between the Wars, New York, Public Affairs, 2008. 13
American, interest, but they are complex and require long-term and open-ended commitments of significant resources from the U.S. that it has in the past been unable or unwilling to make as they do not fall within the traditional definition of national interest.
Issues as diverse as development, the environment and trade may seem to have little effect on U.S. security, especially when concerned with peripheral states, but over the long-term a failure to address these issues can have dramatic consequences. Only through a broader definition of national interest within the realist paradigm that recognizes the increased complexity of these problems will the U.S. be able to contribute in the manner their global role requires. The failure of the Bush Doctrine illustrates the need to return to a realist-based foreign policy for the U.S. but one, which incorporates the broader definition of the national interest.
To address the development of U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy, this thesis will begin by examining the nature of U.S. power as it evolved during the Cold War and the capabilities the U.S. possessed at the end of that conflict. This will be followed by an assessment of realist theory as it evolved into that which contributed to the formulation of
U.S. Cold War foreign policy. That will be followed by an examination of the development of the Bush Doctrine and the neoconservative foreign policy strategy the nature of which is a deliberate departure from realist theory. Finally, a study of the evolution of the conflict in Iraq, which began as an implementation of the Bush Doctrine, has led to a re-examination of realist theory with the failure of the Bush Doctrine. The failure in Iraq has renewed the debate over how to define the national interest. While the
Bush Doctrine broadened that definition it limited the scope to issues pertaining to security. The foreign policy statements during the election by Barack Obama seem to 14
represent a return to a realist paradigm for U.S. foreign policy but with a broadening of
the definition to address new international challenges.17
The traditional realist theory of international relations formulated by scholars such
as Hans Morgenthau that guided U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War has inherent
limitations for the conduct of present-day U.S. foreign policy in large part due to the
narrow definition of national interest. This has become apparent in the restrictive nature
of U.S. approaches to contemporary global issues. The capabilities at the disposal of the
U.S., as a result of the development of its power over the latter half of the twentieth
century, illustrate that the means exist to address many important global issues if the
support is there from the U.S. This traditional form of the realist theory of international relations and its narrow definition of national interests has placed systemic limitations on the exercise of the various forms of U.S. power, contributing to the failure of the neo- idealist foreign policy as presented in the Bush Doctrine.
By examining the contributions of those theorists who have called for greater U.S. intervention in global affairs the systemic limitations that have been placed on the U.S. by its adherence to outmoded theoretical models is readily apparent. The intervention in
Iraq is one of, if not the greatest foreign policy failure of the U.S. and an examination of this failure will illustrate the need to return to a realist foreign policy paradigm. The institutions created during the Cold War provided the U.S. with the capabilities to address issues like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But by choosing to ignore the realist paradigm18 the ability of the U.S. to exercise its power has been dramatically curtailed. This limits the ability of the U.S. to address other more important foreign policy issues.
17 George Packer, Now, Public Broadcasting Service. Novermber 7, 2008. 18 However move beyond the narrow definition of national interest by updating it to meet modern realities. 15
2. Historical Context
The evolution of the U.S. into a hegemonic power was a result of the Cold War, which provided the opportunity for the development of its power structures.19 The argument that WW II resulted in U.S. hegemony fails to recognize that in the immediate aftermath of the War, the U.S. had begun to demobilize and pull back from its forward
on positions with the exception of Germany and Japan. The U.S. had an unsurpassed level of military power in 1945 though within the year factories had begun to switch production back to consumer goods and the military was demobilizing its forces at an accelerated rate. U.S. officials believed that important for the defense of the West was limiting the potential gravitation of states toward the Soviet bloc. Not until the domestic communist parties in Italy and Greece gained significant popular support and
Britain announced that it did not have the resources to counter these forces especially in • • 00
Greece did the U.S. begin to actively support opposition movements in these states.
Lastly, the Soviet announcement that it would not be party to the Bretton Woods institutions firmly placed the institutions within the U.S. sphere of influence.23 The U.S. was the dominant power at the end of WW II but it did not begin to take on the role of the hegemonic power of the western bloc and the leadership roles that entailed until the conflict with the Soviet Union became certain in late 1946 and early 1947.
The Cold War with the Soviet Union would be central to the establishment of
American hegemonic power structures in the mid-twentieth century. The Cold War and 19 Brent Scowcroft, Our World, CBC Newsworld, December 12, 2008. 20 Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 8 -9. 21 Ibid, p. 10. 22 Ibid. p. 73-74, 195. 23 Jeffry Frieden, Global Capitalism, New York, W.W. Norton, 2006, p. 274. 16
the strategy to conduct it resulted in three systemic changes to the United States; the first
was the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947, the second was the
formulation of the policy of containment presented in National Security Council directive
68, the final was the economic system developed at Bretton Woods. The formulation of
these policies and institutions would alter the political, economic and culture structures of
the United States and guide American foreign and domestic policy for sixty years.
The National Security Act of 1947 was no less an attempt to reorganize the
foreign and defense policy institutions and their support structures for the conduct of the
Cold War, based on the experiences of WW II. The Act of 1947 created the National
Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Military
Establishment (NME), with the purpose of coordinating security and foreign policy in a
more structured and centralized manner.24 The NSC was to be constituted within the
White House and consist of the Secretaries of State and the armed services, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and with support drawn from any relevant areas of the government, and
be a coordinating rather than decision-making body. The NME was a failure upon
conception as it lacked a strong leadership mandate for the new secretary of defense and
did nothing but re-enforce inter-service rivalry. This was quickly recognized and a
reformed NME was created in 1949, promoting the secretary of defense, giving him
broader authority, demoting the service secretaries, and attempted to alleviate some rivalries with a more powerful Joint Chiefs and its Chairman.26 The CIA would be the
coordinating body of the nation's intelligence agencies, military and civilian, as well as a
24 Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones Policy Dynamics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 160. 25Leffler,p.l76. 26 Ibid, p. 271. 17 collector and disseminator of intelligence. But almost immediately, the CIA, created by members of the WW II-era Office of Strategic Services began to conduct covert operations and became the body responsible for them. These structures would conduct the foreign and national security policy of the U.S. up to the present day.
The policy of "containment" dominated American's conduct of the Cold War until the 1980s when Ronald Reagan began to implement a more confrontational approach to U.S.-Soviet relations a policy known as "role-back". Role-back maintained containment but sought to exploit perceived weakness in Soviet international positions. Containment is conducted with the intention of isolating an adversary, while attempting to limit the scope of their expansion by restricting their policy options. The origin of the policy of containment was a telegram from a foreign service officer in
Moscow, George Kennan sent on January 26, 1946. What has become known as the
"long telegram" expressed what Kennan believed to be the foundations of Soviet behaviour.28
Kennan believed that the origin of the "Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity ... [and] feared foreign penetration" combined with a Marxist "dogma which pictures the outside world as evil, hostile, and menacing", much of this had been expressed by Stalin in a recent speech, and could best be described as an expression of a national psychology. Kennan expanded on these ideas the next year in an article published anonymously in the journal Foreign
James M. Scott, Deciding to Intervene, Durham: Duke University Press, 1996, p.27. 28 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, New York: Oxford University Press, (1982), p. 21. and George Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950, New York: Pantheon Books, (1967), p. 547-559. 29 Kennan, p. 549 - 550. 18
Affairs, titled "Sources of Soviet Conduct" where he first used the term containment in
relation to U.S. policy and the Soviet Union.
In 1950 the National Security Council issued NSC-68, which attempted to explain
in a comprehensive manner the objectives of U.S. national security policy.
The U.S., as "the center of power in the free world," should undertake the "responsibility of world leadership" in order to organize and consolidate a global environment in which the American society would be able to "survive and flourish." To this end, U.S. foreign policy should include two closely interlinked strategies: the first was the development of a "healthy international community," which had already been actually in force through the economic activities of the U.S. throughout the world; the other was the containment of the "Soviet system."30
With respect to the development of the containment policy, NSC-68 stated
it is one which seeks by all means short of war to (1) block further expansion of Soviet power, (2) expose the falsities of Soviet pretensions, (3) induce a retraction of the Kremlin's control and influence, and (4) in general, so foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system that the Kremlin is brought at least to the point of modifying its behavior to conform to generally accepted international standards.31
In implementing NSC-68, the U.S. created a global system of alliances, the most
prominent being NATO, these alliances sought to strategically encircle the Soviet Union
with an expansion of U.S. military power. While at the same time "U.S. foreign policy
requires the free world to develop a successfully functioning political and economic
op ,
system," the conflict with the Soviet Union would require a cohesive international
effort organized and lead by the U.S., but with significant multinational contributions.
This "militaristic" containment was the result of the work of Paul Nitze, the primary architect of NSC-68 who would later become one of President Reagan's foreign 30 Fakiolas, Efstathios T., "Kennan's Long Telegram and NSC-68: A Comparative Analysis," East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, no. 4, January 1998 3' http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nsc-68/nsc68-2.htm 32 Leffler, p. 357. 19
policy advisors. Kennan's disagreements with this more activist policy lead to his
resignation from the State department. The distinctions between the "long telegram" and
NSC-68 illustrate two perspectives of the realist theory of international relations.
The Kennan perspective sought to use U.S. soft or indirect power resulting in a
form of socialization to restructure the beliefs and values of the Soviet Union and its bloc
to something closer to those of the U.S. NSC-68 would attempt to achieve a hegemonic
position for the U.S. through the expansion of its military or hard power. The increase
in U.S. military power initially focused on Europe and Japan where the U.S. presence
was easily expanded using post-war facilities but soon expanded into Southeast Asia and
the Middle East.34 U.S. power was visible as a complex web of military facilities
enabling the projection of U.S. power over most of the globe, enabling the containment
of the Soviet Union but also establishing U.S. hegemony. NSC-68 dominated policy for
the next 40 years but its role should not be overstated. Foreign economic policy would
also play an important role.
The Cold War was not fought using military and foreign policy arrangements
alone, economic instruments were employed to isolate and put pressure on the Soviet
Union. NSC-68 recognized "Foreign economic policy is a major instrument in the
conduct of United States foreign relations and an instrument peculiarly appropriate to the cold war." The Bretton Woods agreements were not created as instruments of the
33 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 36 - 37. 34 Leffier, p. 302. 35 Lars Skalnes, Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, (2000), p. 162. 36 These agreements concerning monetary policy included the implementation of a system of fixed exchange rates and the creation of two organization; the International Monetary Fund to monitor and advise on international monetary policy and address individual states' balance of payments issues. The second organization was the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development responsible for financing post - War reconstruction and promote growth and world trade. 20
Cold War, but rather as a means of avoiding another global economic crash as had
occurred in the 1930s. But, the Cold War being in part a clash of economic systems as
well as of ideology, the Bretton Woods system as an expression of the liberal economic
structures of the West became part of the conflict. When the Soviet Union expressed its
intention not to join the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank following WW
II these instruments became firmly and exclusively embedded in the West.
1948 saw the first meeting of the Bretton Woods institutions, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank. From the onset the British representative and one
of the creators of the Bretton Woods system, John Maynard Keynes began to recognize
the nature of the institutions was changing. No longer did Keynes see the organizations
as reflecting what he saw as a cooperative internationalism, which in reality placed
Britain in a preeminent position, a first among equals. What he believed was being
created was a system guaranteeing U.S. hegemony. What Keynes and many Britons were
facing was the new reality of American predominance and the manipulation of the
oo
Bretton Woods institutions to support U.S. policy and solidify its global position.
Between 1946 and 1950 the U.S. was able to achieve something no hegemonic power had ever been able to do, the U.S. dollar became the basis for the international economic system. Even the Soviet Union was forced to use the dollar for international trade. The dollar-based system saw currencies pegged to a fixed exchange rate with the dollar, which in turn was fixed to gold at 35 dollars per ounce.39 This was possible because of the high level of U.S. funding for the Bretton Woods institutions and to the
Marshall Plan used in the rebuilding of Europe and the similar program for Japan. 37 Frieden, p. 274-275. 38 Ibid, p. 259. 39 Ibid, p. 269. 21
Combined these two programs involved over $14 billion in aid but there was also a series of loans to individual countries to enable rapid reconstruction. As part of reconstruction states created tariff walls to benefit domestic manufacturers and created capital controls to limit capital outflows. Over the years what resulted was the creation of branch plant economies in some industries as capital rich U.S. corporations accounted for the majority of Foreign Direct Investments in many nations, primarily in Canada and Western Europe as a form of tariff-jumping.40 All of which increased dependence on U.S. capital markets and dollar dependent financing.
The dominant position of the dollar allowed the U.S. a number of competitive advantages especially in the area of debt. Following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of currency agreements in the early 1970s the U.S. dollar still maintained its position as the primary global currency but through the system of floating exchange rates, low interest rates, controlled inflation and a trade deficit, the U.S. was able to collect a subsidy from foreign investors in the form of seigniorage. This allowed the U.S. an increasing but manageable level of government debt so long as foreigners continued to buy dollar-based assets and securities. These foreign held assets created a cycle as their holders interests were best served by a stable and healthy U.S. economy, part of which was served through the continued purchase of U.S. debt.
International trade became increasingly important as trade became more complex over the next decade. Post-war trade was dominated by two-way trade between the U.S. and its allies and partners in Europe and Asia. But soon trade between the peripheral states began to increase and surpass trade with the centre. Post-war trade policy was used
40 Ibid, p. 296. 41 Selling of US dollars and dollar-based assets, which depreciate in value over time, the surplus being a net benefit to the US economy. 22
as a tool to create a trade bloc centered on the U.S., providing favourable trade
concessions to allies and using the extension of trade benefits to bring in potential allies.
In exchange, the U.S. and its allies would isolate the Soviet Union and its allies. A report
for the NSC in 1959 listed three objectives for American foreign economic policy
First, to promote the economic strength of the U.S., second, to promote the economic strength of the rest of the free world, and third, to build and maintain cohesion in the free world. To achieve these objectives we have followed three basic economic policies: The expansion of trade; the promotion of private investment; and the provision of mutual 42 assistance.
The U.S. was successful in creating a series of institutions to promote and manage trade,
including the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and its successor the
World Trade Organization (WTO). In the 25 years following WW II, global trade
doubled every ten years. In the previous period of globalization prior to 1914 global
trade doubled every twenty to twenty-five years. 3 The role of the U.S. included
providing two forms of global stability, economic, through numerous transnational
institutions and security, with its military power. This has allowed the U.S. and its allies
to benefit from a prolonged period of increased economic development.
Over the 40 years of the Cold War, the U.S. created domestic and international
structures from a bipolar conflict, which contributed to its achievement of hegemony in a post-Cold War unipolar world. This was in part possible because national policies were formulated with respect to the conflict with the Soviet Union. The national interest was defined as that which contributed beneficially for the U.S. to the detriment of the Soviet
Union. The Cold War provided focus to U.S. foreign policy; were as the post-Cold War
Skalnes, p. 162. Frieden, p. 289. 23
world is filled with competing interests and the determination of the national interest is in
part a power struggle by the supporters of those interests. Military expansion, as a result
of the Cold War, has put the U.S. in the position for the first time in history of having
attained full-spectrum dominance,44 though even this has its limitations as has become
apparent in Iraq. But at the same time, domestically the U.S. has created a national
security state not only providing capital and industrial resources but through a process of
socialization producing a political culture accepting of the government policies of the
Cold War. The end of the Cold War has altered and placed systemic limitation on the
extent of public support, which can be mobilized for foreign policy initiatives especially
protracted long-term commitments. The U.S. has the power, resources and capabilities to
address many contemporary issues; the extent of its national will restrict the scope of its
actions.
For example, at its height Britain was still only dominant at sea and avoided continental interventions because of its limited army. Rome's deficiency in naval power forced it to make alliances and pay tribute to naval powers like Phoenicia to insure the safety of its trading fleet. 3. Realism in its American Context
3.1 Pre-Morgenthau Realism
The realist tradition as presented by Hans Morgenthau in his 1947 work Politics
Among Nations, was meant to introduce Americans to the European diplomatic tradition.
A task Morgenthau thought necessary in light of the American ascendancy following
WW II and what he believed to be U.S. inexperience in international relations. Key to the U.S. approach is the concept of national interests, a concept that has been central to realist theory from the beginning. But as we shall see the definition of national interests is not specific and is open to many interpretations. While the conventional view is that the definition of national interests should be narrow this perspective has a limiting effect on the nature of a state's foreign policy. While current issues in the international system require a broader definition it must remain grounded in conventional realist theory.
As a theoretical approach realism can be traced back to Athens and Sparta and the conduct of the Peloponnesian War as presented by the Greek historian, Thucydides. The
Peloponnesian War, written in the fifth century BC, describes the conflict between
Athens and Sparta as a conflict over which state would play a hegemonic role in Greece.
Following the defeat of the Persian invasion of Greece, Athens achieved a de facto hegemony of Greece, but a series of decisions to pursue a policy of conquest or coercion to develop its own empire led to a conflict with Sparta, which organized a counter alliance to oppose Athens. Thucydides describes how each alliance attempted to create a balance of power through the inclusion of other city-states by cooperation or coercion; as stated by the Athenian representative in the Melian dialogue "those who have the power 25
use it, while the weak make compromises."1 The "needs" of Athens or what later theorists would call its "national interests" and its security policies led to the subjugation
of other weaker city-states within the Athenian Empire. Thucydides describes the
Athenian Empire, its creation and purpose in terms, which correspond to the realist theoretical structures of balance of power and countervailing force in a state-centric
system for the war with Sparta and its empire. These concepts and their implementation as described by Thucydides have been recognized as the foundation of realism.
Thucydides describes an international system that is a state centric system of relations rather then a system with any underlying concept of human nature or the internal structures of the state. Other theorists have used this as the central concept to their theory of international relations; including some realist theorists. Thucydides' descriptions of the clash of states at war has been taken by subsequent theorists, refined, expanded upon, and adapted to an increasingly complex international system to develop a more comprehensive theory of international relations along the realist tradition.
The next major step in the formulation of realism was by Thomas Hobbes in
Leviathan. Hobbes adds another level of complexity to the theory by describing an anarchical international system in which states conduct their relations. Hobbes is a fairly recent addition to the realist pantheon. In large part this is due to the expression of his theoretical groundwork, which focuses on the relationship of the individual to the state.
The nature of this relationship has been applied to the international system and interstate relations. Hedley Bull in The Anarchical Society argues that the state of nature as described by Hobbes concerning the situation of individuals is corollary to the
Thucydides as quoted in Edward A. Kolodziej. Security and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 65. 26
circumstances of states in relation to each other. Bull attempts to advance this point by
proposing "it is legitimate to ask how for the world politics today resembles Hobbes's
account of the state of war." It is the characteristics of Hobbes' state of nature as an
anarchical system that is his primary contribution to realist theory.
Hobbes' definition of the state of nature has become synonymous with realist
theory and is central to Hobbes' contribution to the theory. The state of nature as
described by Hobbes is an anarchical system. This is not by definition a chaotic system
devoid of organization; rather an anarchical system is a system without a sovereign, be it
some sort of ruler or government to provide a degree of order to the system. In the
international sphere this means a system without a supranational organization, which can
create and enforce laws governing the conduct of relations between states; "because there
is no Common Power in this World to punish injustice".
What results is an international system which Hobbes states relies on "continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators ... which is the posture of War."49
This systemic condition is due to a degree of equality and of mutual fear50 between
states, which requires "power ... if it be extraordinary, is good, because it is useful for
protection; and protection provides security. If it be not extraordinary, it is useless; for
what all have is equally nothing."51
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society, New York, Columbia University Press, 1977, p. 46. 47 Hedley Bull, "Hobbes and the International Anarchy", Social Research, 48 (1981), p.721. 48 Hobbes as cited in David Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 145 49 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, New York, Barnes & Noble, 2004, p. 93 50 This condition was a theoretical one based on Hobbes' assumption that any man through his own strength or cunning could kill another. But in the international system this level of equality has not existed until the modern age and the advent of nuclear weapons the possession of which allows even the smallest state to inflict catastrophic damage on any other state. Mark Heller and others argue that differing degrees of nuclear deterrence again creates state inequalities. 51 Hobbes p. 89 27
But even a relative advantage of power is not significant as it drives competitors to seek greater power; therefore equality of states creates the mutual fear, which in turn drives the acquisition of greater and greater power. The national interest within Hobbes' system is expressed as the quest, both internally and externally for power. Hobbes' system views the state as having a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, an important aspect of a state's power.
