Ambition and Division: Legacies of the George W. Bush Presidency

13. The Foreign Policy of the Bush Administration: Terrorism and the Promotion of Democracy

240 D uring the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush announced that he would pursue a “distinctly American internationalism” in foreign policy (Bush 1999a), largely in contrast to the liberal internationalism of the Clinton administration. He initially sought to have a foreign policy that placed greater emphasis on American national interests than on global interests. The 9/11 attacks quickly changed both the content of the administration’s foreign policy and the process by which American foreign policy was made. As a result, the administration pursued a foreign policy that was universal in scope and that viewed virtually all international actions as affecting American interests. The efforts to build a “coalition of the willing” to find and defeat “terrorists and tyrants ” on a worldwide scale illustrated the universal nature of this policy, but the difficulties that the invasion and occupation of Iraq created also demonstrated the limitation of this policy approach. At the beginning of its second term, the Bush administration reiterated its commitment to dethE ForEiGn PoLicy oF thE bUsh ฀Dministr฀tion terrorism and the Promotion of Democracy james m. mccormick 13 A substantial portion of this chapter is drawn from James M. McCormick, “American Foreign Policy after September 11: The George W. Bush Administration,” chap. 6 of American Foreign Policy and Process, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning Wadsworth, 2009). 241 the foreign policy of the bush adMinistration mocratization worldwide as yet another way to combat global terrorism, and it initiated some actions toward that goal. Yet the Bush administration ’s foreign policy efforts were largely overshadowed by the continuing occupation of Iraq and the failure to bring that war to an end. The Bush administration’s foreign policy employed several approaches over its two terms—one used prior to 9/11, one adopted after 9/11, and one at the beginning of the second term, when the administration attempted to modify its most recent approach. The first approach was informed by the Bush administration’s assumptions and policy positions and its initial commitment to classical realism. After 9/11, the administration moved toward defensive realism and idealism in foreign policy, as enunciated in the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine underwent an apparent modification at the beginning of the second term with the introduction of a “democracy initiative.” Each approach has left its impact on the future of American foreign policy. An important point of departure for understanding the initial foreign policy approach of the George W. Bush administration is to consider the foreign policy legacies that he inherited from the Clinton administration and from his father’s (George H. W. Bush) administration. Both of those previous administrations experienced the seismic foreign policy shock that the end of the cold war wrought, and both administrations sought to put their own stamp on the new American foreign policy that would replace the anti-Soviet and anti-communist principles that had informed U.S. policy for so long. One stamp left the imprint of political realism, while the other left the imprint of liberal internationalism. Neither administration was wholly successful in setting the United States on a new foreign policy course, and, in this sense, both left different kinds of legacies for the George W. Bush administration. An Initial Belief in Classical Realism Because the George W. Bush administration was more inclined toward a foreign policy approach closer to that of his father’s administration, the Clinton foreign policy legacies were generally not welcomed by the new Bush administration. Indeed, those legacies were a target of attack by candidate Bush and his foreign policy advisers since they represented a more universal and multilateral approach than the new Bush administration envisioned. Instead, George W. Bush was initially more inclined toward a foreign policy of classical realism. Classical realism originates in several important assumptions about 242 jaMes M. MccorMick states and state behavior that had direct implications for the Bush administration ’s initial foreign policy approach. First, classical realists assume that states are the principal actors in foreign policy and that actions between states would trump any efforts to change behaviors within states. In this sense, the quality of relations between states is the major way in which to evaluate a country’s foreign policy, and American policy would focus principally on state-to-state relations. Second, a state’s “interests are determined by its power (meaning its material resources) relative to other nations” (Zakaria 1998, 8–9). As a...