a_unique_person
2nd October 2003, 07:24 PM
Why the Bush Doctrine is dead
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/02/1064988339740.html
Even the US President knows his plan is not working. Australia should take heed, writes Hugh White.
Last year, George Bush set out the first really compelling vision of America's global role since the end of the Cold War. It was a tough vision, and immensely ambitious. It committed America to use armed force, if necessary alone and if necessary pre-emptively, not only to protect American interests, but also to promote its values around the world.
It was a vision of stirring energy and simplicity, melding the idealism of Woodrow Wilson and his dreams of world order with the virility of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. It was quickly christened the Bush Doctrine. Outside America it was received with enthusiasm by some and with deep disquiet by others, stirring deep debates about the nature of the international order.
.....
Over the past few months, the Bush Doctrine has faced its first tests and it is time to check on how it's holding up. One of those tests is in Iraq, the other is in America. So far it is failing both tests.
The Bush Doctrine asked big things of America - demands on its power and demands on its will. Success depended on America's ability to meet those demands. That was always going to be more critical than rebutting the arcane arguments mounted by opponents of the Bush Doctrine about the legal rights and wrongs of pre-emption and unilateralism.
Iraq has proved to be a telling demonstration both of the extent of American power, and of its limits.
Iraq has proved to be a telling demonstration both of the extent of American power, and of its limits. We saw the extent of that power in March and April as US forces removed Saddam's regime, and we have seen the limits in the months since then. It is important not to overstate the problems America faces in Iraq: this is not another Vietnam. It is still too soon to say that America will fail in its objective to transform Iraq into a durable pro-Western democracy.
But it is not too soon to say that success in Iraq will absorb all America's energy and resources for a long time to come. As long as it needs to sustain - and that means indefinitely - 140,000 troops in the country America will not have the forces to undertake major ground operations elsewhere. And you cannot build democracies with air power.
Even without the weight of its Iraq commitments, America's military capacity to force regime change in places such as Iran and North Korea is very limited. North Korea's forces, for example, are relatively primitive. But their size and position, close to Seoul, means that the first hours and even days of a war with the US would impose huge casualties on South Korea before the US could neutralise them with precision fire. And then there is the question of whether Pyongyang would use its nuclear weapons.
Iran is a different case again, but there can be little doubt that it would be a tougher nut than Iraq - both in the initial conquest and subsequent occupation. So although America is the strongest military power in the world today, it is not omnipotent, and its power has clear limits. It is not sufficient to support the vision of the Bush Doctrine.
In America, meanwhile, I think the people are losing interest. In the northern spring, as the tanks of the Third Infantry Division rolled up the Euphrates, talk of an American empire was in the air. Now in autumn the focus is on job losses, budget deficits, the bizarre politics of California and, of course, the Administration's inability to find Iraq's WMDs.
Most tellingly, as the presidential nomination process gathers steam before next year's election, front-running Democrats oppose the war in Iraq and the Bush Doctrine that underpinned it. That is important, not because a Democrat might win on an anti-Iraq ticket, but because it punctures the idea that after September 11 Americans have forged an unshakable national consensus around the Bush Doctrine. They haven't.
.....
Tellingly, George Bush himself always seems to have doubted the depth of public support for his bold policy. He was not prepared to ask Americans to forgo tax cuts to pay for their empire and never explained to them the depth of the commitment they were taking on in Iraq.
So lacking the military power or domestic support for further major military operations such as Iraq, it seems likely that the Bush Doctrine has already had its day. The powerful idea, appealing in its simplicity, that American exercise of its military power could be the key to making the world a safer and better place, will need to be replaced by something more complex and less satisfying, but, one hopes, more practical and enduring.
We need not fear an American reversion to isolationism: what we should expect is a return to something closer to the mainstream of American strategic policy. The seeds, of course, are already there. While the big ideas of unilateral pre-emption caught the headlines, much of the fine print in Bush's National Security Strategy published late last year read like the policies of Bill Clinton - or indeed of the President's father. And Bush has already adopted a more multilateral approach to many of the key issues on today's agenda: six-party talks on North Korea, the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran and even going back to the UN on Iraq.
All this is important because, even without the Bush Doctrine, America remains what Madelaine Albright called it. It is the indispensable power, central to global and regional order and unique in its power to keep the world prosperous and stable.