Hobbes' state of nature is more a philosophical ideal, a hypothetical condition and as such describes a state of nature, which does not have a historical basis; rather it provides the basic elements of the human condition. Nonetheless this concept of this state of nature creates the dynamics of the international system. The anarchical nature of the system and the principles surrounding what drive states towards the accumulation of power has become preconditions for a realist worldview. These principles are the result of an anarchical worldview, which threatens to devolve further into a purely chaotic system unless arrested by a force, which gives some order to the system. The Leviathan as Hobbes labels it acts as a systemic moderator; assuring conditions for economic and societal development and provide a respite to the endless series of conflicts to settle disputes between people and states. In the modern sense a type of world government or a hegemonic state would fulfill this role.
Other more limited contributions to realist theory prior to WWI have come from a number of sources. Machiavelli's presentation of international relations followed the precepts of ruling as described in The Prince, with special emphasis placed on the role of morality in the conduct of "the prince". By removing morality or rather subordinating it to the needs of the state, a state should not be impeded from acting due to a conflict 28 concerning the morality of its actions. Morality is something for a society within a state,
CO not for relations between states. By the eighteenth century Clausewitz known more for his theory of war, wrote of the necessity of countervailing force in relations between nations. A concept shared with Thucydides that led to the more complex concept of balance of power developed to a greater extent by Morganthau.
E.H. Carr wrote The Twenty Years' Crisis about the interwar years, between 1919 and 1939, and the developments in international relations based on national interests during the inter-war years. Carr bridges the classical presentations of realism with an early development of modern realism but without a comprehensive theoretical presentation. Central to Carr's discussion of international relations in this period is his critique of post-WW I idealism from a realist perspective and as such explains realism in terms of how it differs from idealism. Carr's critique of idealism has its origins in liberal economic theory and the concept of harmony of interests, which relates the economic interests of the individual to those of the community. In pursuing his own interest, the individual pursues that of the community, and in promoting the interest of the community he promotes his own ... The admission of any ultimate divergence of interests would be fatal to this postulate; and any apparent clash of interests must therefore be explained as the result of wrong calculations.53
The post-war position of the victorious powers was that the community of states shared a harmony of interests across three broad goals: the preservation of peace, maintaining a liberal international economic system, and extending the rule of law to the international
52 Boucher p. 94 53 Carr, E.H. The Twenty Years Crisis: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations 2ed. London, Macmillan, p. 42. L) system. Carr believed this Utopian ideal of the harmony of interests was at the root of the inter-war crisis because it failed to acknowledge "the problem of peaceful change through the accommodation of conflicting interests."55 The Utopian harmony of interests' primary misunderstanding was the failure to recognize the role of power and power-based motives in international relations.
Essential to Carr's theory is his concept of power and its centrality to international relations. Carr postulated that values are a consequent of power and as such the harmony of interests is nothing but a relationship of power interests great enough to implement their needs. "The doctrine of the harmony of interests ... became ... the ideology of a dominant group concerned to maintain its predominance by asserting the identity of interests with those of the community as a whole". Thus, the status quo is nothing but a reflection of the more powerful state's ideology. The less powerful therefore associate their interests with those with more power; this is not because there is a universality of interests but rather because the less powerful are acting out of necessity. Failure to associate interests will result in a marginalization of the less powerful. An example of this condition would include Canada, whose global influence is greater than its size would suggest due to its association with power interests, such as the U.S., the United
Nations, and its membership in NATO.
Carr's concept of realism is rudimentary, as it lacks many of the theoretical aspects of more modern forms of the theory; in his view realism "lacks perspective and reduces politics to a blind and pragmatic adjustment to the necessities of international
54 Whittle Johnston, "The Relevance of E.H. Carr's Realism in the Post-Cold War World", in David Clinton, The Realist Tradition and Contemporary International Relations, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, (2007), p. 163. 55 Ibid, p. 164. 56 Carr, p. 44. relations." But Carr's contribution to realist theory comes from his state-centric classical non-systemic view of international relations and his critique of post-war idealism in international relations with reference to the role of power and its relation to morality.
3.2 Morgenthau's Realism
Power is central to the realist theory of Hans Morgenthau. For the U.S. and its
Cold War policy, Morgenthau is the theorist responsible for elucidating the basis upon which that policy was created. International relations can be described as the struggle of
CO states in pursuit of power while seeking to maximize the power they can attain.
Morgenthau's theoretical approach to realism took into account the contributions of past theorists and historical lessons from diplomatic history. From Carr's notion of the centrality of power to Hobbes's anarchical nature of the state system, Machiavelli's idea of morality and Thucydides' concept of the balance of power, Morgenthau expands upon these concepts creating a form of realism that at times can be classified either as systemic or non-systemic, while making a transition from the classical to the modern realist theories.
Morgenthau presents six principles of political realism defining what he considered the central concepts of realism. They include: 1. Politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. 2. The concept of interest defined in terms of power60
Guzzini, p. 23. Hans Morganthau, Politics Among Nations, Second Edition., New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1959, p. 5. Ibid. p. 4. Ibid. p. 5. 31
3. Realism does not endow its key concept of interest defined as power with a meaning that is fixed once and for all. 4 Realism posits that morality cannot be applied to the actions of states 62 5 The moral ambitions of a state are separate from universal (natural) law.63 6. The political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere, as the
economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintain theirs.64
The nature of these concepts leads to an assumption concerning the systemic nature of
Morgenthau's form of realism. Morgenthau is at times presenting realism as historical or
systemic where the state is given agential power but at other times he is presenting a non-
systemic notion of the state with non-agential power.
The question is how to rationalize these two distinctions, the systemic and non-
systemic aspects in Morgenthau's theory or whether it is possible to do this? In the
systemic aspect of the theory the state has "high domestic agential power (internal
sovereignty), but no international agential power either to determine the international
structure or to mitigate its constraining logic." Morgenthau addresses this in part by
balancing a state's interests, the allocation of resources and commitments but also
through the notion of intelligence and the ability of a state to read the intentions of other fi7
states and act accordingly. For example, to counter what he classifies as an imperialist
foreign policy Morgenthau argues for a policy of containment or appeasement to CO
maintain the status quo. The creation of a suitable counter policy is only possible when
a state is able to create the appropriate domestic policies based on a high degree of
61 Ibid. p. 8. 62 Ibid. p. 9. 63 Ibid. p. 10. 64 Ibid. p. 10. 65 Principle 3, being the dominant non-system aspect of what is otherwise primarily a systemic approach. 66 John Hobson, The State and International Relations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 48. 67 Morgenthau, p. 6. Ibid, p. 59. 32
certainty as to the intentions of the competitor state. This systemic approach has become
known as the balance of power and will be addressed to greater extent in the next section.
The non-systemic aspect of Morgenthau's realism concerns the varying degrees of
agential power and autonomy that states possess domestically and internationally, and
how domestic power affects international actions. Morgenthau compares two historical
periods. The first is the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, which he
refers to as the aristocratic international period. The second is the early twentieth
century, which he refers to as the age of nationalistic universalism. The aristocratic
period, Morgenthau sees as having a high level of domestic agential power, the aristocrat
decision makers were insulated from the masses who were unable to influence the
fiQ
decisions being made. A commonality of morals amongst the aristocracies of the
various European states permitted the development of European norms to international
relations. This enabled a consensus among states leading to the creation of a balance of
power and the peace of the long nineteenth century.
In contrast the age of nationalistic universalism of the early twentieth century
following the nationalistic and democratic revolutions left states with limited domestic
agential power. The masses now had a direct say in their state's foreign policy resulting
in a change to the norms of international relations. As domestic agential power decreased
so to did a state's international agential power, constricting the degree of movement by
states within a nationalistic norm. This results in increased conflict between rival nationalistic entities.70 The international system at this point has been transformed into one of conflict and a failure of the balance of power structure. The varying degree of
Morgenthau, p. 223-224. and Hobson, p. 51. Morgenthau, p. 229. 33
agential power is an important determiner of the structure of international relations as
evidenced by the two examples given by Morgenthau. Therefore the majority of
Morgenthau's theory is based on this non-systemic aspect that is at odds with the lesser
systemic aspect.
While it is not possible to reconcile these two aspects of Morgenthau's theory, it
is also not possible to separate them and maintain the comprehensive nature of the theory.
The non-systemic aspect sees the state as the determining agent of international relations
but Morgenthau maintains that the international system is anarchical and that states are
continually seeking to increase their power and doing so within a balance of power
structure is his systemic approach. This creates a tension in Morgenthau's work that is
not resolvable and has lead to further developments in realist theory.
3.3 Post-Morgenthau Developments
The neorealist theory of Kenneth Waltz attempts to create a new paradigm in
international relations theory. It is not separate from Morgenthau but seeks to advance
beyond Morgenthau's limitations and replace classical realist theory with neorealism.
Neorealism has also been referred to as systemic realism. In Man, the State, and War,
Waltz lists three sources for the understanding of the causes of war: human nature, types
of state regimes, and characteristics of the international system; he favoured the later in
his theoretical examinations.71
By 1979 Waltz revisited this in Theory of International Politics, again focused on the nature of the international system as the determining factor of international relations.
Waltz posits that "states tend to act alike when put into similar (power) positions, there
71 Kenneth Waltz, Man, The State, and War, New York: Columbia University Press, 1959, p. 227. must be structural causes for state behaviour. The result is a classic balance-of-power
TO theory." Waltz defines structures using three characteristics: 1. The organization characteristic, a structure is either anarchical or hierarchical.
2. Functions of differentiated units; if anarchical each state is responsible for all its crucial functions, in a hierarchical there is a division of labour based on a state's position in the hierarchy.
3. The third characteristic is the nature of the distribution of capabilities or how power is distributed.73
An international system thus organized results in a classical balance of power structure.
Waltz does not see this system as stabilizing to preserve a set distribution of power but he
believes this structure will restore a balance of power by influencing state behaviour
following a disruption as states recognize such a structure as best for survival.74 This
does not yet involve a major differentiation from classical realism.
What separates neorealism from its classical predecessor is the methodological
and scientific self-conception of the theory, an international system that is modeled on a classical economic market, resulting in a transformation of epistemological and methodological components. The epistemological component is a version of falsification, which requires that a theory can produce models, which in turn produce hypotheses and predictions that are testable with empirical data. Waltz believes that his balance of power theory is such a model, but he also accepts that a strong version of falsification cannot be applied to international relations due to the nature of data interpretation.75
Methodologically, Waltz has chosen market equilibrium from neoclassical economic
72 Guzzini, p. 127. 73 Waltz, p. 101-102. 74 Ibid. p. 128. 75 Ibid, p. 4. 35
theory. This theory does not see actors seeking to achieve equilibrium rather it is a result
of value-maximizations as a consequence of the pursuit of wealth in a competitive but
regulated environment.76 "Balance of power theory is microtheory precisely in the
economist's sense. The system, like a market in economics, is made by the actions and
interactions of the units, and the theory is based on assumptions about their behaviour."77
The defining contribution to international relations by neorealism is this use of economics
as the model of explanation of the international system. But "it is very important to note,
that in no way does Waltz's theory improve on the more scientific balance-of-power
concept that could be found in Morgenthau; it is but a repetition."
In attempting to understand how Morgenthau's realist theory influenced
American foreign policy during the later half of the twentieth century it is important to recognize how Morgenthau relates the nature of power to the balance of power system works as this became central to the formulation of U.S. policy. The concept of power in international relations as defined by Morgenthau is a broad definition "Its content and the manner of its use are determined by the political and cultural environment,"79 power is not an absolute but rather a comparative concept. It is only possible to understand a state's power in relation to other states. By itself the degree of a state's power cannot be judged, nor is there a single factor that can be used to judge a state's relative power to other states. Power is a comparative variable; only through a comparison of numerous factors can a state's relative power be determined. Also the factors, which go into determining a state's power are dynamic and subject to change based on systemic
76 Ibid, p. 89 - 92. 77 Ibid, p. 118. 78 Guzzini, p. 136. 79 Morgenthau, p. 8 changes. For example, in July 1945 the Soviet Union had the largest army in the world
but in August a systemic change occurred when the U.S. exploded the first nuclear weapon, reducing the relative importance of conventional forces in understanding a
state's power. Alone each of the elements of state power only explain a portion of a state's power and then only when compared to that of another state. But, collectively these elements provide a comprehensive expression of the relative power of a state but again only in comparison.8
The next question, then, is what are the variables of state power that are to be compared to determine a state's relative power? Some theorists focus on the material variables, primarily the military aspects. As John Mearsheimer states "Realists believe that state behavior is largely shaped by the material structure of the international system." Therefore, the international arena becomes a struggle for material power.
While Morgenthau does include material aspects in defining a state's power he does not limit it to such a narrow definition. Going so far as to address the issue in the revised introduction to the fourth edition of Politics Among Nations; "Against the misunderstanding of the central element of power ... now tends to be equated with material strength, especially of a military nature, I have stressed more than before its
op immaterial aspects".
By reducing power to strictly material interests the materialists do not fully appreciate the fluidity and relativistic nature of Morgenthau's definition of state power.
80 Ibid. 81 John Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions". International Security, 19:3, (Winter, 1994/5). http://find.galegroup.com.libproxy.uregina.ca:2048/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IACDocuments&type=re trieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A 1663 7266&source=gale&srcprod=E AIM&userGroupName =ureginalib&version= 1.0>. 82 Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations Fourth Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. p. ix. 37
The variables of power being referred to are eight areas, which take into account political,
economic, military and psychological elements of a state. But they also include a state's
geography, natural resources, industrial capacity, military preparedness, population,
national character, national morale, and the quality of a state's diplomacy. When
compared with other states position in these areas a comprehensive understanding of
global power can be determined.
Once there has been a determination of the levels of power of states it is then
possible to study the balance of power amongst states on different scales, ranging from
regional to global. Morgenthau had four different applications of balance of power.
Three were descriptive, describing an actual state of affairs, an approximately equal
distribution of power, and any distribution of power. The final, a prescriptive definition,
is a policy aimed at a certain state of affairs is the definition concerned with in this paper.
Morgenthau defined balance of power as "the aspiration for power on the part of several nations. Each trying to either maintain or overthrow the status quo, leads of necessity to a constellation which is called the balance of power and to policies that aim at preserving it."84
For example, during the nineteenth century Great Britain sought to maintain a balance of power in continental Europe. British policy was implemented through a series of alliances and the rare intervention in an attempt to retard the accumulation of power by any continental power seeking to challenge Britain. Britain was successful for a limited time until Germany believed it had accumulated enough power to counter Britain.85
Then the balance of power system at near equilibrium resulted in a new arms race
83 Guzinni, p. 24f. 84 Morgenthau, p. 155. 85 Morganthau, p. 125. 38
focused on naval power. Britain then sought to counter the increased German threat. In
attempting to redress the balance of power competition between Britain and Germany
other states; the U.S., France, Japan and Russia all entered into the arms race to some
degree.
Critics argue that balance of power is inherently destabilizing. Morgenthau's own
definition states that nations aspiring to power will overthrow the status quo. The
proposed equilibrium of a balance of power system by the very nature of the system is as
states continually and inevitably seek greater power. But, this is not inherently
destabilizing insofar as some states accumulate power other states will counter and also
seek more power. This moves the system around the theoretical equilibrium and a status
quo stability. This can be seen in the later half of the Cold War. The nuclear doctrine
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) provided stability and it was the attempts to alter the balance of power with the introduction of Soviet mobile ICBMs and the U.S.
Strategic Defense Initiative that had a destabilizing effect as each side moved away from the status quo.
But it also depends on the type of international system in place; a multi-polar system has a greater prospect of instability than a bipolar system and a unipolar system should theoretically be the most stable. The multi-polar system has the possibility of increased competition, where a unipolar system has a hegemon to place limitations on the advancement of less powerful states. This does not mean that balance of power insures peace; in cases where conflict is a possibility states judge the costs and benefits of war.86
The position of a state within the balance of power system plays a role in determining the cost-benefit of conflict as a policy of the state. Nuclear weapons and MAD created a
86 Waltz, (1979), p. 164-165. balance of power where great power conflict was to be avoided because of the
catastrophic consequences of war. This balance of power provided a precarious degree of
stability that was fluid when each side introduced new elements to the formula
determining the balance of power. Each state within a balance of power system uses a
definition of national interests to determine its priorities within the international system.
For example, what aspects of state power are important to achieving national goals and how to prioritize international issues for the state to maximize its power in relation to
other states. This contributes to the fluidity of a balance of power system but not necessarily instability.
3.4 Application of Realism during the Cold War
The U.S. used a prescriptive balance of power during the Cold War, applying the concept on a global scale between itself and the Soviet Union and at a regional level on the peripheries of the Cold War. This policy known as containment was an example of how realist theory was implemented by the U.S. The Cold War was not the first time a policy of containment was employed. As stated previously, Britain used a policy of containment in the nineteenth century to place limitations on the expansionist tendencies of France and Germany, who had a separate continental rivalry. Britain was also benefiting from the contributions of Russia and Austria-Hungary to the multi-polar continental system. The policy of containment as implemented by the U.S. was not based on a multi-polar international system but rather a bipolar one, which was dominated by the two superpowers though each benefited from significant contributions from allied states. 40
The development of the U.S. policy to conduct the Cold War, as discussed earlier
involved the mobilization and coordination of key aspects of U.S. power. The national
interests of the U.S were defined by the Cold War, not just in terms of national security
but also in the use of trade and international finance to contribute to the conduct of the
conflict to U.S. advantage. In terms of policy, Morgenthau's realism became the guiding theoretical approach. From George Kennan to Paul Nitze to Henry Kissinger, the
concepts of realism provided guidance for the formulation of policy. This is not to say that there was a single common policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War;
successive administrations had different priorities but in every administration realists played a dominant policymaking role. Examining three examples at different phases of the Cold War will help to illustrate the consistency of realist characteristics within different policy programs, beginning with the Kennan era known for the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine followed by the Vietnam War and ending with Detente.
George Kennan reported in the "Long Telegram" that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian regime with the traditional expansionist intentions of the old Russian Empire.
Communism was just an ideological device used to provide legitimacy to expansionist policies. Morganthau described a policy approach to address an expansionist totalitarian regime, containment. In the article "Sources of Soviet Conduct", published in
Foreign Affairs in 1947, Kennan wrote
In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies ... Soviet policy is highly flexible, and that Soviet society may well contain deficiencies which will eventually weaken its own total potential. This would of itself warrant the United States entering with reasonable confidence upon a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force
87 George Kennan, American Diplomacy 1900 - 1950, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951, p. 119. 41
at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon he interests of a peaceful and stable world.88
This became the central tenet of the policy of containment and became understood as the need for the U.S. to address any and all real or perceived instances of Soviet expansion.
The concept of national interests went from a narrow definition by Kennan which was to address issues exclusive to the Soviet Union to becoming broadly defined by Nitze to see all aspects of U.S. foreign policy in relation to the conflict with the Soviet Union.
In the immediate aftermath of WW II, two incidents in Europe required a U.S. response to what were understood by U.S. leadership as attempts to increase communist and hence Soviet control in Europe. The first was the dire economic circumstances in
Western Europe and the potential ability of the indigenous Communist parties in France,
Belgium, and Italy to gain political control and move those states into the Soviet bloc.89
As discussed earlier the Marshall Plan used American economic power to address these circumstances in Europe and maintain the U.S. sphere of influence.
The second incident involved U.S. aid to Greece where the communist party was threatening to seize control and move Greece to the Soviet bloc.90 The Truman doctrine can be described, as anti-communist while the policy of containment is anti-Soviet; the distinction being an ideological conflict versus a state conflict. These two events reflected how U.S. post-war foreign policy had already begun to be reactive to perceived Soviet intentions, placing the Soviets at the center of U.S. international considerations. But where Kennan sought a multi-lateral system of burden sharing to implement a
88 Mr X (George Kennan), "Sources of Soviet Conduct", Foreign Affairs, July 1947. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19870301faessay7845/george-f-kennan/containment-40-years-later-the- sources-of-soviet-conduct.html 89Leffler,p. 157-58. 90 Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994, p.436. containment focused on the central geography of the Soviet Union, Paul Nitze believed in
a containment meant to counter every possible perceived incident of Soviet and
communist expansion on a global scale.91 This policy development would lead to U.S.
involvement in many of the conflicts taking place as part of the decolonization of the
European powers during the 1950s and 60s, and would lead to U.S. involvement in
Vietnam.
