GLOBAL DIALOGUE
Volume 7 ● Number 1–2 ● Winter/Spring 2005—Humanitarian Intervention
The Bush Doctrine and the Transformation of Humanitarian Intervention
JON WESTERN
Jon Western is Five College Assistant Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College.
n 2 September 2004, in a speech accepting his party’s presidential nomination, George W. Bush told a US national television audience: “I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in the new century ... because freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is the almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world.” One week later, on 9 September, President Bush issued a statement announcing that genocide had been committed in the Darfur region of Sudan and warned: “It is clear that only outside action can stop the killing … the world cannot ignore the suffering of more than one million people.”
Given the severity of the violence in Darfur and the proximity and content of President Bush’s speech at the Republican national convention, it might seem as though the United States would have been prepared to take strong measures to stop the genocide in Sudan. Indeed, invoking the term “genocide” was a significant step for the president of the United States. Historically, US leaders have deliberately avoided using the term, fearing that such a declaration might compel them, politically and morally, if not legally, to undertake some form of humanitarian action. For example, former president Bill Clinton was widely criticised for his administration’s refusal to declare the 1994 massacres in Rwanda genocide. It was largely believed by US commentators that if the Clinton administration had made a formal declaration of genocide in Rwanda, the United States would have had to act.
Yet despite President Bush’s statements on the responsibilities of US leadership to rid the world of evil, and despite his declaration of genocide in Darfur, the US government has initiated only limited diplomatic efforts to stop the violence in Sudan. And it is unlikely to do more. The Bush administration came into office in 2001 believing that Clinton had been ad hoc and reckless in responding to regional and civil violence, and it suggested it would not engage in the type of piecemeal humanitarian intervention that the world witnessed throughout much of the 1990s. Instead, and especially since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the Bush administration has a far more ambitious agenda. It appears to believe that the United States can most powerfully contribute to international peace and security and the advancement of global human rights by striving to maintain US primacy, by undertaking pre-emptive/preventive war to remove particularly threatening regimes, and by promoting the expansion of democracy and market capitalism. Other countries are best suited to respond to specific instances of regional and civil violence.
The Hardliners’ Worldview
During the 2000 US presidential election campaign, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, announced that the United States should not be in the business of policing the world. His leading foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, mocked the notion of US peacekeeping operations by suggesting that members of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division should not be involved in “escorting kids to kindergarten”. This criticism reflected a deeper view that during the 1990s US foreign policy under President Clinton had been premised on some “do-gooder” notion of US military power according to which the United States could exercise military force on feel-good missions when few or no tangible US material interests were at stake.
Many of Clinton’s most vocal critics have a long history of advocating hardline geopolitical views, chastising what they see as a tendency, especially among Democrats, towards “naïve moralising” in US foreign policy. During the late 1970s, for example, they were ardent critics of President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy, in particular his emphasis on human rights, which they believed was misplaced. In the November 1979 issue of Commentary magazine, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who later became an influential adviser to Ronald Reagan, penned her essay “Dictatorships and Double Standards”, in which she argued that Carter’s focus on human rights abuses by right-wing dictatorships inappropriately targeted key US Cold War allies. Kirkpatrick insisted that an improvement in global human rights could occur only with a broader strategic vision that entailed the defeat of the principal obstacle to human rights and freedom: the Soviet Union and international communism.
When Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981, he surrounded himself with a team of hardliners which argued that US values of democracy and market capitalism were universal values. They aggressively, and unapologetically, claimed that US values and interests were intrinsically linked in US foreign policy. During his first presidential press conference in 1981, for example, Reagan declared that the Soviets were “the focus of evil in this modern world” and that they controlled an “evil empire”. In his famous June 1982 speech to the British House of Commons, he formally articulated his unified vision of realism and idealism, premised on the need to project power in defence of objective moral truth. He encouraged “a crusade for freedom” that would “engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation”. The “march of freedom and democracy”, he said, would leave Marxism–Leninism “on the ash heap of history”. The British people knew that “given strong leadership, time, and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil”.1
Reagan’s rhetoric vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, his triumphalism, and his aggressive military build-up alienated much of the world—particularly the European public. Furthermore, his administration’s military support for right-wing regimes, especially in Latin America and Africa, certainly contributed to human rights abuses. Nonetheless, his hardliners believed that the ends justified the means. In their eyes, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union not only vindicated Reagan’s worldview, it did far more than Carter’s foreign policy had to advance the cause of human rights. Liberalism had triumphed, and now that the United States had prevailed in the Cold War, the threat was removed of Soviet-promoted communism spreading throughout the developing world. Consequently, the United States could withdraw its backing from authoritarian regimes and turn its attention to supporting political liberalisation processes. Hardliners credited Reagan’s policies with the fact that by the end of the 1980s, every country in the western hemisphere, with the exception of Cuba, was on the path to electoral democracy. In this sense, Reagan’s hardliners viewed themselves not only as the most effective guardians of US strategic interests, but also as stronger proponents of US values than any previous US administration.
During the 1990s, many of the hardliners found themselves politically opposed to the grand strategies of President George H. W. Bush and those of his successor, President Clinton. Both Bush and Clinton seemed intent on enhancing multilateral institutions to deal with the emerging threats to international peace and security. The Balkans proved to be a particularly salient lesson for the hardliners. For them, the wars in Croatia and Bosnia confirmed their view of global politics: left unchecked, the forces of evil would kill thousands of civilians, and neither the United Nations nor the European Union possessed the leadership or capabilities to control the situation. Multilateral institutions proved weak and ineffective. In 1995, the Bosnian war ended abruptly when the United States exerted a clear leadership role and used extensive US air power to compel the Serbs to negotiate a settlement.
Nonetheless, the hardliners saw Clinton’s vacillation over Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Zaire, and Kosovo as indicating a lack of strategic vision and clarity. Rather than leading the global response to emerging threats, Clinton, via his policy of assertive multilateralism, was being reactive and reckless. The hardliners argued that not only was Clinton unable to advance America’s strategic interests, but the piecemeal approach to humanitarian intervention actually exacerbated humanitarian crises.
In Reagan’s Footsteps
When George W. Bush came into office in 2001 he surrounded himself with many of the most noted hardliners who were intent on reworking US grand strategy. To be sure, the 11 September terrorist attacks dramatically reoriented the president’s attention and priorities, but his subsequent focus on ridding the world of evil is the direct descendant of Reagan’s vision. In the summer and autumn of 2002, the Bush administration articulated its global strategic outlook with the publication of the “National Security Strategy of the United States”. The “Bush Doctrine” framed in that document suggests that the United States is in an unprecedented historical position to transform the world, and that it is the principal objective of US foreign policy to destroy global threats to American-style liberalism, understood as a combination of democracy and market capitalism. It does not accept the simple realist–idealist dichotomy that has permeated much of US foreign policy and international relations theory over the past four decades.
Unpacking the rhetoric, the core assumptions of the Bush Doctrine are distinctly realist. First, power is distributed and transmitted through states. As a result, most activities in the international system can be reduced to defining and assessing state interests. Second, there is no world government; states live in a self-help world where they must rely primarily upon themselves to guarantee their survival. Third, the best way to ensure one’s survival in this highly competitive world is to acquire power—power defined in terms of material capabilities.
Unlike other variants of realism, however, the Bush Doctrine is juxtaposed with a staunchly liberal core set of assumptions. First, although the world is competitive, the behaviour of states derives from their domestic regime-type rather than their relative position in the international system.
Second, this leads to the fact that good and evil exist. Whereas realists contend that states—and great powers in particular—are influenced principally by their external environment and the logic of the international system, democratic realists make sharp distinctions between “good” and “bad” states. On this view, liberalism (i.e., republicanism and capitalism) is the only legitimate form of political and economic organisation because it lifts restrictions on the human spirit. This form of social action is not only legitimate, it is also the most efficient in promoting individual and societal wealth.