And for Australia the lesson is simple: do not rush to reconfigure our defence posture to fit a new American doctrine whose time has already passed.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/02/1064988339740.html
Even the US President knows his plan is not working. Australia should take heed, writes Hugh White.
Last year, George Bush set out the first really compelling vision of America's global role since the end of the Cold War. It was a tough vision, and immensely ambitious. It committed America to use armed force, if necessary alone and if necessary pre-emptively, not only to protect American interests, but also to promote its values around the world.
It was a vision of stirring energy and simplicity, melding the idealism of Woodrow Wilson and his dreams of world order with the virility of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. It was quickly christened the Bush Doctrine. Outside America it was received with enthusiasm by some and with deep disquiet by others, stirring deep debates about the nature of the international order.
.....
Over the past few months, the Bush Doctrine has faced its first tests and it is time to check on how it's holding up. One of those tests is in Iraq, the other is in America. So far it is failing both tests.
The Bush Doctrine asked big things of America - demands on its power and demands on its will. Success depended on America's ability to meet those demands. That was always going to be more critical than rebutting the arcane arguments mounted by opponents of the Bush Doctrine about the legal rights and wrongs of pre-emption and unilateralism.
Iraq has proved to be a telling demonstration both of the extent of American power, and of its limits.
Iraq has proved to be a telling demonstration both of the extent of American power, and of its limits. We saw the extent of that power in March and April as US forces removed Saddam's regime, and we have seen the limits in the months since then. It is important not to overstate the problems America faces in Iraq: this is not another Vietnam. It is still too soon to say that America will fail in its objective to transform Iraq into a durable pro-Western democracy.
But it is not too soon to say that success in Iraq will absorb all America's energy and resources for a long time to come. As long as it needs to sustain - and that means indefinitely - 140,000 troops in the country America will not have the forces to undertake major ground operations elsewhere. And you cannot build democracies with air power.
Even without the weight of its Iraq commitments, America's military capacity to force regime change in places such as Iran and North Korea is very limited. North Korea's forces, for example, are relatively primitive. But their size and position, close to Seoul, means that the first hours and even days of a war with the US would impose huge casualties on South Korea before the US could neutralise them with precision fire. And then there is the question of whether Pyongyang would use its nuclear weapons.
Iran is a different case again, but there can be little doubt that it would be a tougher nut than Iraq - both in the initial conquest and subsequent occupation. So although America is the strongest military power in the world today, it is not omnipotent, and its power has clear limits. It is not sufficient to support the vision of the Bush Doctrine.
In America, meanwhile, I think the people are losing interest. In the northern spring, as the tanks of the Third Infantry Division rolled up the Euphrates, talk of an American empire was in the air. Now in autumn the focus is on job losses, budget deficits, the bizarre politics of California and, of course, the Administration's inability to find Iraq's WMDs.
Most tellingly, as the presidential nomination process gathers steam before next year's election, front-running Democrats oppose the war in Iraq and the Bush Doctrine that underpinned it. That is important, not because a Democrat might win on an anti-Iraq ticket, but because it punctures the idea that after September 11 Americans have forged an unshakable national consensus around the Bush Doctrine. They haven't.
.....
Tellingly, George Bush himself always seems to have doubted the depth of public support for his bold policy. He was not prepared to ask Americans to forgo tax cuts to pay for their empire and never explained to them the depth of the commitment they were taking on in Iraq.
So lacking the military power or domestic support for further major military operations such as Iraq, it seems likely that the Bush Doctrine has already had its day. The powerful idea, appealing in its simplicity, that American exercise of its military power could be the key to making the world a safer and better place, will need to be replaced by something more complex and less satisfying, but, one hopes, more practical and enduring.
We need not fear an American reversion to isolationism: what we should expect is a return to something closer to the mainstream of American strategic policy. The seeds, of course, are already there. While the big ideas of unilateral pre-emption caught the headlines, much of the fine print in Bush's National Security Strategy published late last year read like the policies of Bill Clinton - or indeed of the President's father. And Bush has already adopted a more multilateral approach to many of the key issues on today's agenda: six-party talks on North Korea, the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran and even going back to the UN on Iraq.
All this is important because, even without the Bush Doctrine, America remains what Madelaine Albright called it. It is the indispensable power, central to global and regional order and unique in its power to keep the world prosperous and stable.
And for Australia the lesson is simple: do not rush to reconfigure our defence posture to fit a new American doctrine whose time has already passed.