The war in Vietnam was an example of how even small peripheral considerations
were given immense importance within the context of U.S.-Soviet relations. As
Morgenthau wrote in 1965
We are militarily engaged in Vietnam by virtue of a basic principle of our foreign policy that was implicit in the Truman Doctrine of 1947 and was put into practice by John Foster Dulles from 1954 onward.92 This principle is the military containment of Communism. Containment had its origins in Europe; Dulles applied it to the Middle East and Asia through a series of bilateral and multilateral alliances.93
These non-European aspects of containment involved the creation of many NATO like
alliances, which involved U.S. security guarantees to many of the newly independent post-colonial states of Asia and the Middle East. With each of these guarantees the U.S. extended its commitments and the belief was that the U.S. needed to honour them no matter the cost as a failure to do so could lead to the perception that it would fail to honour other commitments. This meant that there was no possibility for withdrawal without serious consequences to the larger issue of U.S.-Soviet bilateral relations.
Combined with the assumptions surrounding the "Domino Theory" which postulated that
91 Leffler, p. 356-357. 92 The principle Morgenthau speaks of is the Truman Doctrine's declared support for states against communist forces. 93 Hans Morgenthau, "We Are Deluding Ourselves in Vietnam," New York Times Magazine, 18 April 1965, p. 7. 43
a successful communist takeover in one state would lead to the further takeover of other
states in the same region; U.S. involvement in Vietnam was the logical consequence of
these beliefs.
The fatal flaw inherent in this theory is the inability to differentiate between vital
and peripheral interests. As a result U.S. national interests took a much larger blow by
the very nature of the defeat in Vietnam than any other outcome in terms of both
resources and international prestige. This was due to a flaw in the implementation of
containment, which placed a high value on stability even at the periphery while seeing
communist influence or perceived advantage in all instances as a source of instability.
Resulting in the U.S. supporting dictatorships in states to maintain stability at the expense of the very freedoms the Truman Doctrine was expressed to defend.
Kennan's theory of containment was focused on the central U.S.-Soviet relationship and certain key regions, Europe and Japan specifically and did not expect the
U.S. to play global policeman. Not only was it not in U.S. national interest but it was also beyond their resources.94 The ending of the Vietnam War and the strains, which had been put on the U.S. economically and politically placed systemic limitations on what the U.S. could accomplish internationally. Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger, an avowed realist, sought to reform U.S. foreign policy. Kissinger's realism was rooted in the same European traditions as Morgenthau and did not hold with the pretensions to idealism that many American leaders expressed as the root of U.S. foreign policy, which often conflicted with the national interest. The history of the U.S. is filled with "balance of power diplomacy ... secret treaties and gunboats"95 that many
94 Guzzini, p. 61. 95 Walter Isaacson, Kissinger, New York: Simon & Schuster, (1992), p. 655. 44
idealist commentators refuse to acknowledge or they saw within a different context and
not part of the realist tradition of U.S. foreign policy. 6 Kissinger viewed this as
simplistic naivete on the part of Americans; Kissinger wrote "Emotional slogans,
unleavened by a concept of the national interest, had caused us to oscillate between
excesses of isolation and overextension, [but can be moderated] by making judgments
according to some more permanent conception of national interest."97 Kissinger's
realism was not without serious failings; the most important that would have long-term
effects on U.S. foreign policy was his tendency to continue support for authoritarian
governments in his bid to maintain regional stability, Chile, Pakistan and Iran are but three examples.
Nixon and Kissinger began by making distinctions between peripheral and vital national interests to avoid just the type of conflict the U.S. was coming out of in
Vietnam. The new policy was called Detente and was a more flexible policy and in many ways less confrontational. Detente did not abandon the foundations of containment, but it focused less on the military aspects where the Soviet Union had now achieved strategic parity with the U.S. and more on the political and economic aspects as
QO original envisioned by Kennan. Kissinger believed containment as originally envisioned placed too much emphasis on military power" hence the almost complete lack of U.S.-Soviet dialogue from the late 1940s to the early 1960. The Nixon Doctrine as presented in 1969 in a speech given in Guam, presents a more limited and flexible strategy for the exercise of U.S. power:
96 The history of U.S. intervention in Latin and South America, South East Asia and North Africa are but a few examples of the U.S. exercising its power in the global balance of power over the past two centuries. 97 Henry Kissinger as quoted in Isaacson, p. 655. 98 Guzzini, p. 62. 99 Henry Kissinger, American Foreign Policy, New York: Norton, (1969), p. 86. 45
First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments. Second, we shall provide a shield if nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security. Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military or economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.100
The Nixon Doctrine was to free U.S. power from the peripheries and focus on the central foreign policy issue of U.S.-Soviet relations. Detente would be Kissinger's attempt to restore a European nineteenth century balance of power structure on a global scale.
Kissinger believed in the necessity of three philosophical concepts for the policy of detente: the international order needed to be based on a balance of power, the three powers which needed to be involved in this order where the U.S., U.S.S.R. and China, and finally the foreign policy of the U.S. must not be based on an idealistic view of the world. Detente could best be described as "a sequentialized and flexible mix of confrontation and collaboration, of deterrence and coexistence ... meant to keep containment working". 1 As Kissinger wrote "detente is dangerous if it does not include a strategy of containment." Detente had attempted to update containment from what was predominantly a bipolar system to one, which incorporated the developments in China and the Third World, and the increased complexity of the U.S.
Soviet relationship.
Both Kennan and Kissinger had attempted to disassociate U.S. foreign policy from the twin poles of "moral integrity and isolationism and moral responsibility and intervention." The result was a truly realist policy with many similarities to the
100 Gaddis, p. 298. 101 Guzzini, p. 99. 102 Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, Boston: Little Brown, (1982), p. 241. 103 Guzizini, p. 106. 46
previously described balance of power system of nineteenth century Europe. But,
Kissinger incorporated economic aspects into the diplomacy he sought to develop.
Kissinger's failure when Detente was replaced by Reagan's "Roll-back" policy testified
to the shift in power from the foreign policy elites to having foreign policy influenced by
domestic political considerations.
U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War benefited from a sense of focus brought
on by the nature of the conflict with the Soviet Union. Foreign policy was formulated
within a central thesis; "How does this decision affect relations with the Soviet Union?".
Realism and its implementation through containment provided a bipartisan continuity of
policy for forty years. The prescriptive nature of containment presented successive
administrations with enough flexibility to address changes to the international
environment. With hindsight, the Cold War can be seen as a period of international
stability and as such a success for a realist foreign policy influenced by the theories of
Hans Morgenthau. The end of the Cold War brought about dramatic changes to the
international system that will require new approaches to foreign policy. The questions
facing the U.S. is whether realism and the Cold War definition of the national interest will be able to cope with this new international environment and whether it is the best
choice for guiding future foreign policy formulation? 47
4. The Development of the Bush Doctrine
4.1 Pre-2001 Neoconservative Foreign Policy Discussions
The end of the Cold War brought with it a new international environment; the
world was no longer in the grips of the bipolar conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet
Union, which had defined international relations over the past 40 years. Defining this
new system was a matter of contention between foreign policy practitioners; some argued
the world was now multi-polar with many power centers, others argued that there was
now a unipolar system with the U.S. as the preeminent global power.104 The creation of the Bush Doctrine was the outcome of these foreign policy debates. The neoconservative
foreign policy establishment began during the Clinton Administration to formulate a
foreign policy to be implemented when they achieved power. The election of George W.
Bush saw the placement of many key individuals who had formulated this policy highly placed in the Bush Administration. This chapter will examine the process begun during the Clinton Administration, which resulted in the creation of the Bush Doctrine and the supporting arguments for that policy which would eventually lead to the war in Iraq.
Three generations had been defined by the Cold War; the first created the system and led the fighting at the on set of the conflict while the second defined by their experiences growing up during the depression and fighting WW II would bear most of the responsibility for the conflict. The third grew up during the conflict defining
104 Charles Krauthammer, in "The Unipolar Moment" (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/46271/ charles-krauthammer/the-unipolar-moment) expressed the view that the U.S. was the preeminent global power in a unipolar international system, a theory embraced by other neoconservatives and expressed in the reports of PNAC. The multipolar view is more difficult to identify with a single group because it meant different things to disassociated groups. George H.W. Bush spoke of a "new world order" of multilateral cooperation, Paul Kennedy addressed a developing multilateral system in response to U.S. decline, and John Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics saw the evolution of a multipolar system following the end of the Cold War. 48
themselves in large part based on their position surrounding the war's many issues. The
end of the Cold War also saw the last president of the generation that fought the war,
George H.W. Bush, followed by the first president of the third generation, William (Bill)
Clinton. As leadership of the U.S. was transitioning from one generation to another the
nation itself was examining what its role would be in the world. Militarily the U.S. was
without equal; the U.S. Navy and Air Force were the only ones in the world capable of
projecting power to any spot on the globe, in many cases within a matter of hours. The
Army, while numerically not the largest in the world, possesses a level of technology that
enables it to defeat a far larger force. Economically, the U.S. remained the largest
economy in the world and maintained a dominant position in organizations such as the
World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs soon to become the World Trade Organization. The level of power possessed by
the U.S. was far beyond what previous hegemonic powers had attained especially in
terms of military power.
But, why did realism not simply continue in its dominant position as the central
approach to U.S. foreign policy? The end of the Cold War resulted in what was
perceived to be a systemic change to the international system and the belief was that this
required a new approach to the way the U.S. related to the rest of the world. The election
of Bill Clinton brought into power a generation which saw realism as being responsible
for many of the foreign policy decisions that Clinton and his generation had opposed.105
The Vietnam War and the Arms Race where believed to have resulted from a realist prescription to U.S. foreign policy. As a result, there was a desire to find a new approach
105 Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier, America Between the Wars. New York: Public Affairs, (2008), p. 32-33. 49
to foreign policy to address new priorities in international relations. This led to a debate
concerning what the U.S. could or should do with its power in the world.
The dominant response from the political right came from the neoconservatives,
many of whom had played important roles in the Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush
Administrations. They had contributed to the formulation of U.S. foreign policy during
the Reagan Administration in reaction to detente and created the policy of roll-back.106
Richard (Dick) Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, began their public
careers during this period and would play key roles in all Republican administrations
from Gerald Ford to George W. Bush. As well they would make important contributions to the neoconservative foreign policy establishment during the Clinton Administration.
This would place them and their associates at the center of the foreign policy debate following the end of the Cold War.
In support of the neoconservative policymakers was a group of academics, political commentators, and journalists, who contributed to the on going dialogue.
Members of this group included Robert Kaplan, Charles Krauthammer, Andrew
Bacevich, Stanley Hoffman, Niall Ferguson, Michael Mandelbaum, Max Boot, and the
Kagan family, and at times Michael Ignatieff. This group published in neoconservative publications such as William Kristol's The Weekly Standard and the Washington Times; as well as mainstream publications, including The New York Times and Foreign Affairs.
In 1997, the politicians and the commentators came together with the organization
PNAC; a political action committee committed to the expansion of U.S. defense capabilities and an activist foreign policy. These commentators threw around the concept
106 George Packer, The Assassins' Gate, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (2005), p. 17. and James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, New York: Viking, (2004), p. xii. 50
of an American Empire, what they called a liberal empire built upon the idea that the U.S.
should actively and in some cases militarily support the development of democracy
around the world.107
Following the defeat of George H.W. Bush by Bill Clinton, former members of
the Bush Administration and members of the neoconservative movement began an
opposition movement critical of Clinton's approach to foreign policy. Some members
like Wolfowitz, went into academic posts while others like Dick Cheney split their time
between private think tanks and corporate America. From these institutions the members
produced work critical of the Clinton foreign and defense policy. This consisted of
congressional testimony, op-ed pieces in major newspapers and commentary on
television and radio. 1996 was the year control of the Republican foreign policy
apparatus shifted from the realists who had conducted the Cold War to the
neoconservatives as part of a generational shift. The deputies and assistants during the
Reagan and Bush Administrations became the leading policy advisors to Bob Dole's
presidential campaign. The coalition building and balance of power policies of George
H.W. Bush were giving way to more confrontational and aggressive policy positions of
10ft
Bob Dole recommended by his neoconservative advisors.
1997 saw the creation of PNAC and the question of future U.S. actions pertaining to Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein became a central focus for the organization.
Another focus of the organization was the Reaganesque call for increased defense
spending that has become a staple of the neoconservative movement. The launch of
PNAC was accompanied by an open letter to President Clinton. In the letter the 107 See Robert Kagan, The Coming Anarchy; Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace; and the columns of Charles Krauthhammer, Michael Ignatieff, Empire Lite. 108 Mann, p. 223. 51 signatories called for an end to the policy of "containment" which they believed had failed to stop the possibility of Iraq acquiring weapons of mass destruction and that the
only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.109
The signatories of this letter reads like a who's, who of the George W. Bush
Administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalizad, John Bolton,
Richard Armatage, and Richard Perle, among others.
In the midst of the 2000 presidential race, PNAC released its defense review statement Rebuilding America's Defenses, even the title of the report was meant to reflect a perceived crisis in the defense establishment of the U.S. The report attempts to make two points. The first is that the U.S. is the "preeminent military power, global technological leadership, and the world's largest economy ... [and] stands at the head of a system of alliances which includes the world's other leading democratic powers. At the present the United States faces no global rival."111 The second was the idea that,
"America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible." The report goes on to discuss the necessity to expand military capabilities that had degraded due to cuts in defense spending during the
Clinton Administration. Though seeming in opposition to each other, the nature of these statements is justified by the authors who argue that increasing defense spending is
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm 110 A book by Donald and Frederick Kagan, While America Sleeps was released during the presidential campaign and was part of the neoconservative movement's to draw attention to this so called "military weakness and confusion about foreign and defense policy." (Donald and Frederick Kagan, While America Sleeps, New York, St. Martin's Griffin, 2000, p. 1. 111 Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, Washington D.C., (2000), p. i. 112 Ibid. 52
a necessity due to the expansion of defense capabilities on the part of potential
adversaries; in other words to counter a potential future threat. 4 The PNAC report was
meant to increase public awareness of foreign policy issues and increase voter concern
for these issues in the up-coming election. Republicans have generally polled higher than
Democrats on military and defense issues and this enabled Republicans to label, Albert
(Al) Gore, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate and Clinton's Vice-President as being soft on defense issues.
The chief foreign policy advisors to the campaign of George W. Bush were
Condolezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, Wolfowitz had played central roles in the neoconservative defense and foreign policy establishment since the Reagan
Administration. Rice was relatively new to the neoconservative movement but had powerful sponsors in former Secretary of State George Schultz and members of the
George H.W. Bush Administration. That and a strong personal relationship with George
W. Bush, Rice became the foreign policy voice of the campaign.115 During the first Bush
Administration, Rice had been a subordinate of Brent Scowcroft, who had been in a similar position with Kissinger during his time in government. Rice's previous work and her writings placed her firmly in the realist school.
Her foreign policy statement published in the January/February 2000 issue of
Foreign Affairs presented the central themes of the Bush's potential foreign policy at the time. In the article Rice seeks to define the national interest of the U.S. in the wake of the
Cold War and presents five priorities
1. To ensure that America's military can deter war, project power, and fight in defense of its interests if deterrence fails;
"4Ibid,p. ii. 115 Mann, p. 250. 53
2. To promote economic growth and political openness by extending free trade and a stable international monetary system to all committed to these principles, including in the western hemisphere, which has too often been neglected as a vital area of U.S. national interest; 3. To renew strong and intimate relationships with allies who share American values and can thus share the burden of promoting peace, prosperity, and freedom; 4. To focus U.S. energies on comprehensive relationships with the big powers, particularly Russia and China, that can and will mold the character of the international political system; and 5. To deal decisively with the threat of rogue regimes and hostile powers, which is increasingly taking the forms of the potential for terrorism and the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)116
Rice presents a realist policy statement similar to the realist foreign policies of the
George H.W. Bush Administration. Arguing that in a similar fashion to the post-WW II era where the national interests of the U.S. created conditions beneficial to its allies and the world. The current national interests of the U.S. can produce similar results as other states can benefit from what the U.S. is doing in its own interests.117 But she argues against an "overly broad definition of America's national interest [that] is bound to backfire." Rice then goes on to argue for an increase in defense spending using similar arguments to the PNAC report, promotion of democracy, intervention when necessary based on the Powell Doctrine, and balance of power strategies with the other major powers in the world, Russia and China, and the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The realist approach of his father and members of the senior Bush
Administration, the last of the Cold War realists, heavily influenced this prospective Bush foreign policy. But following the election George W. Bush selected the majority of his cabinet and advisors from the neoconservative establishment. In foreign and defense
Condolezza Rice, "Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest", Foreign Affairs, 79, 1, January/February 2000, p. 46 - 47. 1,7 Ibid. 118 Ibid. p. 54. 54
policy all the major positions but one went to neoconservatives. Secretary of State Colin
Powell was the lone realist.
The first foreign policy issue the new Bush Administration had to face was the
continuing struggle with North Korea over that state's nuclear proliferation program.
Immediately, there was a shift from the Clinton policy of "engagement" to get North
Korea to voluntarily give up its program. The Bush policy was not about engagement with what they perceived as immoral, repressive and undemocratic regimes. Rather they were confrontational; either the regime would accept U.S. demands or the U.S. would wait for the regime to collapse and the U.S. would support opposition to the regime while attempting to put pressure it. During his first hundred days in office Bush stated a new policy on Taiwan, granting it U.S. defense protection if China ever invaded, a change from a softer defense pledge granted in 1950. This had been an important issue for
PNAC, and the new Bush policy was an implementation of the PNAC recommendations.
But the policy areas the Bush Administration was focused on ended up being the wrong ones. The true threat was the one to which they had ignored all the warnings.
4.2 September 11,2001 and the National Security Strategy of 2002
American awareness of the world changed on September 11, 2001. The idea that
America was somehow separated from the turmoil of the rest of the world due to its geographical distance was exposed as a falsehood. A small group of men of Middle
Eastern extraction, trained and based in one of the world's remotest states attacked the most powerful state the world has ever seen, and caused the greatest loss of life from any previous attack on the U.S. The immediate effect of this attack was to galvanize the
119 Mann, p. 281. 55
1 oc\
American public and draw the support of much of the world into what President Bush would call the "war on terror". But, what were the consequences of the attack on
American foreign policy in a broader scope, beyond the "war on terror"?
The foreign policy of the Bush Administration in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 could be expressed with two expressions popular within the government; "You're either with us or against us" expressed by Bush and "History begins today" by Assistant 100
Secretary of State Richard Armitage. But what did this actually mean with regards to how the U.S. would conduct relations with other states? Could states expect a dictatorial
America; a Pax Americana sending forth its legions to punish America's enemies? In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the pretext of the Bush Administration conducting a type of realist foreign policy as described by Rice in her Foreign Affairs essay was gone and a new foreign policy dynamic was about to be introduced. In the months following 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan the U.S. produced its annual national security statement.
In most years this is a simple formality required by a 1986 law. But following 9/11 the
Bush Administration used this as an opportunity to present a new national security policy to the world.
The National Security Statement of 2002 (NSS) presented a foreign policy that attempted to leave behind many of the concepts which had guided U.S. foreign policy over the past 45 years. Following the invasion of Afghanistan the Bush Administration sought to create a foreign policy broader than the war on terror, seeking to identify the
120 Even in France, which had strained relations with the U.S. during much of the Chirac Administration, saw the headline in Le Monde proclaim "We are all Americans" on September 12, 2001. 121 The same phrase was used by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the mid - 1950 pertaining to U.S. Cold War foreign policy. As quoted in Michael Mccgwire "The Paradigm that Lost its Way", International Affairs, 77, 4 (2001), p. 801. 122 Mann, p. 299. 56 core principles which would guide the conduct of U.S. international affairs. The spread of democracy was the overall theme of the NSS. But, there were two primary topics which underscored many of the discussions: controlling the proliferation of WMD and the use of preemptive force. There were other areas of discussion that were addressed such as missile defense and the importance of international development with an emphasis on Africa and the issue of HIV/AIDS, but by spring 2002, Iraq had taken its place at the top of the international agenda even though it is only mentioned once in the
NSS in context of the 1991 Gulf War. The conditions for the future war were being made with foreknowledge that they will be used to argue for war with Iraq.
The discussion of WMDs weaves through many of the aspects of the NSS but the focus is on three policy options. First, proactive counterproliferation efforts to "deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed ... ensure that key capabilities -detection, active and passive defenses, and counterforce capabilities - are integrated into our defense transformation and homeland security systems."124 Second, the need for
"strengthened nonproliferation efforts to prevent rogue states and terrorists from acquiring the materials, technologies and expertise necessary for weapons of mass destruction."125 This would include enhanced diplomatic and multilateral international agreements with allies to strengthen nonproliferation regimes. Third was the possibility that a WMD will be used and that effective crisis management and response coordination in such an eventuality must seek to limit the effectiveness of such a weapon on the U.S. and its allies. But, central to the NSS is the preference to stop a potential adversary
123 Thomas Ricks, Fiasco, New York: Penguin, (2007), p. 61. 124 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, p. 14. 125 Ibid. 57 from gaining access to these weapons and if they do acquire WMDs take preemptive action to force the elimination of the weapons and the state's capacity to reacquire them.