Third, while good and evil exist, they cannot co-exist. Liberalism and totalitarianism are mutually antagonistic, generating intense competition and conflict. The world is prone to Hobbesian competition and violence because totalitarian regimes cannot tolerate the existence of republics: citizens within a totalitarian regime will witness the freedoms and wealth enjoyed by those in a republic and agitate for their own liberation.
Within this framework, hardliners see several patterns in world politics. First, democracies do face constant mortal dangers from totalitarian and despotic forces. Worst-case assessments are not the product of over-acute sensitivity to threats. The threats are real and they are existential.
Second, power commands respect and weakness invites trouble. The projection of US military power can effectively ward off competitors and stabilise the international system because allies will bandwagon with the United States while potential adversaries will cower under US might. As a result, the most effective means of ensuring US security is through US primacy.
Third, there are very few limits to the efficacy of US military power. The only instances in which US military power has failed have been those situations in which the military has been hindered by political indecision or overly cautious professional military planning.
Fourth, multilateralism, with its deference to standing international institutions—and the United Nations in particular—does not advance US interests. These institutions may occasionally provide some benefit to the United States, but ultimately US interests are best secured through the use of ad hoc coalitions in which each participant is present because it has tangible interests and values at stake in a particular crisis. To the extent that the United States supports multilateral institutions, energy and resources should be directed towards beefing up regional bodies such as the African Union, which could then be more appropriate vehicles than the United States or the United Nations for responding to regional and civil violence.
Finally, liberalism will triumph. There is an untempered optimism that US forces can be marshalled to transform the world and that democracy and capitalism can emerge anywhere with the proper support and patience. For example, proponents of the Bush Doctrine argue that five decades of projecting US power in Europe have transformed that continent from the global centre of Hobbesian competition and Realpolitik into a Kantian enclave of “perpetual peace”.
Obstacles to the Bush Doctrine
There is something intrinsically appealing about these ideas for most Americans, who have long believed that US foreign policy should be governed by concern for US interests and values. The language of democratic realists with their profound confidence in the universalism of US values, in the productive capacity of the US economy, in the strength and efficacy of US military power, and in the innovation of US technology, is a message that Americans like to hear.
The Bush Doctrine and the subsequent war in Iraq were inspired in part by the belief that regime change in Iraq would serve as the catalyst for the spreading of democracy by emboldening democratic reformers throughout the Middle East, and that this would greatly enhance US and regional security. In this regard, the Bush administration sees itself, in the words of Vice-President Dick Cheney, as a “consequentialist presidency” similar to that of Ronald Reagan, which had the grand strategic vision to transform the world. Bush and his advisers appear to believe that if their efforts succeed, there will be far fewer failed states and civil wars, and far less need for reactive Clinton-type humanitarian interventions in the future.
Ultimately, however, this approach may not be sustainable for two main reasons: first, US elites remain heavily divided about the wisdom and the efficacy of the Bush Doctrine, and second, the war in Iraq already has proven more difficult and costly than the Bush administration publicly predicted.
Elite Divisions
Decisions on the use of force will always be contested among elites in a democratic society. Except on rare occasions of direct attack on the United States, Americans frequently disagree about when and where their country should use force. While hardliners dominate the Bush administration, there are others, especially within the ranks of US conservatives, who believe that intervention should be considered only when vital US national geostrategic or economic interests are at stake. For this group, often referred to as “selective engagers”, military force should be deployed in a decisive way to ensure attainment of political objectives; the military and political objectives should be clearly identified and specified prior to the deployment; and there should be a clear exit strategy. This group tends to be sceptical that military force can be used to transform the world into democracies.
Others offer a broader set of circumstances for when intervention should be considered. This group, frequently labelled “liberal internationalists”, argues that the United States should intervene when US values are threatened and when it can effectively do something to remedy regional or civil conflicts. Liberal internationalists see military intervention as having considerable utility to alleviate humanitarian crises and to deter or challenge violations of international laws and norms.
