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14. National Security and the Bush Doctrine: A Legacy of the George W. Bush Presidency
- University of Pittsburgh Press
- Chapter
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267 F oreign policy provides the most likely source of an enduring legacy for George W. Bush’s presidency. That may seem less than obvious in the immediate aftermath of his time in the White House, but it is not unusual for a president’s historical reputation to change with the perspective allowed by distance. At the end of a presidency, analysts, pundits, and partisans scour the historical record to find evidence that supports their views and provides lessons for the issues we now face. It is particularly difficult to give a fair, balanced assessment of a president’s policies when those policies are controversial and the president himself is reviled in some quarters and widely viewed as ineffective in others. Such is the case with George W. Bush’s foreign policy legacy, the major innovation of which was the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine grew out of the 9/11 attacks and represented President Bush’s response to what he and his advisers saw as the key issues and lessons to emerge from those attacks. Those attacks reframed the Bush administration’s view of the most serious problems it faced and what to do about them. The potential for the linkage between catastrophic terrorn tionL sEcUrity nD thE bUsh DoctrinE Legacy of the George W. bush Presidency stanley a. Renshon 14 268 stanley a. renshon ism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) raised the national security stakes enormously for the United States, or so the Bush administration thought, and it acted accordingly. For a brief moment after 9/11, the country and many in the world were united in their rhetorical support of the United States. Many allies, and even those who had not been America’s friends, offered various kinds of help, whether out of fear or solidarity, to bring the perpetrators to justice. But Bush had more serious concerns than revenge. A sophisticated, ruthless , and deadly enemy had pulled off a stunning and severely damaging attack on American soil against major national symbols, destroying the World Trade Center and seriously damaging the Pentagon. Either the White House or the Capitol was also targeted and escaped devastation only because of the heroic Americans who gave their lives so that one hijacked plane could not complete its mission. There was widespread and genuine fear of another attack that might inflict even greater damage on America. The Bush administration put into place a large set of policies designed to prevent another, more deadly terrorist strike. These policies were controversial both domestically and abroad. As a result, their nature and contributions to national security remain underappreciated. It is partially on the basis of those controversies that Barack Obama ran for and was elected to the presidency. Thus, an interesting question we can then pose regarding Bush’s national security legacy is to what extent the new Obama administration has changed—or preserved—the national security architecture that it inherited from the Bush administration. Upon his inauguration, the new president faced many national security questions for which the Bush Doctrine cannot and was not developed to give answers. What does one do about a resurgent Russia? What should the president do about the loose alliance of dictatorships that is gathering momentum and linking South America, parts of Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia? What policies are best suited to handle “revisionist ” powers? Should the United States intervene in genocidal wars, like the one raging in Darfur, and, if so, in what circumstances? However, the new Obama administration still faces a number of the same national security questions that faced the Bush administration after 9/11. Obama’s initial answers, as we will see, are suggestive of the potential foreign policy legacy of the Bush administration. The cold war that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, [18.209.209.28] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 22:21 GMT) 269 national security and the bush doctrine Carter, and Reagan confronted was urgent and consequential, but except for President Truman’s basic decision to opt for the policy of containment, each of these presidents further developed what seemed to be a successful policy rather than putting a brand-new one into place. By contrast, the audacity and success of the 9/11 attacks were unanticipated, unprecedented , and extremely consequential. In forging his response, President Bush was much more in the position of President Truman than of those who followed. Like Truman, Bush had to develop and begin to implement a new strategic paradigm applied...