This shift in U.S. policy regarding preemptive action is important not only because of what the nature of the shift means in terms of U.S. policy and the willingness to unilaterally use force but also for international law. The argument for this policy shift is based on a change in the dynamics of the international system that occurred with the end of the Cold War. The contention is that the effectiveness of deterrence has been weakened. According to the NSS, "deterrence based only upon the threat of retaliation is less likely to work against leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks" and
"traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction". As a result of this perceived failure of deterrence, states cannot rely on their military forces to prevent attacks or to discourage other states from developing their own WMDs.
The Bush Administration sought a legal justification for preemptive action against prospective adversaries. They embraced the concept of "imminent threat" but there are two important distinctions that the Bush Administration makes with regard to this concept. The first concerns "time". The conventional definition of imminent threat requires the use of force to be immediate; where an aggressor is in motion to attack, the defender has the right to self-preservation. This concept, which dates back to Hugo
Grotius and the definition from U.S. Secretary of State, Daniel Webster concerning the
Caroline incident of 1837, is enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter,
127 Ibid, p. 15. 128 Webster argued that to claim self-defense requires "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberations." Amos Guiora, "Anticipatory Self-Defence and International Law - A Re-Evalution", Journal of Conflict & Security Law, (2008) Vol. 0 No. 0, p. 7. 58
which grants an "inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack
occurs against a member of the United Nations." The Bush Administration seems to
recognize this as the current state of international law; "Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat - most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies and air forces preparing an attack." The second distinction the Bush Administration sought to make regarded how a state can react to another state in the process of increasing its power, (e.g. seeking
WMDs). Grotius regarded a state's use of preemptive force against the possibility of suffering an attack due to the potential increase in power as an "intolerable doctrine."
This would leave the U.S. open to charges of aggression under the U.N. Charter.
The Bush Administration argued that the concept of imminent threat must be adapted to new realities such as the use of WMDs which can be delivered covertly and deployed without warning by states as well as terrorist organizations. The
Administration attempted to make its case for preemptive action:
Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today's threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries' choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first.
We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries.
The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the great is the risk of inaction and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty
129 http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ 130 National Security Strategy, p. 15. 131 Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, (1925), p. 224-225. 132 National Security Strategy, p. 15. 59
remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if 1T3
necessary, act preemptively.
There is a distinction being made in this argument between the actions of the U.S. and
those of other states. The NSS addresses potential abuse of preemption by other states
that the concept could not use it as a "pretext for aggression."134 But the NSS also makes
clear it is addressing the actions of the U.S. and by not including a mention of its allies or
collective action this argument for preemptive action is limited to the hegemonic power.
This explicitly challenged the principle of sovereign equality and promoted the type of unilateral action and U.S. exceptionalism for which the neoconservatives argued.
The NSS of 2002 became the central document for presenting what became known as the Bush Doctrine and which incorporated many of the foreign policy approaches neoconservatives had been calling for over the past decade. A term to describe the neoconservative approach to foreign policy is neo-idealism, a new expanded form of Woodrow Wilson's idealism. Where "Wilson sought to teach [the countries of
Latin America] to elect good men, so Bush will bring free markets and free elections to countries without them." The Bush Doctrine views American military power as a tool to project and promote what the neoconservatives believe to be American ideals. These ideals include the promotion of American style democracy and free market economic structures in areas where they do not exist. They are opposed to realism and what they see as its reliance on balance of power politics, which they see as having failed in the
Middle East because it lacks aggression and in their view is too conciliatory and therefore
133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 135 Wilson's liberal idealism includes many of the same attributes of the Bush Doctrine, democratization, intervention (usually non - military) and even a concept of American exceptionalism. 136 Robert Jervis, American Foreign Policy in a New Era, New York, Routledge, 2005, p. 80. weak. The Bush Doctrine is an expression of these neoconservative ideas for the U.S.
to conduct its international relations.
In describing the Bush Doctrine it is important to remember that at its core the
Doctrine is about the spreading of values. The need to separate national values from
national interests was not necessary for Bush who sees them as reinforcing each other.
Bush criticized realist opposition to his policies; "Some who call themselves 'realists'
question whether the spread of democracy in the Middle East should be any concern of
ours. But the realists in this case have lost contact with a fundamental reality. America
has always been less secure when freedom is in retreat. America always is more secure
when freedom is on the march." But as Dwight Eisenhower wrote "We are [so] proud
of our guarantees of freedom in thought and speech and worship, that, unconsciously, we
assume that our standard of values is shared by all other humans in the world."139 Under
the Bush Doctrine, idealism would no longer be a language used to present a realist
foreign policy to the American people rather it would become the guiding principle of
U.S. foreign policy.
Robert Jervis sees the Bush Doctrine not as an anomaly for a state which has achieved a degree of power far in excess to other states. He has four supporting points to this argument from realist theory drawn from Thucydides, Morgenthau, and Waltz. The first is based on the concept that without counterbalancing force, states without external constraints will be inclined to use their power. Second, that as a state's power grows the definition of their national interest expands as they see fewer barriers to achieving
137 Hall Gardner, American Global Strategy and the "War on Terrorism", Aldershot: Ashgate, (2005), p. 36. 138 George Bush as quoted in Jervis, p. 80. 139Gaddis(1982),p. 130. 140 Jervis, p. 93. 61
their goals. Third, increased power results in a new conception of threats to the state
and even though these threats can be less destructive their psychological impact can be
greater.142 Fourth is another psychological aspect, one that sees the future as filled with possible harm from many sources which makes states willing to act in dramatic fashion
(such as preemptive war) to avoid a loss of power.143 Under the Bush Doctrine, the U.S., within the concepts of its own power, fear and opportunity, sought to reshape the world not for a perceived selfishness but for what it believed was for the betterment of global society.
4.3 Robert Kagan and the Bush Doctrine
Many of the neoconservative commentators took up the cause of the Bush
Doctrine and the concept of U.S. hegemony; some even took it to a fairly extreme position by calling for the creation or recognition of an American Empire. Many of these commentators had been part of the pervious neoconservative foreign policy discussion but the events of 9/11 created the opportunity to see many of their ideas implemented.
But none seemed to recognize how short this period would be; the Iraq war would end the unipolar era before it could really start. For a number of these commentators Niall
Ferguson's statement concerning "not whether the United States has become an imperial power [but] what sort of empire [Americans] intend theirs to be"144 is recognition of the new international state of affairs.
1U1U. 143 Ibid, p. 95. 144 Niall Ferguson, "The Empire that Dare Not Speak its Name", The Sunday Times, New Review, April 13, 2003. 62
An examination of a number of neoconservative commentators shows how similar
themes are presented in their writings that run parallel to the Bush Doctrine. By
assessing a sample of four of the central writers on this subject it will be shown how
these commentators had a mutually beneficial relationship with the Bush Administration,
which used the public statements of these commentators to marshal public support. The
commentators selected are two Americans, Charles Krauthammer and Robert Kagan, a
Canadian, Michael Ignatieff, and a Scotsman, Niall Ferguson, all of whom were
supportive of the Bush foreign policy initiatives at least through to 2004 - 05, including the invasion of Iraq.145
Robert Kagan is one of the most prominent of the neoconservative foreign policy commentators; published regularly in the Washington Post and Foreign Affairs among
other periodicals, was part of the group of advisors to Bob Dole and George W. Bush, and was a founder of PNAC. Kagan's essay "Power and Weakness" published in 2002 as the NSS was being released is a comparison between the "Power" of the U.S. and the
"Weakness" of Europe. Kagan attempts to argue that WW II and the Cold War resulted in two complementary effects on Europe. WW II resulted in the destruction of European power on a global scale while the Cold War provided Europe the opportunity to give up its security arrangements to the U.S. Europe has been able to achieve a Kantian
"Perpetual Peace" because U.S. power maintains international stability in the Hobbesian world of international security and relations.146
All the selected writings were published following the release of the National Defense Strategy of 2002 and before the 2004 general election. 146 Robert Kagan, "Power and Weakness", The Imperial Tense, Andrew Bacevich ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, (2003), p. 135. 63
Europe has established what Kagan refers to as a strategic culture, which places an "emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, and commercial ties, on international law over the use of force, on seduction over coercion, on multilateralism over unilateralism"147 that was created in response to Europe's military weakness. Americans viewed this
European method as akin to appeasement, which they associated with the 1930s, and rise of Nazism. This form of strategic culture or "Europe's new Kantian order could flourish only under the umbrella of American power exercised according to the rules of the old
Hobbesian order. American power made it possible for Europeans to believe that power was no longer important." Kagan provided the background and justification for the evolution of the Bush Doctrine's concept of unilateralism based upon his description of
Europe's inability to contribute to international security, creating a global reliance on the
U.S.
In Kagan's Hobbesian world the U.S. saw its relative power increase following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. This resulted in U.S. power becoming unconstrained. The nature of the Cold War was such that the U.S. and the Soviet Union placed systemic constraints on how each was able to exercise power, but the nature of Kagan's Hobbesian world view requires that the U.S. have the freedom to act and "sometimes act unilaterally, not out of a passion for unilateralism but, given a weak Europe that has moved beyond power, because the United States has no choice but to act unilaterally."149 Kagan believes that U.S. leaders must not allow themselves to be restricted by the limitations European leaders would seek to place on the exercise of U.S. power. They should seek multilateral support when possible but should not limit U.S.
147 Ibid, p. 149. 148 Ibid, p. 159. 149 Ibid. p. 163. 64
actions when this support is not present.150 Kagan is quite explicit and repeats through
out the essay the need for the U.S. not only to be willing to operate unilaterally but makes the point on a number of occasions that other states can not bind it to the same rules as ordinary states.
4.4 Charles Krauthammer and the Bush Doctrine
Charles Krauthammer also believes in U.S. exceptionalism, if possible to an even greater extent than Kagan. Krauthammer is a neoconservative columnist for the
Washington Post and contributor to a number of other mainly neoconservative publications. His essay "The Unipolar Era" is a descendent of a previous essay from
1990, "The Unipolar Moment". Krauthammer's essay is supportive of the primary concepts of the Bush Doctrine but relies on contradictory and unsubstantiated claims with respect to international support for U.S. actions and over emphasizes the role of WMDs in the post-Cold War era. Krauthammer's goal is not so much to educate and inform the public but to solicit greater support for the Bush Administration's foreign policy.
Krauthammer draws on many of the key features of the NSS to provide support for his argument, the essence of which is that not only is the U.S. the most powerful state but also is globally indispensable. As such it cannot be bound to the rules which constrain the actions of other states. Krauthammer believes that because a natural counterbalance to the U.S. has not evolved over the past decade the world has embraced this role for the U.S.151 The potential problem for the international community
Krauthammer believes comes from the concept of preemptive action. Here Krauthammer
150 Ibid. p. 165. 151 Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Era", The Imperial Tense, Andrew Bacevich ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, (2003), p. 52. 65
simply repeats the Bush Administration's defense of preemption and uses the same
threat, the existence of rogue states and WMDs as the prerequisite for a policy of
preemption. Krauthammer dismisses those who criticize this policy in part on the basis
of state sovereignty. In a response to Henry Kissinger who argues preemption violates
the Westphalian system of state sovereignty, Krauthammer restates the need for
"American freedom of action." But, while arguing state sovereignty should not be an
issue in preventing U.S. action, Krauthammer then goes on to use U.S. sovereignty as an
issue against multilateralism and liberal internationalism which he sees as a threat to U.S.
sovereignty.
Krauthammer then turns his pen toward the U.S. realist foreign policy
establishment and their criticism of the new unilateralism. This critique is centered on the concept that international treaties and agreements "are worse than worthless because they give a false sense of security and breed complacency" and realists who naturally place their trust in power cannot support this form of international system. Krauthammer has an incredibly narrow definition of power based solely on military capability and as
such believes realists should be supportive of unilateralism over the only other option he gives the "vain promise of goo-goo one-worldism."154 Benign unipolarity is a far better choice for a peaceful world than any other form of international stability, according to
Krauthammer. He then goes on to show the historical record of the U.S. in its role of benign hegemon in Asia and Europe following WW II. Krauthammer then criticizes those who he refers to pragmatic realists, unnamed but who are easily recognizable as members of the first Bush Administration, George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and Brent
152 Ibid. p. 53. 153 Ibid, p. 58. 154 Ibid, p. 59. Scowcroft. These realists "value international support in the interest of burden
sharing"155 by building a coalition of supporting states. Rather, Krauthammer wants
leaders "who wish to retain, augment, and use unipolarity to advance not just American
but global ends," though his definition of "global ends" equates them with America's
interests.
4.5 Michael Ignatieff and the Bush Doctrine
Michael Ignatieff,157 the only non-neoconservative being examined, begins with a
declaration that whether they believe it or not the U.S. is an empire, though not in the
classical, historical sense. The U.S. Empire "is an attempt to permanently order the world of states and markets according to its national interests."158 Ignatieff see the U.S.
as a liberal empire, that can address global problems that he argues only have an imperial
solution.159 The central concept found in Ignatieff s Empire Lite is nation-building and the necessity for imperial power to achieve favorable results.
Unlike Kagan and Krauthammer, Ignatieff does not give unqualified support for the Bush Doctrine nor does he support all aspects of it. But Ignatieff does support the use of U.S. power to spread liberal democracy by intervening in the developing world and to reform rogue states. But in doing so the imperial power and its allies take on a responsibility to bring about and aid in the development of democratic institutions as part of a broad nation-building arrangement with the local population.160 The post-
155 Ibid, p. 62. 156 Ibid, p. 65. 157 Michael Ignatieff is the only non - neoconservative being studied, he can best be described in these circumstances as a liberal interventionalist. 158 Michael Ignatieff, Empire Lite, Toronto: Penguin, (2003), p. 3. 159 Ibid, p. 19. 160 Ibid. p. 20-21. 67
intervention period can best be described as a form of trusteeship. Mindful of peoples
desire for self-determination, local populations are integral to the process of nation-
building. But these states, while officially independent, in reality do not have
sovereignty; true power resides with the imperial power. Ignatieff believes
imperialism is a necessary condition for the establishment of liberal democracy. Using the post-WW II examples of Germany and Japan, though he could have included India, the former British Dominions and even the U.S., Ignatieff suggests imperialism if done properly with the goal of democratization, can foster the development of democratic institutions. As Bush has stated in regard to U.S. history, "After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments."
Thus the U.S. becomes the indispensable state in this process; it is the only state with the power required for these situations. Europeans can provide economic assistance and post-conflict logistics, but any nation building project will require U.S. forces to fight the war and provide stability and security in the post-conflict period. But the U.S. cannot intervene in all situations; even U.S. power has its limits. Ignatieff believes that in order to be successful the U.S. will have to ration its power to specific principles and should do so by being guided by its national interests at the point where its principles and interests intersect.164 But, U.S. national interests must be defined in such a away to incorporate the requirements of nation-building; areas such as human rights, economic development, and long - term open ended deployment of military forces, areas which the U.S. has been unwilling to include in its national interests.
161 Ibid, p. 22. 162 Ibid, p. 24. 163 "Transcript of President Bush's Speech", The New York Times, February 26, 2003. 164 Ignatieff, p. 111. 68
Why is U.S. imperialism needed? According to Ignatieff the answer concerns the
failure of the nationalist nation-building ventures that occurred following the
decolonization of the developing world in the decades following WW II. For every
success there are numerous failures that resulted in civil war, political fragmentation, corruption, ethnic cleansing and genocide. The failure of decades of western aid,
followed by the false prospect of globalization has not helped create the order and domestic stability required for development to occur. In extreme cases imperial intervention is the only hope "to bring order out of chaos."166 Even though the global requirements for intervention exceed the ability of the U.S. to address them the selective use of U.S. power can address the failed states which fall within U.S. national interests.
Ignatieff accepts that there is potential for abuse in the acquisition of imperial power by the U.S. In the past imperialism has not practiced the principles it has preached. The local populations have been promised self-determination and respect for their traditions and culture but the imperial power has with contempt failed to meet these commitments. Nation-building needs to be "an exercise in solidarity between rich and poor, the possessors and the disposed. Too often, it is an exercise in mutual betrayal.
From betrayal comes resentment and from resentment comes rebellion." Through benign or benevolent imperialism not dissimilar to what Krauthammer discussed,
Ignatieff believes the U.S. can and should seek to expand democracy through out the developing world.
Ibid. p. 122. Ibid. p. 125. Ibid. p. 25. 69
4.6 Niall Ferguson and the Bush Doctrine
Niall Ferguson, in Colossus: The Price of America's Empire, begins with the
same point as Ignatieff, namely that the U.S. possesses a liberal empire. It is an empire that is not only focused on issues of international security and stability but also on
economic issues such as the promotion of free trade, liberal international capital flows, and stable fiscal and monetary policies. The U.S. Empire Ferguson describes bears a
strong resemblance to his description of the mercantilism of the British Empire of the nineteenth century. The U.S., in his view, is its natural successor.
Ferguson's goal with this work is to show that the U.S. is an empire; it may be an empire in denial but over the past century it has developed an empire nonetheless. But the structure of this empire is not one of territory but one of leadership. The U.S. has
"preferred indirect rule to direct rule and informal empire to formal empire ... empire by invitation." Ferguson would describe the U.S. Empire as a liberal democracy with a mixed rather than free market economy, concerned primarily with its "own security and maintaining international communications and secondarily, with ensuring access to raw materials (principally, though not exclusively, oil)."171 The U.S. Empire is also responsible for a number of public goods, among them "intervening against some bellicose regimes and in some civil wars; freedom of the seas and skies for trade; and a distinctive form of 'conversion' usually called Americanization, which is carried out... by the exporters of American consumer goods and entertainment." This form of
168 Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire, New York: Penguin, (2004), p. 2. 169 Ibid. p. 12. 170 Ferguson argues that the U.S. economy has to high a level of state intervention to be a truly free market economy. 171 Ferguson, p. 13. 70
empire is a combination of hard173 and soft174 power avoiding for the most part the
acquisition of territory by conquest.
Ferguson sees the need for an imperial power in a similar way to Ignatieff. In
what he refers to as the self-interested argument he argues that "[w]hat is required is an
agency capable of intervening in the affairs of such states to contain epidemics, depose
tyrants, end local wars and eradicate terrorist organizations."175 Ferguson's altruistic
argument is that even without a direct threat to the U.S. the conditions in these states
require an intervention on humanitarian grounds. But, Ferguson does not limit his
discussions to military and security affairs. He sees an economic aspect to the need for
an imperial power. The U.S. "enhances its own security and prosperity by providing the rest of the world with generally beneficial public goods: not only economic freedom but
also the institutions necessary for markets to flourish." 77 For Ferguson the prospects for the U.S. Empire are still not certain; Americans "would rather consume than conquer.
17ft
They would rather build shopping malls than nations."
The policies of the Bush Administration corresponded to the imperial system, which Ferguson has described, even through to the adoption of the policy of preemptive war, which Ferguson sees not so much as a change in theory for U.S. foreign policy but a change in the way that policy was to be implemented or rather the belief that preemption was to be implemented as part of the war on terror.179
173 Hard power consists of the coercive elements of power such as military and aspects of economic power. 174 A state's soft power is non - coercive; it involves getting a desired result not from force or inducement but through the admiration of values and the emulation of the example of a state's actions. 175 Ferguson, p. 24. 176 Ibid. 177 Ibid. p. 25. 178 Ibid. 179 Ibid. p. 152. 71
But Ferguson believes there are three main points or deficits that have hampered
the U.S. imperial project, the first being economic, the second manpower, and finally
attention.100 The economic deficit is the dependence on foreign capital to fund its deficit
spending but also the increased reliance on foreign investment by major U.S.
corporations. So long as foreign investors continue to see the U.S. as a secure and
stable destination for capital investment and the U.S. dollar remains the dominant
international currency this issue may not have to be dealt with in the short-term but in the
long-term it will be an issue that needs to be seriously addressed as potential sources of
capital dry up. The manpower deficit is a concern for the military that finds it difficult
to compete with the private sector for personnel in a strong economy. But as the
economy weakens the opportunity to recruit personnel increases. In 2008 as the U.S.
economy fell into recession all branches of the regular and reserve military met or
1 ft*3
exceeded their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004. This type of fluctuation in force levels has lead to the hiring of contractors to fill personnel gaps in certain support areas.