Still others argue that the United States has virtually no interests beyond the immediate protection of US territorial integrity or political independence, and that it should limit intervention to those very rare instances when these interests are threatened.
Debate among US elites was largely stifled in the post–11 September environment. However, the presidential election campaign of 2004 has reignited these longstanding debates, and barring another direct attack on the United States of the magnitude of 11 September, it is not likely that we will see such quiescence of political opposition in the future.
The Iraq War
Perhaps more significant, however, is that the war in Iraq is not progressing as billed. In order to mobilise and sustain public support, the Bush administration argued that the war would be relatively quick and decisive and that it was necessary because of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and his ties to al-Qaeda. The failure to find such weapons or any explicit evidence of extensive ties to al-Qaeda, coupled with the surge in resistance to the US occupation of Iraq, has damped US public support for the war. Furthermore, by the end of the 2004/2005 fiscal year, the financial costs of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq will exceed $200 billion.
Thus far, as evidenced by the results of the 2004 US presidential election, that shifting public sentiment on Iraq has not led to significant political costs for President Bush. However, as the insurgency continues to grow, as US casualties increase, as US troops are ordered to extend both their tours of duty in Iraq and their terms of military service, and as the financial costs begin to accumulate, President Bush’s political fortunes are likely to change rapidly.
Moreover, the Bush administration’s call for global transformation requires massive commitments not only to defeat forces of totalitarianism, but also to rebuild post-war and post-totalitarian states. This is a highly ambitious and expensive proposition. Post-war reconstruction, institution-building, civil society development, and democracy-building are complex and often extremely slow and diffuse processes. It is one thing to mobilise public support to respond to a “grave and growing danger”; it is significantly more difficult to mobilise and sustain political support for processes that produce no immediate or tangible results. Americans are willing to back such efforts as long as there seem to be tangible signs of progress. However, if the process begins to be perceived as one that has only a limited chance of success or one that is an open-ended commitment with no clear exit strategy, Americans tend to withdraw their support. For example, the public frequently does support large defence budgets, but as witnessed during the Cold War, this is very difficult to sustain. Amid rising deficits in the early 1950s, the late 1960s, and again in the early 1980s, US leaders, in response to prevailing domestic constraints, were forced to develop strategies of containment that integrated concepts of burden-sharing, greater reliance on regional alliances, and extended deterrence. A similar effort today, however, would require a degree of pragmatism and compromise that the Bush administration seems to believe will undermine its ability to prosecute its war on terror.
US Public Opinion
More recently, we have already witnessed a decline of enthusiasm for rebuilding Afghanistan because many Americans, especially fiscal conservatives, have by and large withheld their support for greater financial assistance. For conservatives, the principal objective in Afghanistan was accomplished when the Taliban were toppled and al-Qaeda operations there were disrupted. US forces continue to conduct mop-up operations, but most of the post-war reconstruction has been turned over to humanitarian agencies. A rather weak UN mandate is the basis for NATO control of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul.
Conservatives and most Americans are generally satisfied with this position. The Bush administration has lauded Hamid Karzai’s October 2004 presidential election victory in Afghanistan as a triumph for democracy, but it has yet to develop a broad strategy to provide the level of security and logistical support necessary to ensure free and fair multi-party parliamentary elections. For most Americans, the threat to the United States emanating from Afghanistan has largely been removed. Extensive nation-building is unlikely to achieve success in the near future and efforts to enhance that process would only overburden US military capabilities and financial resources.
The Bush administration is betting that its worldview—one that synthesises US interests and values into a unified grand strategy—will transform the world by ensuring US primacy and by advancing democracy and market capitalism. If Iraq becomes a thriving democracy, the administration’s predictions of a more stable Middle East that is a catalyst for global change could be fulfilled, with a great improvement in the lives of millions of people. More likely, however, is that unless trends turn around in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration’s goals and promises will not be met. Not only will the populations in those countries not achieve what has been promised, but Americans may well become much more sceptical about future efforts to promote human rights and democracy and about the use military force to intervene in the face of gross violations of international humanitarian law.
Endnotes
|