The final deficit and the worst in terms of its effect on present U.S. policy is the attention deficit of the U.S. political system. This problem results in the inability of the
U.S. to make long-term international commitments. A combination of rivalries between the different levels of government and between federal departments is combined with an election cycle which requires politicians to see issues in the short-term and within the context of the next election. This makes for a decision making process that is at best
180 Ibid. p. 290. 181 Ibid. p. 291. 182 Ibid. p. 292. 183 http://www.nytimes.eom/2009/01/19/us/l9recruits.html?_r= l&hp 72
sporadic and at worst contradictory. As a result the U.S. in most cases commits too
few non-military resources to its interventions and requires the political and economic
reforms to be accomplished in too short of a time. The occupations of West Germany
and Japan required an extended U.S. deployment of almost a decade in peacetime. But in
the modern era social considerations, in relation to extended deployments of military
personnel makes these deployments a politically difficult decision. In the past this has
resulted in premature exits and a failure to achieve the desired results by the U.S. in
places like Somalia, Haiti, and Liberia.
The failure of the U.S. to recognize itself as an imperial power and to operate
global within that context is the thesis of Ferguson's work. The world needs the U.S. to
provide the public goods and security that only an imperial power can grant according to
Ferguson. While the Bush Administration used some of the rhetoric of empire whether it
will able to turn rhetoric into action was yet to be seen at the time when these works were published. The first of the imperial interventions had just taken place in Iraq.
It should not surprise anyone that all these discussions in some way support the
U.S. invasion of Iraq which was either imminent or had recently taken place, though the
long-term nature of that conflict had yet to be established. There is a high degree of agreement between the four examined writers concerning their views on the U.S. intervention in Iraq. All were public supporters of the war and like the Bush
Administration's NSS, specific points in their presentations draw direct correlation to the
184 Ibid. p. 293-294. 185 In the past military service personnel recognized that deployments would require families to be separated, possibly for years. But modern communications increases the frequency of contact with family back home and make long - term deployments more socially difficult as separation is seen as more transitional and not extended which require families to make decisions recognizing that the separation would be for an extended period. Current U.S. deployments are usually for twelve months, 18 if extended, in the United Kingdom the average is six months. 73
arguments for going to war. The support for preemptive war, control the proliferation of
WMDs, regime change in rogue states, and democratization are all key arguments for
each of the commentators and were central to the NSS. Iraq is not addressed specifically
in the NNS or by these commentators, rather it is for the reader see the corresponding
nature with Iraq and to draw these conclusions equating these with the reasons for going
to war.
The war in Iraq was the defining issue of the Bush Doctrine; the intervention in
Afghanistan took place much earlier and was a reactionary response to 9/11. But the prescription for war in Iraq defined the Bush Doctrine and was the result of many years
of work by the neoconservative foreign policy establishment who had argued for regime change in Iraq since 1991. The following chapter will demonstrate how this policy became an utter failure and has resulted in what is likely to be remembered as one of the greatest foreign policy disasters of U.S. history. As will be shown the failure of the neo - idealism of the Bush Doctrine in Iraq resulted in a shift towards the realist theory that has guided U.S. foreign policy during the second half of the last century. 5. The Bush Doctrine in Practice
5.1 Pre - 2001: The United States and Iraq
The principle application of the Bush Doctrine was the war in Iraq. In many ways
the Bush Doctrine was created in part to justify the invasion of Iraq. What follows is an
examination of the Iraq war divided into three parts, the lead up to invasion where the
Bush Doctrine was cited as justification for the war followed by the first years of
occupation illustrate the failure of the Doctrine. Concluding with the period following
the 2006 midterm elections new strategies were introduced that did not wholly abandon the Bush Doctrine but made major revisions to the Iraq policy. This included a re
examination of the realist approach to U.S. foreign policy. The failure in Iraq resulted in
a major curtailing of U.S. foreign policy initiatives, which were to be undertaken by the
Bush Administration, both North Korea and Iran faced a U.S. with less capacity to threaten them. As a result, Iraq was the only major implementation of the Bush Doctrine.
The origin of the U.S. conflict with Iraq can be traced back to 1991 when the U.S. as leader of the coalition to remove Iraq from Kuwait decided to limit the war and not seek to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein. A core group of neoconservative members of the Administration including Wolfowitz but not Cheney argued for continuing the war to Baghdad. But President George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State James Baker and
National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft did not believe the coalition they had built would support such a change in policy. Rather the first Bush Administration decided to pursue a policy of containment against Iraq following the war using previously obtained and new U.N. resolutions for the policy.187 This policy created the no-fly zones in the
Thomas Ricks, Fiasco, New York: Penguin, (2007), p. 8. Chollet,p. 182. 75 north and south of Iraq as part of the humanitarian relief operation "Provide Comfort" to
188 protect Iraqi Kurds and Shiites from reprisals as a result of the post - war uprisings.
The no-fly zones would continue to be patrolled for twelve years up to the launch of the second Iraq war.
During the Clinton Administration the containment policy was continued much to the consternation of Paul Wolfowitz and other members of the neoconservative movement. The Clinton Administration, in support of the U.N. authorized weapon inspectors launched a series of air strikes through out the late 1990s. Following each of 1 QQ the airstrikes Iraq permitted the continuation of the inspections. As previously discussed PNAC's first statement was a public letter to Clinton calling for a much harsher policy on Iraq that should focus on regime change. In 1998 the U.S. Congress with bipartisan support passed and Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which stated, "it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." But even at this point and through to the end of his presidency Clinton did not abandon the goal of maintaining allied and U.N. support for U.S. actions with regard to Iraq. It should be noted that neoconservative accusations that Iraq was stronger at the end of the Clinton Administration than at the beginning are false. In 2004, the Iraq Survey Group was tasked with determining the extent of Iraqi's
WMD programs. David Kay a member of the Group and a former U.N. weapons
Following the end of hostilities Bush called on Iraqis to rise up against the government and overthrow Saddam Hussein. In the north Kurds, and in the south Shiites rose up against the government believe the U.S. would intervene. This did not happen and the Iraqi army crushed these uprisings. In response the U.S. intervened with humanitarian assistance and the creation of zones of protection in the north and south of Iraq. 189 Philip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War, New York, McGraw - Hill, (2004), p. 41 - 42. inspector in Iraq reported that at the end of the Clinton Administration the vast majority of Iraq's WMD capability had been destroyed.191
The election of George W. Bush in 2000 did not immediately place Iraq at the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. During the campaign Bush stressed on numerous occasions the need for the U.S. to avoid the pitfalls of nation-building and of "over committing our military around the world". More precisely, he made it clear that he did not "want to be the world's policeman." The military would be used to fight
America's wars not get bogged down in places where the U.S. does not have a national interest.1 The opposition to nation-building was a result of the Clinton
Administration's eventual intervention in the former-Yugoslavia and later Kosovo, where U.S. forces were deployed on an open ended peacekeeping mission that did not have a high degree of public support.196 Domestic support for international commitments was extremely low following eight years of engagement with Iraq, the deployments in the
Balkans and the memory of the Somalia intervention all performed contrary to the
Powell-Weinberger Doctrine. The isolationist tendencies of the U.S. public could only be changed by direct threats to U.S. national interests of which there were no perceived challenges. The election of George W. Bush did not immediately alter U.S. international concerns until September 11, 2001 when for the first time in 60 years the U.S. was attacked by the Al Qaeda terrorist organization.
Ricks, p. 21. Chollet, p. 282. Mann, p. 256. Chollet, p. 282. This also was an example to the Clinton Administration's non - realist foreign policy. Cholllet, p. 82. 77
5.2 The Justification and Lead Up to War
September 11, 2001 placed Iraq back on the foreign policy agenda at the urging of
Wolfowitz and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. At 14:40 on September 1, 2001 as the Pentagon was still burning from the attack Rumsfeld made a note to see how
Saddam Hussein could be brought into the retaliation for the attack.197 Both men were joined by Vice-President Cheney in arguing for the terrorist attacks to be used as a provocation for an immediate attack on Iraq without any supporting evidence and even
1 Qft before addressing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bush decided after recommendations from the Department of State and CIA that Afghanistan would be the first phase of what would become known as the "war on terror". Though in his address to the nation on the night of 9/11, Bush included a statement that the U.S. would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them", the next day he added the U.S. would be "ending the states who sponsor terrorism". It was recognized by many analysts that this statement was directed at Iraq. But Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz now with
Cheney's support,199 were not about to give up on their goal of regime change in Iraq and began planning for the eventual conflict.200 For Rumsfeld and especially Wolfowitz,
9/11 was going to give them the opportunity to finally address issues with Iraq, something Wolfowitz had been advocating since 1991. They began to implement the neoconservative foreign policy agenda.
James Bamford, A Pretext for War, New York: Anchor Books, (2005), p. 285. 198Bush's War 199 Cheney had not signed the PNAC letter to Clinton on Iraq nor did he support the Iraq Liberation Act while he was president of Halliburton, the oil services company that had many contracts in the Middle East. 200 George Packer, The Assassin's Gate, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (2005), p. 40 - 41. 201 Ricks, p. 6. 78
As addressed earlier, Bush had not been part of the neoconservative foreign
policy establishment. He did have relationships built up from the period when he had
OHO
contributed to his father's successful presidential campaign. It was only during his
own campaign that he brought in advisors such as Wolfowitz, but as previously discussed
his campaign had expressed a foreign policy more closely linked to the realism of his
father not the neoconservatives. After the election the selection of key
neoconservatives to high-ranking positions signaled the possibility of a new foreign
policy direction, different from that which was campaigned on. Cheney and Rumsfeld
came to dominate the foreign policy decision-making process. Following 9/11 Rumsfeld
and the Department of Defense was forced to accept the lead of CIA in the initial stages
of the war in Afghanistan because of their lack of contingency plans for the country.
Only CIA was prepared to act immediately on Bush's decision, placing the
neoconservatives at the Pentagon in a secondary position, at least for the short - term
with their plans for Iraq postponed.
By mid-October, in a televised press conference Bush states, "We know he
(Saddam Hussein) has been developing Weapons of Mass Destruction",204 this was the first used of the term WMD by Bush in relation to Iraq. The threat of Iraq armed with
WMDs would be used to guide public discussions surrounding the necessity of war with the goal of regime change. Over the next year the Bush Doctrine was developed in part to provide justification for war with Iraq and to provide the framework for similar
202 Mann, p. 258-259. 203 Condolezza Rice, "Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest", Foreign Affairs, 79, 1, January/February 2000, p. 46 - 47. 204 As quoted in Bush's War. 79
situations should they arise with states such as Iran, North Korea, and Syria. But the development of the Bush Doctrine was only part of the process for justifying war with
Iraq. The two central arguments were, first, proving a link between Saddam Hussein and
Al Qaeda, specifically the 9/11 hijackers and second, Iraq's development of WMDs. The
Bush Administration began a concerted effort that would stretch over the next year, bringing together their intelligence sources including many that were highly dubious and some outright false to make their case for the need to go to war.
Polling done in November of 2001 showed, 74 percent of Americans supported
U.S. military action against Iraq. But, it was believed by the Administration that this support was soft and could disappear quite quickly. It was therefore important to work to maintain this support and a program was instituted which sought to keep the public aware of the potential Iraqi threat. The Administration was able to control the public agenda by using an immensely popular president to influence the scope and timing of the discussion.
While other members of the Administration and its supporters used the media to selectively release information to drive the policy process and tarnish those who would express opposition. First, this meant discussing links between Saddam Hussein and Al
Qaeda which, though disputed were accepted by much of the public and continue to be.
In the months following 9/11 this was the media focus but the early success in
Afghanistan weakened the perceived threat from Al Qaeda while its links to Iraq were challenged by foreign and domestic intelligence sources. The focus then shifted to the
Michael R. Gordon, speech to Council on Foreign Relations, April 6, 2006. http://www.cfr.org/publication/10397/gordon.html 206 Jon Western, Selling Intervention & War, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, (2005), p. 179. 207Bush's War 80 threat of Iraq possessing208 and potentially using WMDs.209 The politicization and manipulation of intelligence played a central role in the attempt to secure both domestic and international support for the coming war. This now became the central argument for going to war. As Hans Morgenthau stated "the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations."
Domestically, the threat of WMDs in the wake of 9/11 created significant support but internationally the natural allies of the U.S. and members of the 1991 coalition against Iraq were not supportive of a new war with Iraq. The lack of hard intelligence played a role, but an even greater cause was the nature of the Bush foreign policy and role it envisioned for international support for U.S. actions. With the exception of
Secretary of State Colin Powell, none of the senior administration foreign policy officials supported further involvement of the U.N. or the development of a coalition based on the
1991 Gulf War model. The unilateral nature of the Bush Doctrine did not recognize a need or necessarily the desirability of international support. The Bush Administration believed that the U.S alone possessed the capabilities to force regime change in Iraq.
During the Cold War the U.S. had built up the structures within the region to accomplish its goal. But, these bases where only accessible with the permission of the host state. In the cases of Saudi Arabia and Turkey the permissions were not forthcoming. Saudi Arabia would not grant permission due to domestic and international constraints placed on it as the host of the Muslim holy places. Allowing a western power
208 At the time few sources disputed this claim and the extent that the bombing in the late 1990s destroyed Iraq's WMD capability was not known. Iraq's possession of WMDs was not challenged during the debate over the war the dispute was over how to best address this issue. 209Bush's War 210 As quoted in James Traub, "Old World Order", The New York Times, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE0DC103FF931A25752ClA9609C8B63&sec=&spo n=&pagewanted=print 81 to use Saudi territory to attack another Muslim state would create significant internal and international problems while it was attempting to deal with a domestic fundamentalist problem.
Turkey's position on the war was soft but was inclined to support the EU position
(led by France and Germany) as it was attempting to gain membership in that organization. The U.S. used its position in the World Bank and IMF as well as its own foreign aid dollars to secure for Turkey an $8 billion loan package.211 But even this could not sway Turkey's position. In the end the U.S. used new bases in Uzbekistan and
Kuwait to launch the war.
The status of U.S. power structures built during the Cold War was based on a cooperative understanding between the U.S. and its allies. While the U.S. took the lead role in most of these organizations it was based on the understanding of consultation as such U.S. power in these organizations was not absolute. The U.S. has the leadership roles in NATO and the Bretton Woods organizations, but its bilateral defense agreements required consultation with the home nation before foreign-based military forces could be used. The U.S. did not exercise imperial power with its allies nor did it possess the capability to do so. These were aspects of the realist foreign policy used during the Cold
War stressing the creation of a series of balance of power structures and the use of burden sharing which sought to limit the cost to the U.S. and give allies a vested interest in the policy. The Bush Doctrine ignored the beneficial nature of coalitions and burden sharing and was instead focus on U.S. exceptionalism and unilateralism.
211 Steven Weissman, "Powell, in Ankara, Ties Assistance for U.S. to Aid", New York Times, April 3,2003. http://query.nytimes.corn/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E6DElE39F931A35757C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spo n=&pagewanted=all 82
International opposition from France, Germany and Russia among others did not play a role in the Bush Administration's decision-making process. The Administration had committed itself to unilateral action by choice and sought to avoid being entangled in a debate in the U.N. But with the urging of Britain's Tony Blair, Bush decided to permit
Secretary of State Powell to make the U.S.'s case to the Security Council. Failure at the
U.N. would not halt U.S. intentions to go to war in Iraq but a success would provide increased legitimacy, Bush decided there was nothing to lose in going to the U.N. and it
919 would appease some domestic critics who argued for increased U.N. involvement.
5.3 Realist Opposition to the War
In the months prior to the launching of the Iraq war significant opposition to the war came from realist academics and members of the realist foreign policy
91T establishment. For example, George H.W. Bush's former Secretary of State James
Baker expressed concern in the lead up to war, recommending the development of an international coalition and working through the U.N 4 as the U.S. had during the 1991
Gulf War. That had led to the development of alliances some on an ad hoc basis and 91 ^ create a system of burden sharing. Two essays standout in this discussion; the first by
Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to the first President Bush, and the second by
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer of Harvard and the University of Chicago respectively. Scowcroft's opposition to the coming war was based on the premise that any war in Iraq would have a detrimental effect on the war on terror and would 212Bush's War 213 Many of these people, including Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft were members of the Nixon and first Bush administrations. 214 Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, New York: Simon & Schuster, (2004), p. 163. 215 A key strategy for the U.S. conduct of the Cold War. 83
OH e
destabilize the region. Scowcroft is willing to accept the premise that Iraq has WMDs
and is therefore a potential threat but a regional threat. Scowcroft argued that Saddam
Hussein's goal was regional hegemony and his possession of WMDs was to deter the
U.S. not to directly challenge it. From Iraq's point of view any conflict with the U.S. was
based on U.S. opposition to it's strategic goals in the region not on threats to U.S.
security. Though this failed to recognize how Iraq's strategic goals for the region
conflicted with U.S. national interests especially its energy security and relations with
Israel.217 » • 91 ft
The war on terror is the "pre-eminent security priority" and any war with Iraq
is likely to affect the conduct and outcome of the campaign against terrorism. Scowcroft
saw three potential problems that would be brought on by a war with Iraq. First, the
international cooperation that the terrorism campaign requires would be restricted as a OH Q result of the "virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq." Second, the
central issue of regional concern in the Middle East is was and is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not Iraq. Any war with Iraq would take the focus away from that conflict, a conflict many in the region see as requiring U.S. engagement to resolve. Finally,
Scowcroft does not believe the Bush Administration when they say the U.S. would be able to extradite itself from Iraq quickly following the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Rather, Scowcroft sees a long, difficult and costly commitment to Iraq especially in light of the "go-it-alone strategy" of the Bush Administration. Scowcroft wanted to see the
Administration work through the U.N. Security Council, get support for a tougher
216 http://www.opinionjouraal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=l 10002133 217 Ibid 218 Ibid 2,9 Ibid 84
weapons inspection regime and then if Iraq refused it would strengthen international
opposition against Iraq and make any action the U.S. proposed more justifiable.
Finally, Scowcroft argued that the U.S. must use a comprehensive perspective to the
region and understand the interconnected nature of the important issues in the Middle
East and not attempt to address individual issues without understanding the consequences
of the actions.
In their essay Walt and Mearsheimer argue that the proposed war with Iraq was
based on a distortion of the historical record and faulty logic; they recommended a policy
of containment and deterrence not unlike that which the U.S. used during the Cold War
but on a much smaller scale. Walt and Mearsheimer illustrate how deterrence has
been effective against Iraq in the past in spite of what the Bush Administration claims.
During the first Gulf War and continuing to the present at no time did Iraq use WMDs
against coalition forces or in its attacks on Israel even when their use would have had a
tactical benefit. In the case of nuclear weapons, should Iraq acquire them in the future
the authors again draw on Cold War experience. The Iraqi threat would not equate with
that of the Soviet Union and as such the U.S. deterrent would be overwhelming for Iraq
and if WMDs where used the U.S. response would lead to the utter destruction of the
Iraqi state. The claim that Saddam Hussein would give Al Qaeda a nuclear weapon
was also extremely weak considering the poor relations between the two and the value of
a weapon, politically and financially to Iraq. The time, effort and resources required
for just one weapon makes it much more valuable to Iraq and if it was given to a terrorist
220 Ibid 221 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php7story id=169&print=l 222 Ibid 223 Even in the case of Israel, the Israeli deterrent is significantly more advanced than what Iraq could field. 224 Ibid 85 organization to use against the U.S. the supplying state could expect the full force of U.S. power to be unleashed upon it.
A policy of containment with regards to Iraq is the best solution according to the authors, not only for the U.S. but also for the region. Both the U.S. and its allies in the region are far stronger than an Iraq armed with WMDs making it unlikely Iraq could attempt to blackmail its neighbors. Even for leaders of rogue states there is a desire for self- preservation. For this reason the authors argue that a war with Iraq has no strategic rationale, it is a war the Bush Administration choose but not have to fight.
Even if such a war goes well and has positive long - range consequences, it will still have been unnecessary. And if it goes badly - whether in the form of high U.S. casualties, significant civilian deaths, a heightened risk of terrorism, or increased hatred of the United States in the Arab and Islamic world - then its architects will have even more to answer for.226
Both Scowcrofit's and Walt and Mearsheimer's essays argue that the coming war was an unnecessary action and that the problem of Iraq can be dealt with in a more peaceful and secure manner. For Scowcroft this meant a renewal of the coalition from 1991 and a strengthening of the weapons inspection regime through the U.N. Walt and Mearsheimer took a long-term perspective and argued for a policy of containment of Iraq with regional participation on the Cold War model.
5.4 The Invasion of Iraq and the Lost Three Years
The outcome of the limited public debate was never in doubt. The Bush
Administration had made the decision to force regime change in Iraq before both essays
225 Ibid 226 Ibid 86
were written.227 The U.S. went into Iraq with less than 200,000 soldiers compared to the
over 500,000 used in 1991. The neoconservative belief was that the small light
technologically superior force would be successful. This type of small, brief and
cheap form of war would aid in eliminating political opposition to the use of force.
When proven successful it would enable the U.S. to use it in other potential conflicts, be
it Iran or Syria. It would make a unilateralist, preemptive foreign policy possible since the U.S. would not have to rely of coalitions or significant commitment of resources.230
The invasion went exceedingly well from a military standpoint, Iraq's armed
forces collapsed quickly, the only impediment was the role of the Fedayeen Saddam.
This paramilitary organization dressed in civilian clothing was used to harass U.S. forces on the approach to Bagdad, but this amounted only to a slight increase in casualties on both sides and a delay to the inevitable outcome. Three weeks and the war was over.
The problems for the U.S. began to mount in the coming days; first as uncontrolled looting broke out, then as the Iraqi people proved hesitant to accept the U.S. as liberators. Further the exile group the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed
Chalabi did not have the support amongst Iraqis that Cheney and Rumsfeld had led people to believe and finally the utter failure of post-war reconstruction planning became immediately evident. This period would create the circumstances that would lead to the collapse of the Bush Doctrine. The Administration would be constrained by its ideology
221 Bush's War 228 In Congressional testimony military leadership had argued for a significantly greater number especially in the occupation phase but where overruled by Rumsfeld who did not believe in the need for an extended occupation, a few months was all he saw as necessary before turning sovereignty over to a new Iraqi government. (No End in Sight) 229 Packer, p. 245. 230 John Mearsheimer, "Hans Morgenthau and the Iraq War", http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0037.pdf 231 The Iraqis had not forgotten that in 1991 when they rose up at the urging of the first president Bush the U.S. gave them no support and stood by as Saddam Hussein crushed the revolt. 87
for three years in its support for a policy that most people saw as a failure. But slowly an
eventual reassessment of the conduct of the war led to a new strategy in Iraq and a
further reexamination of U.S. foreign policy.
The conduct of the war over the next three years was intricately linked to the
Bush Doctrine. During this time the policy goal was to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq as
soon as possible making U.S. forces available for other possible uses. The
Administration official most closely tied to this policy was Rumsfeld. His blindness to
the situation on the ground, inability to recognized his past mistakes, listen to advice that
does not reinforce his own beliefs and make changes to an obvious failed policy doomed the U.S. intervention in its inception. Bush as president must accept final responsibility though Rumsfeld with support from Cheney bear responsibility for the
conduct of the war.
The Bush Doctrine was to be an active foreign policy, using U.S. power to transform the Middle East into a collection of democratic states and thus reducing tensions in this strategically important region and address challenges to U.S. interests around the world. The limited use of U.S. forces in Iraq was an implementation of the transformation project championed by Rumsfeld. Its success would enable the future use of U.S. power to bring about rapid change in states counter to U.S. interests.236 The post-invasion plan was to turn sovereignty over to Iraqis almost immediately; the chosen successor was Ahmed Chalabi. Though Bush himself was disinclined to support him,
232 Packer, p. 245. 233 Lawrence Freedman, A Choice of Enemies, Toronto: Doubleday, (2008), p. 429. 234 Michael R. Gordon, speech to Council on Foreign Relations, April 6, 2006. http://www.cfr.org/publication/10397/gordon.html 235 Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II, New York: Pantheon Books, (2006), p. 8. 236 Remarks by Richard Cheney to Veterans of Foreign Wars, August 26, 2002. 88
Chalabi did have the support of Cheney and the leadership at the Pentagon.237 The
Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) was a quickly put
together organization that took the lead in the immediate aftermath of the invasion to
reconstitute the Iraqi government and bring about the transfer of authority in a matter of
months. The plan was to have the reconstruction project financed by Iraq's oil revenue,
thus minimizing the post-invasion costs to the U.S.
The failure of the U.S. to control the looting, which began almost immediately
was due not only to a lack of organization on the part of the military but the fact that they
did not have the forces available to carry out this mission. As a result of the bombing
during the war and the looting, government ministries no longer had the capacity to perform their function, even if ORHA had been able to organize the return of staff. This
failure to reconstitute the government by ORHA led to it being replaced by the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) under the direction of L. Paul Bremmer. His first decisions would have the greatest effect on the development of the insurgency and the future of
Iraq. The first order concerned de-Ba'athification or the removal from all government offices members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party. This succeeded in putting 50,000 people out of work, from high government officials to university professors, most of whom where members as a condition of their employment. The second order was for the disbandment of the Iraqi army. Not only did this put 500,000 men out of work but these men where armed and had knowledge of stockpiles of munitions in Iraq. These orders where made without the knowledge of the U.S. military in Iraq who had planned on reconstituting the Iraqi army for use in reconstruction efforts. Within weeks of these orders the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) began to dramatically increase.
237 Freedman, p. 432. The Bremmer decisions resulted in the two most important contributions to the
failure in Iraq. First, the de-Ba'athification order made it impossible to restore the
existing government structures and without a plan to create new ones the restoration of
government services was extremely hampered. Sectarian groups moved into the gap left
by government and began providing social services. Second, the disbandment of the
army left half a million men unemployed with no way to provide for their families. Their
knowledge made these men the primary recruits for the sectarian militias and groups
such as Al Qaeda. With Al Qaeda offering bounties of hundreds of dollars on U.S.
soldiers and paying for the placement of IEDs, the unemployed soldiers where left with
OQQ
little alternative. The official beginning of the insurgency was August of 2003 less
than three months after Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech. Within ten days of
each other the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and the Shiite mosque in Najaf were
destroyed by car bombs, signaling the targeting of foreigners and aid workers and the
development of a sectarian conflict.
The increase in violence and his adherence to a policy already in disrepute did not
lead Rumsfeld to re-examine the U.S. role in Iraq. Even when faced with challenges to this policy from then National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State Rice, an increase in violence and what can only be described as a civil war in Iraq Rumsfeld held firm. Rumsfeld continued to hold to his policy of limiting engagement,239 keeping U.S. troops in large defended bases, training Iraqi security forces and by June of 2004 passing off sovereignty to a weak Iraqi government incapable of dealing with the insurgency. It
238Bush's War 239 There were exceptions to this included the operations in Fallujah where the marines attacked the city in two separate operations in pursuit of the Mahdi Army of Shia cleric Maqtada al-Sadr. Conventional operations involved U.S. patrols to clear designated areas during the day and returning to fortified bases in the evening. was also during this time that the evidence of U.S. atrocities at Abu Ghraib came to light,
further damaging U.S. support not only in Iraq but globally. In 2005 Rice began to
express a policy alternative "clear, hold and build,"240 a long-term policy of U.S.
engagement, which recognized an extended U.S. role in Iraq. This policy was ignored
for over a year until November 2006 Robert Gates, former National Security Advisor,
Director of CIA in the first Bush Administration, a member of the Iraq Study Group until
his appointment and an avowed realist, replaced Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
December 2006 with the release of the Iraq Study Group report and the White House
internal review of Iraq policy produced the first critical examination of the conduct of the
war leading to a rejection of the previous strategy for the war. January 2007 began a
complete reorientation of U.S. conduct in Iraq beginning with a replacement of all the
top leadership, including a new commander in Iraq, David Petraeus,241 combined with an
increase in U.S. forces and a new strategy based on "clear, hold and build".
The period between the invasion and November 2006 saw Iraq in the midst of a
civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites, the election of a pro-Iranian prime minister,
and the U.S. a target in the middle of both groups conducting operations against
members of both sides. The growth of the insurgency over the three years following the
invasion led to the solidification of political, ethnic and religious societal cleavages that had existed under the previous regime. But in the past the state was able to suppress these divisive impulses; this is similar to what had occurred in the former-Yugoslavia
240 The policy can simply be described as clearing an area of insurgences, hold the area by basing U.S. and Iraqi forces in the area, and build or develop the area. 241 Petraeus had led a successful campaign in Mosul in 2003 - 04 using a strategy of engagement with local leaders and the general population. He was then responsible for the creation of the new counterinsurgency doctrine for the Army before being redeployed to Iraq as theatre commander. 242 Estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties range from 89,000 to 97,000 with the peak per month plateau reached in the first third of 2006 and remaining around the until mid - 2007 when a significant sustained drop occurred, (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/) 91
from the end of WW II to 1990. The dissolution of the Ba'ath regime enabled other
forces to manipulate the existing cleavages in a way to build separate power bases. This
is not to suggest that regime change in Iraq was bound to cause a splintering of society.
If a new government had been able to replace the old regime, could provide services and
insure security, the existing cleavages may not have widened. But the lack of a U.S. plan
for reconstruction in the direct aftermath of the invasion opened up a power vacuum soon
filled by the forces that had been suppressed during the Ba'ath regime.
The U.S. crusade to spread democracy in the Middle East was not based on
regional interests but on the hubris of the U.S. Administration. The neoconservative
agenda presented in the NSS of 2002 was meant to show that U.S. power could be used to remove the impediment to democracy in a state, in most cases this means an
authoritarian government and that overnight a thriving democracy with flourishing free markets would spring into existence. An examination of U.S. experience in Germany and Japan would have given the Administration a better understanding of how democratic development occurs. Both Germany and Japan took over seven years, billions of dollars in Marshall Plan aid and in the case of Japan dramatic social reform before elections where held.244 Experience should have demonstrated to the Bush
Administration the need for social and economic reform before holding elections. Rather
Bush sought the reverse, holding elections first, the result of which drew attention to the social cleavages, which had been suppressed by the previous regime. The elections not only showed the divisions but also contributed to their reinforcement, as Sunni's boycotted the elections and Shiites voted along sectarian lines.
243 Remarks by Richard Cheney to Veterans of Foreign Wars, August 26, 2002. 244 James Dobbins et al. America's Role in Nation-Building, Santa Monica, Rand Corporation, 2003. Germany p. 20 - 22, Japan p. 51 - 53. 92
5.5 The Iraq Reassessment: The Iraq Study Group
The changes to U.S. policy in Iraq began in the fourth quarter of 2006 following
the mid-term elections. The first indication of a change was the replacement of
Rumsfeld at the Department of Defense245 which was soon followed by the release of the
Iraq Study Group (ISG) report and the internal White House review. These led to a
dramatic shift in Iraq policy to "clear, hold and build" and direct engagement with the
Iraqi population;
What we have realized, to protect the population, we can't... be living on some big operating base ... If we are going to protect the population, we have to be down there with the population. We will in fact gain greater security by being embedded with and living with the population. 4
The Petraeus plan was the complete reverse of the Rumsfeld strategy, increasing U.S.
forces in Iraq and moving into the neighborhoods to associate with the population. At the same time Bush stopped talking about U.S. troops leaving Iraq soon, recognizing that the U.S. would be in Iraq for years to come. Along with the changes in U.S. policy in
Iraq there were changes to regional policy in the Middle East as well as a subtitle shift in foreign policy
Although the administration does not like to admit it, U.S. foreign policy is already on a very different trajectory than it was in Bush's first term. The budgetary, political, and diplomatic realities that the first Bush team tired to ignore have begun to set in.
The report of the ISG illustrated the necessity of seeing U.S.-Iraq policy within the context of the region as a whole; taking into account the Israeli-Palestinian problem,
Iran's nuclear proliferation, and regional stability as it affects petroleum pricing and
This was also the point where Cheney's influence began to decline. Bob Woodward, The War Within, New York: Simon & Schuster, (2008), p. 194. 245 Ricks, p. 447. 247 Philip H. Gordon, "The End of the Bush Revolution", Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2006, Vol. 85 1.4, p. 75. 93
distribution. These issues needed to be addressed as part of a coordinated regional policy
but the top priority remains the Israeli-Palestinian problem a solution to which eases
regional stresses making it easier to address the other issues.248
The ISG made a series of recommendations in its report; that can be divided into
three areas: recommendations for the conduct of the war in Iraq, increased responsibility
for the Iraqi government, and recommendations for a diplomatic campaign in the Middle
East.24 The recommendations for the conduct of the war were not dissimilar to the
process of Vietnamization that was implemented by Nixon in the early 1970, though
with a timeline for eventual U.S. withdrawal. The process recommended involved
increasing the pace of training for the new Iraqi army and moving U.S. combat forces
into a support role for the Iraqis. As the Iraqis are able to increase their ability to operate
independently, the U.S. is able to reduce force levels in Iraq. The timeline for this would be one year, before the majority of U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Iraq. The role of the Iraqi government is described as the need to achieve specific goals towards
"national reconciliation, security and improving the daily lives of Iraqis". A failure to achieve these goals would result in a reduction of U.S. and international political, military and economic support. But, central to achieving stability in Iraq is the engagement of regional states, including Iran and Syria and expanding international support from the U.N. and the European Union. The belief was that Iran especially had a significant interest in a secure stable Iraq. This would be accomplished though a new
248 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/world/middleeast/06isg transcript.html 249 Ibid. 250 Ibid. 251 Provided by U.S. dominated agencies such as the World Bank. round of diplomacy with all parties and would include discussion of the Israeli -
Palestinian question.
As many people recognized at the time, the ISG report was a return to realism
which should not be a surprise considering the leadership of the ISG specifically James
pep
Baker. The former Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and
Secretary of State in the George H. W. Bush Administration, it was Baker who led the
development of the 34 nation coalition prior to the 1991 Gulf War. The ISG represents a return to the American realism of George H. W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft and Baker,253 which guided U.S. foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. The characteristics included international burden sharing, diplomatic engagement with all parties with an understanding of their interests and decision making based on national interests not on perceived moral grounds. At the same time Bush selected Robert Gates, former CIA director for George H.W. Bush, as the replacement for Rumsfeld at the
Department of Defense. Gates, a former Russian history scholar who maintains a Cold
War realist perspective to foreign policy was not a choice supported by Cheney.254 The neoconservative commentators added their voice to the opposition to the ISG and Gates' appointment. Arguing that their policy had been realist in nature as Charles
Krauthammer wrote, "our policies ... have been deeply rooted in the most concrete of
American interests".255
252 Walter Isaacson, "The Return of the Realists", Time, November 12, 2006. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1558325,00.html and Glen Kessler and Thomas Ricks, "The realists' reputiation of policies for a war, region", The Washington Post, December 7, 2006, p. A01. and George Packer, "Unrealistic", The New Yorker, November 27,2006. www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/27/061127ta_talk_packer 253 Though part of the Clinton Administration, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, also a member of the ISG can be included as a realist. 254 Woodward, (2008), p. 205. 255 Charles Krauthammer, "This is Realism?", Washington Post, December 1, 2006, p. A29. 95
Immediately following the release of the ISG report Bush commented on the report and dismissed two key recommendations, an accelerated withdrawal and diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria, out of hand. In public Bush reiterated his policy concerning these two states that Iran must abandon its nuclear program and Syria must stop its support for Hezbollah.256 Bush continued to express the neoconservative approach to foreign policy with hostile regimes that by applying external pressure on a regime in the hope that this would bring about internal collapse, rather than seeking state reform through diplomatic engagement. But in private Bush consulted with Baker who became a key advisor and continued to recommend increased engagement with other states in the region including Syria and Iran.257 At the same time Bush stated that his administration would be releasing their new strategy for the war based on the reviews conducted by the Departments of State, Defense and the National Security Council.
The ISG's recommendations were never a consideration for the Administration.
The recommendations were a political response to a failed military strategy, which offered the U.S. an immediate short-term exit strategy the failure of which could be blamed on an unresponsive Iraqi government. The expansion of diplomatic engagement in the region especially with Iran would occur but not immediately and at a lower level than the ISG's recommended international conference. There was a hole in the
ISG's military recommendations which the Administration was able to publicly link its soon to be released strategy, that of a temporary "surge" of U.S. forces to address
www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/world/middleeast/08prexy.html?sq+iraq study group 257 Woodward, The War Within, p. 116. 258 A recommendation Gates had made in 2004 when he proposed that the Administration abandon its policy of calling for regime change and open talks with Iran. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article632145.ece immediate stabilization issues. The surge of U.S. forces combined with "clear, hold and
build" would form the new White House Iraq strategy.
5.6 The Bush Administration Responds: The Surge
The new White House strategy announced at the beginning of January 2007
became known, as "the surge" would incorporate the military's new counterinsurgency
doctrine, the creation of which was led by Petraeus. This strategy had been presented by
the Administration as a success in reducing violence and increasing stability in Iraq but
many other factors unrelated to the strategy have had a significant and quite possibly a
greater impact. There are two questions that need be asked in relation to the success
of "the surge"; what were the internal consequences of the strategy in terms of its relation to Iraq's civil war260 and secondly, what were and are the regional consequences in light of the fragmentation of Iraq? These are of course interrelated as external forces have been participating in the divisions within Iraq, while those same divisions are played out on the regional level.
The internal situation in Iraq is best described by the increased development of sectarian divisions, not only on a national level but all the way down through society to the neighborhood level. The years of violence have left the people of Iraq with increased social cleavages, which previously had been expressed geographically, though major cities had a high degree of ethnic diversity. But, post-invasion Iraq saw increased ethnic and sectarian homogeneity in once diverse areas enforced by militias. Internally, Iraq
259 Colonel Gian Gentile as quoted in Steve Coll, "The General's Dilemma". The New Yorker, September 8, 2008. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/08/080908fa_fact_coll 260 While the Bush Administration continues to avoid referring to the violence in Iraq as a civil war this is clearing false as even a limited examination of the situation reveals the majority of the violence to be Iraqi upon Iraqi, sectarian and regional based more so than directed towards the United States. 97 has 2.7 million displaced refugees and a further 2 million who have sought refuge in
Syria and Jordan. The surge has aided in solidifying these geographical divisions.
Part of the strategy of holding areas of Baghdad and other cities is the construction of concrete walls in an attempt to secure the population inside the walls re-enforcing divisions, creating areas that are either homogeneously Sunni or Shi'a. What this means for Iraq in light of the upcoming provincial and parliamentary elections in 2009 is that geographical elected officials will reflect the societal sectarian divisions.
The U.S. is further solidifying sectarian divisions through the support of local militias. Militias in Iraq can be divided into two types. The first consist of local residents who take on the responsibility to protect their neighborhood, many of which receive support from the U.S. The second, larger and far more dangerous are the tribal or national sectarian militias; again some of these receive U.S. support, the most famous being the Shi'a Mahdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr. These groups have external state support from states such as Iran in the case of the Mahdi and Saudi Arabia in the case of the Sunni tribal militias.
5.7 Two Years Later
Two years after the surge of U.S. forces and the adoption of a new counterinsurgency strategy violence is down but three dominant groups in Iraq are less cooperative and the divisions are greater than ever. The so-called Sunni awakening262 has lead to increased alienation with the Shiite dominated central government. The
261 The impact on Iraqi society has been increased by the high proportion of the displaced that belong to the middle class. http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=home 262 This is the name given to the process begun in Anbar province where tribal leaders encouraged their follows to find common cause with the U.S. and form militias to fight Al Qaeda and police their region with financial incentives from the U.S. 98
Shiite's have increasingly turned to Iran for support especially in the south around Basra
and the Shiite areas of Baghdad, providing Iran significant influence in Iraq. The Kurds
in the north of Iraq have been immune to much of the sectarian violence. They were
the most cohesive group prior to and following the U.S. invasion. They have used their
position in Northern Iraq to support ethnic Kurds in Iran and Turkey, where they have
clashed with the Turkish military and have sought territorial advantage in the oil rich
area around Kirkuk.264
The perceived success of the surge, represented by the decrease in sectarian
violence and the reduction in U.S. casualties, enabled the Bush Administration to pass
off to the next administration the responsibility for ending the war. This fragile stability
provided Bush the opportunity to claim a much better state of affairs in Iraq than was
actually the case. The surge created an extremely fragile stability in Iraq based on
increasingly solidified divisions, which will make the creation of a future viable and
cohesive Iraq difficult if not impossible. The artificial stability in Iraq is such that some
are now calling for the U.S. to move to a support role, for the Iraqi military and police to take the lead in securing the nation. This is basically an adoption of the ISG recommendation that would lead to eventual U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The Iraqi government, which is seeking to extend its independence from the U.S., supports this policy and this process has resulted in the status of forces agreement that was passed by the Iraqi parliament in December 2008. The agreement "shall determine the principal
263 Northern Iraq has a predominantly Kurdish population as such is not party to most of the sectarian violence. 264 Steven Simon, "The Price of the Surge", Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501faessay87305/steven-simon/the-price-of-the-surge.html 265 Colin H. Kahl, "Walk Before Running", Foreign Affairs. July/August 2008. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080701 faresponse87413/colin-h-kahl-william-e-odom/when-to-leave- iraq.html 99
provisions and requirements that regulate the temporary presence, activities and
withdrawal of the United States Forces from Iraq." The agreement requires increased
Iraqi oversight of U.S. forces and limits the type and scope of U.S. operations beginning
June 30, 2009 and requires all U.S. forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 unless an
extension is negotiated with the Iraqi government. Whether the current stability can
hold until 2011 is anyone's guess though the results and response to the coming
parliamentary elections may be an indication of the potential for long - term stability.
The question of Iraq's position in the regional scope of Middle East politics is
also a subject of divisions as competing states and their interests are played out with Iraq
in the middle and subject to the pull of these external interests. To take one example,
Iran which fought a prolonged war with Iraq in the 1980s has a reasonable concern that
the re - establishment of a Sunni dominated Iraq could be used in a balance of power
scenario by the U.S. and its allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf against them. Therefore
the competing interests in the region require U.S. withdrawal plans to have regional
diplomacy as a core component. Though the Gordian knot of competing interests in the
Middle East can make the task seem insurmountable at the core of these competing
interests is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into which many of the other problems are
intertwined. The unwillingness of the U.S. to engage with Iran and Syria at high levels is
a continuing symptom of the neoconservative influence on Bush. At low levels and through the Iraqi government, the U.S. has had a dialogue with Iran concerning specific
266 Status of Forces Agreement 2008, p. 1, www.mnf-iraq.com/images/CGs_Messages/security_agreement.pdf 267 http://www.nytimes.eom/2008/l l/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html It should be noted that Barak Obama during the campaign had called for a withdrawal of U.S. forces by May 2010. issues pertaining to Iraq but has failed to move beyond this limited diplomacy.
Further the unconditional support the Bush Administration gave to Israel has enabled
Israel to seek military solutions to political problems; an example of this is the December
2008 invasion of Gaza in an attempt to weaken Hamas. The Israeli attack and the
U.S. unwillingness to seek cooperation concerning Iraq led to an increase in instability across the region as a whole and made cooperation on Iraq and other issues difficult.
Diplomacy was been an anathema to the Bush Administration, resulting in a souring of relations with those same states that could be providing support not only in
Iraq but with Afghanistan and other issues in the region, Iran and Syria; Germany,
France, Russia, China among others. The Bush Administration failed to understand the interconnected nature of diplomacy; states may desire a quid pro quo as the price for support on unrelated issues or they may simply be protecting their own interests. The
Bush Administration did not seem to understand this; for example it sought Russian support for its Iranian anti-nuclear proliferation policy but at the same time was negotiating to place anti-ballistic missiles defense in Eastern Europe, an action the
Russian's perceived as a direct threat to their security. Or regionally, in late 2008 the
U.S. launched attacks into Syria for the purpose of killing Al Qaeda leadership, the attack succeeded in provoking the Syrian leadership who's support is needed to secure
In Iraq Ambassador Crocker has met on numerous occasions with his Iranian counterpart to discuss issues of mutual concern but at least officially these discussions have never moved beyond the issue of Iraq. (George Packer, "Planning for Defeat", The New Yorker, September 17, 2007, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/17/070917fa_fact_packer). According to some Iran has played a significant role in the negotiations surrounding the status of forces agreement. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/ll/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html) 269 It should not come as a surprise that Israel conducted this operation in the final weeks of the Bush Administration and ended it prior to Obama's inauguration. the border with Iraq, the principle route for foreign fighters to entry into Iraq. The failure by the Bush Administration to embrace any significant form of diplomacy has succeeded in isolating the U.S on the issue of Iraq. Iraq's position in regional politics has not moved beyond the position it was in prior to the surge. Requiring an examination of why this has occurred and in a larger sense a natural examination of the
Bush foreign policy at the end of his presidency.
5.8 The Bush Doctrine - Assessments or Mea Culpa: Rice, Ferguson, Krauthammer, Kagan, and Ignatieff
In her 2000 essay published in Foreign Affairs Condoleezza Rice expressed what was predominantly a realist perspective to future U.S. foreign policy under a potential
01'1
Bush Administration. The summer of 2008 saw Rice return to the pages of Foreign
Affairs with a new essay addressing the future of U.S. foreign policy and looking back over the years of the Bush Administration. Rice begins by taking up the twin pillars of
U.S. foreign policy, realism and idealism; in her view the tensions between them are OIO unnecessary, as she states the past eight years have shown. Rice attempts to describe the Bush foreign policy as an example of realism, but this thesis has shown that this is not the case. One of the dominant themes of Rice's essay is the need to move beyond a narrow definition of national interests based on the Cold War definition and move to a definition, which includes democratization and related concepts such as free market 270 As of the summer of 2008 the number of fighters entering Iraq by this route was approximately 30 per month. Stephen Biddle et al. "How to Leave a Stable Iraq", Foreign Affairs, September/October 2008. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080901faessay87503/stephen-biddle-michael-e-o-hanlon-kenneth-m- pollack/how-to-leave-a-stable-iraq.html 271 See page 51. 272 Condoleeza Rice, "Rethinking the National Interests", Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080701faessay87401/condoleezza-rice/rethinking-the-national- interesthtml 102 development. Rice attempts to argue the Bush Administration has followed a policy to promote democratic development, the linking of political democratization and socio economic development as the best choice for state development.
Rice asks the question is the Middle East "really worse than the situation before?" By before she means pre-September 11, 2001, such hypotheticals are of course impossible to answer as the answers are based on the choice of variables and how the respondent intends to interpret "better". A better question for Rice to answer would be whether the Administration been successful in their policy goals conceived after 9/11?
To answer that question it is necessary to look at the issues Rice believed faced the U.S. in her 2000 essay. Rice stated that four specific state-centric issues where important to the U.S., Russia, Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Of these issues none have been resolved or even improved. North Korea still has its nuclear weapons though in the past few years the multiparty talks have been expanded. Iran may still be developing nuclear weapons but the multi-party non-proliferation negotiations have stagnated. Relations with Russian have worsened due to their concerns over expansion of NATO, U.S. missile defense in Eastern Europe and the recent war in Georgia. Iraq the U.S. is bogged down in a civil war. To this list must be added the war in Afghanistan, unforeseen in
2000, and the souring of relations with many of its important allies and to top it off the collapse of the global economic system.
On the question of Iraq, Rice attempts to rewrite the historical record as to the reasons for going to war. First, she argues that containment and the international sanctions regime were not working. But in the very next sentence she states that all
273 Condolezza Rice, "Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest", Foreign Affairs, 79, 1, January/February 2000, p. 46 - 47. Saddam Hussein was waiting for was the removal of international pressure to allow him to reconstitute his WMD programs. Therefore at least in the case of WMDs the
international sanctions regime was working. 274 Second, Rice states the U.S. did not go
into Iraq to democratize the Middle East though she says a democratized Iraq, the war on terror and a democratized Middle East are linked. The Bush foreign policy was driven by neoconservative ideology, which made the spread of democracy through military power part of the official doctrine of the U.S.275 The U.S. did go to war according to
Rice to "remove a long-standing threat to international security." A threat that was no threat because it had been contained, did not have the WMDs the Administration claimed nor the capabilities to manufacture them. Finally, the invasion succeeded in creating regional tensions that makes Bush's ultimate goal of a western style democratized
Middle East a distant illusion.
The situation in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole is far beyond what the Bush
Administration and its supporters envisioned. The supporters of the invasion did not foresee the immediate results of the invasion or the civil war that developed. An examination of comments following the failure of the Iraq project by the same war supporters as previously discussed; Niall Ferguson, Charles Krauthammer, Robert
Kagan, and Michael Ignatieff illustrates how all but one avoid any recognition of their role in the failure. Niall Ferguson lists three reasons the neoconservatives failed in Iraq.
First, was the abandonment of realism. "In particular, there was a failure to grasp the
The goal of a democratic Iraq was not a reason for the invasion but it was central to the post - invasion plan that sought to pass off the state to a newly elected government barely twenty months after the invasion. implications of toppling Saddam for the Middle Eastern balance of power." Second, was lack of historical knowledge: "Too many people in Washington bought the idea that the post-war reconstruction of Iraq would be akin to the post-Communist reconstruction of Poland. No one paid any attention to the difficulties the British had experienced in
977 trying to govern Iraq after the First World War." Finally, there was a lack of self- knowledge "in assuming that the US was in a position to do as it pleased in Iraq, the 97 ft neocons failed to appreciate three deep-seated American weaknesses." These are the three weaknesses discussed previously: the financial, manpower and attention deficits.
But Ferguson adds a fourth the legitimacy deficit as international public opinion has fallen dramatically since September 11, 2001 making it difficult for the U.S. to garner international support for its actions. This lack of international legitimacy is the "long lasting legacy" of the war in Iraq. Ferguson has not publicly addressed his support of the war nor his defense of the Bush Doctrine or his newfound respect for the realist theory of international relations.
Charles Krauthammer was one of the loudest voices first calling for U.S. intervention in Iraq and then working to encourage public support for the Bush policy.
Over the past two years, Krauthammer has been a supporter of the new counterinsurgency strategy, repeating the claims of the Administration pertaining to the decrease in violence and increase in stability, "a war seemingly lost, now winnable."281
Krauthammer continues to claim Iraq "would have, absent the U.S. invasion - rebuild, 276 http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/Articleltem.aspx?pageid= 104 277 Ibid 278 Ibid 279 See pages 69-71 for the discussion of these issues. 280http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/ferguson+on+iraq+ credibility+lost/1822147 281 Charles Krauthammer, "On Iraq, a State of Denial", The Washington Post, November 23,2007, p. A39. pop
rearm and threaten the world," therefore the price paid by the U.S. has been worth it.
Krauthammer's criticism of the Administration is limited to allowing its Iranian policy to
be subverted by the intelligence community. The failure of the policy Krauthammer
blames on the "intelligence bureaucracy" that seized control of the policy with a NIE that
showed Iran had stopped development of key parts of its nuclear program.283 This
removed the legitimacy of military action against Iran something neoconservatives had
been advocating since 2001 when Iran was included as part of the "Axis of Evil".
Krauthammer has been a steady supporter of the Bush Administration and continues to
write that history will be a far better judge of the Bush presidency than present 284
commentators.
Robert Kagan has remained an advisor to the Bush Administration during both
terms and his brother Fredrick was one of the principle advisors during the policy review
by the NSC, which led to the adoption of "the surge" strategy. Toward the end of the
Bush presidency Kagan returned to Foreign Affairs with his assessment of the Bush
foreign policy with a special emphasis on Iraq. The most surprising aspect of the essay
is the near constant use of the term "realist" to describe Bush's foreign policy, especially
in describing the pre-9/11 policies. But Kagan is not describing the realism that pertains
to U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War or even Rice's form of realism from her 2000 poc
essay; rather he defines a special Bush form of realism. The characteristics of this
form of realism are its opposition to international regimes such as the Kyoto Protocols,
282 Charles Krauthammer, "Bush's 'Axis of Evil', Six Years Later", The Washington Post, December 21, 2007, p. A3 5. 283 Ibid. 284 Charles Krauthammer, "History Will Judge", The Washington Post, September 19, 2008, p. A19. 285 Kagan includes the self- identified neoconservatives Cheney and Rumsfeld among the Bush realists. poo
the International Criminal Court and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Bush's form of realism includes the contraction of U.S. national interests though
following 9/11 according to Kagan the interests of the U.S. remained narrow but required
extensive international engagement to address them.
On the subject of Iraq, Kagan first attempts to illustrate that Democrats share
responsibility for the war and its outcome because of their support for military action
during the Clinton Administration and later supporting the authorization legislation.
Kagan's reason for the war that it was "both in the Unites States' interests and in the OQQ 9ftQ
interests of the better part of humanity," avoids the discredited reasons Bush gave
for going to war and that Kagan publicly supported. Kagan then addresses the failure of
the post-invasion period; he sees a combination of bad luck, bad judgment and a reliance
on an outdated worldview by senior members of the Bush Administration. These
members being the unnamed Cheney and Rumsfeld who kept to Bush's realism to the
determent of the situation in Iraq. What Kagan is attempting to do is place blame for the
initial failures in Iraq on a form of realism that never existed. The neoconservatives,
including Cheney and Rumsfeld, but also Kagan, Wolfowitz and the other members of
PNAC, have dominated the Bush Administration's foreign policy from the beginning.
Never has realism been a guiding principle of Bush's foreign policy as this paper has
shown, Bush has made this clear on many occasions for example following the release of the ISG report and in his remarks to the Military Academy at West Point in 2002 as
286 Robert Kagan, "The September 12 Paradigm", Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2008. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080901faessay87502/robert-kagan/the-september-12-paradigm.html 287 Ibid. 288 Ibid. 289 These being Iraq's possession of WMDs and its links to Al Qaeda. previously discussed. But only by abandoning these misguided concepts that never
actually guided the policy does Kagan believe the Administration could develop a
strategy for success. Kagan concludes by repeating and supporting the claims of the
Bush Administration that the success of "the surge", which he played a key role in
recommending, has Iraq achieving a high degree of stability and is on the verge of
becoming a success for the U.S.
Both Kagan and Krauthammer believe Bush's greatest success has been that
since 9/11 the U.S. has not been attacked. From their narrow perspective this is true,
the continental U.S. has not been attack though this ignores the fact that the U.S. has
been attacked on almost on a daily basis not in North America but in Afghanistan and
Iraq. On 9/11 there were over 2900 casualties, in Iraq and Afghanistan there have been
in excess of 4200 casualties in Iraq and 1000 in Afghanistan.292 Kagan and
Krauthammer either do not distinguish or choose not to address the relationships
between the numerous aspects of U.S. foreign policy; their preferred choice is to see
foreign policy issues compartmentalized and treated separately. While this avoids
complexity, it also leads to over simplification and makes any potential public discourse pertaining to foreign policy simply an exercise in public relations and manipulation.
That, as previously addressed in relation to the build up to the Iraq war contributed to a
massive policy failure. Kagan and Krauthammer benefit from their position as commentators, free from responsibility for the policies, for which they had lobbied.
290 At the time of Kagan's essay he was a senior foreign policy advisor to the McCain campaign which continued to express a neoconservative approach to foreign policy as the basis of a future McCain presidency. Also by this time the influence of Rumsfeld was over and Cheney was no longer the figure in the Administration that he once was. 291 Robert Kagan, "The September 12 Paradigm", Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2008. and Charles Krauthammer, "History Will Judge", The Washington Post, September 19, 2008, p. A19. 292 http://icasualties.org/ 108
Michael Ignatieff is in a different position from that he held when he was a proponent of the war in Iraq; he has become a politician responsible for the consequences of his decisions. This change in career was followed a re-examination of his initial support for the war in Iraq. Ignatieff has made a number of observations that separates him from his previous colleagues while being critical of his present ones. To begin with his criticism of his own past as a commentator and of those who continue to labor in that position. Ignatieff quotes Isaiah Berlin who "once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true." But Ignatieff argues politicians live by ideas as well "but they can't afford the luxury of entertaining ideas that are merely interesting [they must] be applicable to real life." But "In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources." In other words, ideas matter and they have consequences, while at the same time it is important to understand within the context of ideas, "specifics matter more than generalities."296 For commentators generalities are their life's blood; they provide the supporting proof for their ideas.
Krauthammer's essays provide an excellent example of the use of generalities to support his ideas which has been demonstrated in the discussion of his work in this paper, it is in the specifics that his ideas breakdown.
Ignatieff next moves on to his current colleagues, the politicians and seeks to address shortcomings in the way politicians make decisions. Ignatieff s criticisms
293 Michael Ignatieff, "Getting Iraq Wrong", The New York Times Magazine, August 5, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html 294 Ibid. 295 Ibid. 296 Ibid. include the admonition that politicians must not "cocoon themselves" and "confuse the world as it is with the world as they wish it to be" and "knowing when to admit your mistakes."297 Ignatieff seems to be critical of Bush, though he does not specifically
address these failures to him by name.
But Ignatieff does not leave himself out of his critical eye. Unlike the other commentators Ferguson, Krauthammer and Kagan, Ignatieff accepts responsibility for his mistakes in supporting the war in Iraq. He reasons that his support for the war was a result of his personal experience in Iraq where he saw what Saddam Hussein did to the
Kurds.298 Ignatieff states, "My convictions had all the authority of personal experience, but for that very reason, I let emotion carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds,
Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror?"299 His experience with ethnic conflict should have led Ignatieff to say no to this question. The people of Canada can only hope that Ignatieff takes his own advice when it comes time for him to make the difficult decisions should he become prime minister.
The eventual outcome of the Iraq war will define how history judges the Bush foreign policy. No issue is as closely linked or has dominated a president's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. The failure of the U.S. policy in Iraq has been a failure of ideology. Bush clung to the neoconservative idea of democratization at the barrel of a gun, a power-based form of idealism, which defines the national interest, narrowly in terms of insuring domestic security through an aggressive pursuit of states, organizations and individuals that would challenge that security. The argument for invading Iraq was to remove a threat to U.S. national security and in doing so the U.S.
297 Ibid. 298 Ibid. 299 Ibid. 110 was putting on notice other potential states that would attempt to challenge the hegemony of the U.S. But by adhering to an ideology incapable of addressing the post- invasion challenges in Iraq and requiring a significant commitment of its military resources the Bush Administration placed systemic limitations on its ability to address other challenges. A review of its policy in Iraq and a change of personnel in key leadership positions enabled the Administration to institute a new strategy for the war.
But as part of this strategy further military resources were committed to the theatre. In military terminology "all the pieces were on the board", this included the strategic reserve; the U.S. would therefore be incapable of using military force, short of airpower to address any other potential conflicts.300 The original goal of the Bush Doctrine of using U.S. power to deal with Iran and possibly North Korea was going to be impossible to achieve. Iraq had put a halt to the activist foreign policy of the Bush Administration.
The Iraq that is being passed to the next administration is much improved from its low in the summer of 2006 when both monthly Iraqi and U.S. casualties were at their peak. But it is a fragile stability, described by U.S. leadership in Iraq as a series of bottom up improvements, local stabilization being reflected on a national level. There is serious doubt about the viability of the long-term prospects for a stable Iraq that over the course of the war has become increasingly divided along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Iraq's position within Middle Eastern regional politics is a representation of the internal divisions, Sunni states in support of Iraqi Sunnis and Shia states supporting Iraqi
Shiites. The Bush Administration was unable to create a significant dialogue concerning the future of Iraq was due in no small part to the way the Administration sought to
Woodward, 2008, p. 288. Ibid, p. 384-385. Ill address issues on an individual basis not as part of an interdependent series of issues with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the center. The failure to seek a resolution to this conflict over the past six years has constrained the U.S. ability to gain regional support for its policies in Iraq as most regional actors saw Iraq as predominantly a U.S. problem.
The invasion of Iraq is in the position of being the sole application of the Bush
Doctrine and as such its success or failure is crucial to determining the success of the
Doctrine. History is unlikely to judge the war as a success; it may even go down as one of the greatest foreign policy failures, more so than even the war in Vietnam. The effect of the Vietnam War was limited to a small region and did not result in the domino effect that some had predicted nor did it have a lasting negative effect on U.S. foreign policy.
The war in Iraq has had a significant impact in the region and beyond. It strengthened the anti-American aspects of the Islamic fundamentalist movement on a global scale. It removed the perception of U.S. hegemony among potential challengers and weakened
U.S. relations with many of its important allies, though with a new administration this may be the easiest of the problems to recover from. The failure of the Bush Doctrine is intricately linked to its narrow definition of the national interest. This definition fails to recognize the long-term and interdependent nature of what are not national but transnational problems, requiring a concerted effort by a cooperative group of states. 112
Conclusion
During the second half of the Twentieth century U.S. foreign policy was guided
by the realist theory described by Hans Morganthau in his work Politics Among Nations.
During this time the U.S. built up domestic and international institutions, both economic
and military to conduct the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. retained these institutions and became the lone hegemonic power. At the beginning of the post -
Cold War era, U.S. foreign policy lacked the focus it had during the conflict with the
Soviet Union. The first Bush Administration continued a realist foreign policy and attempted to expand the definition of national interest to address some humanitarian and development problems. But the Administration had problems applying realist theory to these problems as they continued to use the theory and concepts which had defined the national interests during the recently concluded Cold War. Bill Clinton was elected in part because he was not focused on foreign policy; Americans wanted a president whose attention was on domestic issues. Foreign policy became a secondary concern and as such it lacked cohesion, policy was formulated in reaction to events without guiding principles. The end of the Cold War left the U.S. as the lone superpower, in search of a new role. A discussion took place amongst foreign policy commentators, academics and policy makers in private and in the media in an attempt to discover what the role of the
U.S. should be in the world.
The victors of this decade long debate were the neoconservatives who as part of the second Bush Administration became the guiding force behind Bush's foreign policy and produced the Bush Doctrine. This was a foreign policy approach, which rejected 113 realism for a form of militant idealism and favoured unilateralism and preemptive war, and had the moral certitude of U.S. exceptionalism. The impetus for the creation of the
Bush Doctrine was the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The Bush Doctrine at its core was about the preemptive use of U.S. military power to bring about regime change and democratization in hostile states. This militant form of neo-idealism was an abandonment of the theoretical principles that had guided U.S. foreign policy over the past half century. In the lead up to the first Gulf War in 1990, the U.S. Administration built a coalition of European and Middle Eastern allies to share the burdens of the war.
In 2003 the Bush Administration rejected the previous model and chose a unilateral approach to the war in Iraq and suffered the consequences in the years following the invasion. The neoconservative theoretical approach to U.S. foreign policy was an historical reaction to realism, but lacked the depth of realism because of its ideological nature. Ideological rigidity meant that the practitioners of the Bush Doctrine were incapable of expressing the flexibility required when the dynamics in Iraq were not what the pre-invasion planning had projected.
The Bush Doctrine's rejection of realism also embraced a narrow definition of
U.S. national interests that did not take into account the interdependence of the many transnational issues faced by the U.S. This narrow definition of the national interests has resulted in a number of mistakes; short-sighted decisions made on the basis of contributing to the war on terror but have made for a worse situation. For example, in an attempt to route out suspected Al Qaeda supporters, the U.S. supported an Ethiopian invasion of regions of Somalia. This destabilized what government existed in Somalia further damaging an already failed state and expanded another threat, sea piracy, making 114 the waters off the horn of Africa the most dangerous in the world requiring a multinational deployment of naval forces, a consequence of the war on terror that was unforeseen by the myopic Bush Administration. A broader definition of national
interests by its very nature should take into account the complexity of issues and contribute to understanding of the long-term effect they can have on a state.
The two attributes of the Bush foreign policy that has had the greatest effect on its failure are its unilateralism and its narrowly defined national interests. These two attributes have combined to limit the potential policy options open to the Administration.
For example, in Iraq unilateralism has resulted in the problems there being viewed by other states in the region as solely a U.S. problem and therefore other states, which have an interest in the outcome in Iraq have limited their involvement in contributing to a solution to the political and social divisions in Iraq. The narrow definition of national interests and its focus on the war on terror and Iraq has left many issues off the Bush foreign policy agenda; third world development, human rights, climate change. Others such as engagement with Pakistan and the central Asian republics have had their relationship with the U.S. determined by how they could contribute to the war on terror.
A broader definition of the national interest cannot be unilateral or it will fail, the nature of many of these issues require that this definition take into account their transnational nature and therefore solutions require coordinated efforts by all the involved parties, states and non-state actors.
Discussions of U.S. foreign policy describe the struggle between the two pillars of realism and idealism. With the exception of Wilson and Bush, idealism's role in U.S. foreign policy has been limited for the most part to one of rhetoric and as an expression 115 of the sense of moral exceptionalism that many Americans have used to define their place in the world from a time before the founding of the Republic. Realism has providing the guiding principles for U.S. foreign policy from the very beginning of the
Republic. Adams and Hamilton sought to organize the potential power of the new state to insure its national interests were taken into account by the major European powers. In the Twentieth century, realism provided the theoretical guidance for the conduct of the
Cold War. The nature of the Cold War provided context for the definition of the national interests focused on U.S. hard power requirements. In the early stages of the conflict the requirements of military power, access to resources and an international system based on a conventional balance of power structure defined the national interests.
In the post-Cold War global environment this definition is too narrow. U.S. foreign policy must contend with issues such as third world development, failed states, climate change, human rights, economic crises, resource management, nuclear proliferation, state and non-state terrorism, international trade and many other issues none of which can be dealt with by a lone state, even a state as powerful as the U.S.
Traditional Cold War realists have argued that many of these issues while important are not part of the definition of national interests; these realists are limiting their definition to include predominantly national security issues on the Cold War model. This is a shortsighted perspective of these issues that does not see how a seemingly benign or obscure issue can become a national security threat. The example of Somalia shows how a failed state can become an international security threat, climate change is on the cusp of becoming a security issue when drought leads to famine creating failed states and refugees or coastal flooding forces millions of people to move inland putting strains on 116 weak governments. The state of human rights in Tibet have led to an increase in violence and continued unrest in the region leading up to the fiftieth anniversary of the
Dali Lama's exile, adding a destabilizing aspect to the world's third largest economy.
Even if a conventional realist definition of national interests is used in the future to guide
U.S. foreign policy it will only delay the point where an issue must be addressed and likely increase the difficulty in solving the problem.
The first term of the Bush Administration had a foreign policy that was an expression of the neoconservative foreign policy establishment. This policy sought to use U.S. power to recreate the international system into one policed by the U.S. as part of the war on terror. This policy failed and left the U.S. bogged down in the middle of a civil war in Iraq, in turn creating systemic limitations on the future use of U.S. power to respond to other policy initiatives and potential threats due to the resources tied down in
Iraq. The later half of the second term saw a less idealistic approach to foreign policy when many of the neoconservatives were replaced with pragmatists and realists. Foreign policy was placed on a course to achieve an improved level of stability in Iraq and to a limited degree increase multilateral relations.30 The Bush foreign policy as expressed in the Bush Doctrine has illustrated how a narrow definition of national interests results in shortsighted decisions being made to the determent of the long-term interests of the state.
The future of U.S. foreign policy following the Bush Administration is only in its infancy but already a number of significant changes have occurred. During the election campaign of 2008 the McCain campaign was dominated by many names familiar from
302 The most successful aspect of the Bush foreign policy has been in its dealings with Africa where he visited more than any other president. The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief has been a bipartisan success providing AIDS medication, contraception and medical training that has reached 58.3 million people. Also the creation by the Department of Defense of the Africa Command recognized the importance of development by appointing a State Department ambassador to be the deputy commander. 117
the Bush Campaigns, Robert Kagan, William Kristol and foreign policy coordinator
Robert Scheunemann, all neoconservative members of PNAC. Based on policy
statements and the campaign essay in Foreign Affairs there would have been a certain
degree of continuity from the Bush foreign policy to a McCain policy; maintaining the
surge strategy in Iraq and a refusal to open a diplomatic dialogue with Iran, North Korea
and Syria. To what extent this was campaign rhetoric will never be known following
McCain's defeat by Barack Obama.
The first months of the Obama foreign policy has seen the beginning of some
dramatic shifts away from the previous eight years. Obama has organized his foreign policy and national security apparatus in a different manner to previous administrations.
The selection of Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State was not likely a decision based on her potential theoretical approach to foreign policy or her administrative ability.304
Rather her appointment is based on her position in the world where she has many established relationships and is viewed favorably on the international scene and can contribute to renewing U.S. relations with the international community. What Obama has done is appoint three successful diplomats in supporting roles who will take responsibility for specific important policy areas. Richard Holbrooke is being assigned to Afghanistan and Pakistan, George Mitchell to the Israeli-Palestinian problem and
Dennis Ross to Iran. These officials will conduct and coordinate U.S. diplomacy and policy in their specific area. In a move both supported and which surprised many Obama asked Robert Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense to provide continuity to the war in
303 Jacob Heilbrunn, "Where Have All the Neocons Gone?", The American Conservative, January 12, 2009. http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/jan/12/00006/ 304 Her two deputies are filling these positions; James Steinberg a former director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institute and Jacob Lew the former managing director of Citi Alternative Investments. 118
Iraq and draw on his experience as the U.S. increases its forces in Afghanistan to address the declining situation there. But organizationally the largest changes are taking place at the NSC.
Obama has selected James Jones, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe to be his National Security Advisor with responsibility for the NSC. The organization of the NSC provides some insight to the foreign policy priorities of the Administration.
Jones is in the process of organizing the NSC to be not only the coordinating body of the conventional national security agenda, but Jones sees the responsibilities of the NSC as being much greater.1 In a recent speech, Jones listed a wider set of issues that would be part of the NSC agenda, these included: terrorism proliferation, cybersecurity, overdependence on fossil fuels, poverty, corruption and the economic crisis.2 This broadening of national security issues may signal the adoption of the broader definition of national interests this thesis has recommended.
In the past, both during the campaign and after the election, Obama has made comments of admiration for the realist foreign policy of the first President Bush and the realist policy he implemented at the end of the Cold War and in the immediate aftermath.3 Those who Obama has selected to be his foreign policy advisors all have either a pragmatic or realist approach to foreign policy. The speculation amongst many commentators is that the Obama foreign policy will be a return to realism updated to take into account modern changes and challenges.
1 Karen DeYoung, "Obama's NSC Will Get New Power", The Washington Post, February 8, 2009, p. A01. 2 "Running the World", The Economist, February 14th, 2009, p. 38. 3 http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/444/transcript.html 119
Appendix
Chronology: Development of the Bush Doctrine and the War in Iraq 1990 August 2 Iraq invades Kuwait Winter Charles Krauthammer writes in Foreign Affairs, the U.S. is in a "Unipolar moment" in history. 1991 February 27 The U.S. and coalition partners succeed in removing Iraq from Kuwait. 1992 March 8 The New York Times publishes excerpts from the Defense Policy Guidance of1992 written by neoconservative members of the Defense Department that contains similar recommendations, policies and language to be found in the National Security Strategy of2002. 1997 June 3 The Project for a New American Century is launched. November 9 The Washington Post publishes an op-ed article titled "We Must Lead the Way in Deposing Saddam" written by Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay Khalilzad. 1998 January 26 PNAC releases its open letter to the Clinton Administration concerning Iraq policy. July Congress issues the report of the missile defense commission chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, as a repudiation of the 1995 National Intelligence Estimate in support of a national missile defense system. October 31 Clinton signs the Iraq Liberation Act, which makes regime change in Iraq the official policy of the U.S. December 16 Clinton launches Operation Desert Fox, a four - day bombing campaign against Iraq. The in 2004 the Iraq Study Group will report most of Iraq's significant WMD infrastructure was destroyed by this point. 1999 July 22 Clinton signs National Missile Defense Act, requiring the creation of a missile defense system as soon as technologically possible. September 23 Governor George W. Bush delivers a speech describing the military policies of the Clinton Administration as "ungrateful, unwise and unacceptable". 2000 August 2 Vice - presidential candidate Cheney promises the U.S. military "help is on the way". September 1 Clinton announces he will let his successor make the decision concerning the deployment of a missile defense system. October 11 Bush calls for less global intervention on the part of the U.S. in a debate with Al Gore. December 13 As a result of the Supreme Court decision Al Gore concedes the election. George W. Bush elected president. December 19 Clinton warns Bush about Al Qaeda and expresses his regret that his Administration had not been able to get him. 2001 September 11 Al Qaeda terrorists hijack four planes, crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Washington DC and a fourth crashes into a field in Pennsylvania. In an address to the nation, Bush states the U.S. will "make no distinction between the terrorists ... and those who harbor them." September 12 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization invoke Article V, stating that an armed attack on one or more of the allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. U.N. Security Council condemns the attacks. September 13 Wolfowitz signals that the U.S. would expand the war on terror to include Iraq. September 15 At a meeting at Camp David, Powell argues for limiting the war to Afghanistan, saying an international coalition would not be possible for an invasion of Iraq. Bush agrees but states that the Iraq question would be dealt with later. September 20 Bush addresses Congress on the issue of terrorism; "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." But he also addresses the future role of the U.S. in the world; "Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom ~ the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time — now depends on us. Our nation ~ this generation — will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. October 7 U.S. launches a bombing campaign against targets in Afghanistan. CIA has been in country organizing local forces; mainly warlords in the north referred to as the Northern Alliance. Two weeks later ground forces enter Afghanistan and join with the indigenous forces. December 7 U.S. forces enter Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, by this point all senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership have fled to the boarder region of Pakistan. 2002 January 20 State of the Union address introduces the "axis of evil", Iraq, Iran and North Korea. 121
April 5 Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a meeting with Bush, supports Powell and urges Bush to develop a coalition through the U.N. and offers his aid in bridging relations with Europe. June 1 In his convocation address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Bush outlines a shift in U.S. foreign policy from containment to preemption. "Our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." June President Jacques Chirac opposed to the new U.S. policy stating, "The wish to legitimize the unilateral and pre-emptive use of force is extremely worrying ... It goes against France's vision of collective world security, a vision which depends upon cooperation between states, the respect of law, and the authority of the United Nations." August 5 Powell warns that he is having problems building a coalition against Iraq and wants a consultation at the U.N. August 15 Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor for George H.W. Bush publishes an op - ed in the Wall Street Journal warning events are moving too quick on Iraq and call for the return of U.N. weapon inspectors. August 26 Cheney rebuff Scowcroft in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, saying weapon inspectors would provide no assurance of Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions. He also outlines a broader Middle East strategy whereby regime change in Iraq has a transformative effect on the entire region. September 7 Blair meets with Bush and Cheney, securing from Bush a commitment to work through the U.N. but Bush gets Blair to agree to go to war in Iraq no matter the consequences of the activity at the U.N. September 12 Bush addresses the U.N. seemingly in support of Powell, stating he will go to the Security Council and seek a new resolution to disarm Iraq. September 17 The National Security Strategy of 2002 is released, the defining document of what became known as the Bush Doctrine. It is seen as the culmination of a process begun by Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives in 1992. October France expresses that it cannot support a draft resolution the U.S. is circulating. The U.S. makes changes to gain French support and agrees to further discussion and another possible resolution if Iraq does not comply with the first resolution. November 8 Resolution 1441 passes. December Inspectors are allowed back into Iraq but U.S. troop deployments continue. 122
2003 January 20 French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin states, "Since we can disarm Iraq through peaceful means, we should not take the risk to endanger the life of innocent civilians or soldiers, to jeopardize the stability of the region, and further to widen the gap between our people and our cultures." Germany also states its opposition to war and vows will not be part of military action. January 31 Bush agrees to a second resolution after a meeting with Blair but states after the meeting "This thing needs to be resolved quickly. Should the United Nations decide to pass a second resolution, it would be welcomed.... But 1441 gives us the authority to move without any second resolution." February 5 Powell presents the sum total of U.S. intelligence on Iraq's WMD program and its links to Al Qaeda. The evidence does not convince the French and other European states. March 6 Blair gets Bush to give the U.N. one more chance. March 10 Chirac states that France will veto a second resolution; there will be no U.N. support for war in Iraq. March 17 Bush delivers his ultimatum, "Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to go will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing." March 19 With very few other allies the U.S. and Britain launch the war in Iraq. April 9 Iraqis with the help of the U.S. military topple a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. May 1 Bush lands on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declares an end to combat operations in Iraq. May 6 Bush announces the L Paul Bremer will head the Coalition Provisional Authority. His first orders concern the De - Ba'athification of Iraq whereby all members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath Party are removed from their position and banned from future positions of authority or government employment. The second order disbands the Iraqi army. Causing the immediate unemployment of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. These orders will be seen as two of if not the greatest mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the war. July Dramatic increase in the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) against U.S. forces. Later reports will show payments of up to $200 per IED from insurgent groups including Al Qaeda. August 19 A truck bomb destroys the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 21 including Sergio Vieira de Mello the U.N. special envoy. This results in a serious reduction of U.N. activities in Iraq and hampers the U.S. activities in trying to get international support in the Iraq reconstruction program. August 29 A car bomb explodes outside a Shiite Mosque in Najaf killing over 100 and singling a significant increase in sectarian violence. 123
September 8 Bremer, without Administration knowledge publishes in the New York Times his seven - step multi - year plan in moving Iraq towards sovereignty and democracy. October - U.S. soldiers photograph the torture of prisoners December under their care in Abu Ghraib prison. October Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Advisor is given control over the CPA and Bremer. 2004 April 23 60 Minutes broadcasts the first pictures of the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. June 15 Rumsfeld replaces the army commander in Iraq and orders the new commander, George Casey to quickly train and shift responsibility to the new Iraqi army and reduce U.S. forces as soon as possible. June 28 The CPA transfers authority to Iraq's interim government. Fall Rumsfeld and Casey place an emphasis on a political solution, national elections in January, Casey will attempt to use U.S. forces to create a safe environment for the election. 2005 January 30 58 percent of Iraqis vote in and election but the majority of Sunnis boycott the election and become disenfranchised from the political system, which is now dominated by the Shia. February 10 Rice has State Department councilor Philip Zelikow (wrote much of the NSS of 2002) visit Iraq, he issues a report describing Iraq at a tipping point resulting from the existence of a fragile equilibrium. June Zalmay Khalilzad becomes U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Khalilzad had been a founding member of PNAC, an associate of Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in 1992 and an author of the 1992 Defense Policy Guidance. September Rice based on the latest assessment of Zelikow calls for additional troops to Iraq and a strategy of greater engagement with the Iraqi population. This policy is the opposite of what Rumsfeld and Casey have been implementing. October Rice and Rumsfeld publicly disagree on the strategy in Iraq. November The White House releases the National Strategy for Victory, it champions Rice's strategy for the war but at the same time it supports the increased development of Iraq forces and an increased role for them. It also makes clear the U.S. must be prepared for an extended stay in Iraq. 2006 March 15 Congress announces the creation of the Iraq Study Group, chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. September The Joint Chiefs of Staff begins a secret review of the Iraq strategy parallel to the White House review and the Iraq Study Group. October The peak in insurgency violence to just under 6000 attacks in the month. Over half of the attacks are against Iraqi security forces; the remaining attacks are divided almost equally between attacks on civilians and coalition forces. November Following the midterm elections and the Democrats retaking control of both houses, Bush announces that Robert Gates will be replacing Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. December 6 Release of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group which recommends regional diplomacy, a draw down of U.S. forces and the hand over of internal security to Iraqi forces as early as 2008. Bush does not support the Report. December 11 At a meeting with Bush, members of the White House review recommend Rice's engagement strategy and a surge of tens of thousand additional troops to clear Sunni insurgents and Shi'a militia from Baghdad December 19 In an interview with the Washington Post, Bush for the first time states that the U.S. is not winning the war in Iraq. 2007 January Bush addresses the nation and announces the new Iraq strategy involving a surge of 20,000 new soldiers and the new leadership of the war including General David Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq. February A new National Intelligence Estimate finds that the situation in Iraq includes increased ethnic polarization, coupled to the weakness of the security forces of the state are contributing to an increase in violence and political extremism. March 28 Career diplomat Ryan Crocker replaces Zalmay Khalizad as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. July Full deployment of the additional surge designated forces. August 24 A new National Intelligence Estimate states there has been a failure to end sectarian violence but any withdrawal of U.S. forces would erode security gains achieved so far. October 8 Prime Minister Gordon Brown announces a phased withdrawal of British forces in Iraq over the next year. October 17 Turkey's Parliament votes to allow the deployment of its security forces to northern Iraq to deal with Kurdish rebels in the region. October 21 Iraqi Kurds attack and kill 12 Turkish soldiers three miles inside Turkey. December 16 Turkey bombs areas of Kurdish controlled northern Iraq. 2008 January 12 The Iraqi Parliament passes a law which allows many low level Ba'ath Party members to resume government jobs lost as a result of the CPA's de - Ba'athification order. March 2 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Iraq becoming the Middle East leader to visit post - Saddam Hussein Iraq. March 25 Beginning in Basra Iraqi and coalition forces attack Shiite militias especially the Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr, beginning an almost month long assault on the Shiite militias. Iran supports the operation against a group it had in the past supported. April 24 The largest Sunni block of the government returns following the passing of an amnesty law and the operation against the Shiite militias. May 10 The Government and leaders of the Mahdi Army agree to a ceasefire that was brokered with the help of Iran. June 30 The Department of Defense issues the history of the Iraq invasion citing that while it was capable of bringing down the regime of Saddam Hussein, it was not equipped for the post - invasion nation - building project. November 16 After a year of negotiations by the U.S. and Iraq, the Iraqi cabinet passes a status of forces agreement, which requires the removal of U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by the summer of 2009 and the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces by December 31,2011. The Iraqi Parliament must also pass the agreement. November 28 The Iraqi Parliament approves the status of forces agreement, which sets a timeline for the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. forces in Iraq. 2009 February 27 President Barak Obama announces the timeline for complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces in Iraq. August 2010 for the withdrawal of most combat forces and remaining forces well before the December 2011 deadline negotiated as part of the status of forces agreement. 126
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