Change And Continuity In American Grand Strategy: A .
Change and Continuity in American Grand Strategy:A Comparative Analysis of the Clinton and BushForeign Policy DoctrinesJames Andrew CoadySupervisor – Dr Timothy J. LynchMSc United States Foreign PolicyInstitute for the Study of the AmericasUniversity of LondonSeptember 15, 2008Word count – 11,954(Including footnotes; excluding title page, contents, and bibliography)
ContentsINTRODUCTIONONE1PRESIDENTIAL DOCTRINES AND AMERICAN GRANDSTRATEGY51.1 Grand Strategy51.2 Presidential Doctrines61.3 The Clinton Doctrine71.4 The Bush DoctrineTWOTHREEFOURFIVEDEMOCRACY PROMOTION10132.1 9/11 and the Middle East132.2 American National Identity and Democracy Promotion142.3 Clinton, Bush, and the “End of History”16PREVENTION203.1 Prevention and Preemption203.2 The Logic of Prevention213.3 Prevention in Historical Perspective243.4 The Case of Iraq27UNILATERALISM304.1 Multilateralism or Unilateralism: A False Dichotomy304.2 Selective Multilateralism33AMERICAN HEGEMONY375.1 Hegemony or Empire?375.2 The Pursuit of American Hegemony40CONCLUSION45BIBLIOGRAPHY47ii
INTRODUCTIONBackground and contextThe foreign policy pursued by President George W. Bush since the terrorist attacks ofSeptember 11, 2001 has attracted much controversy and condemnation. He has beenaccused of presiding over a revolution in American grand strategy, but is this reallythe case?Two broad themes frame academic debate on the Bush doctrine: whether the doctrineis a departure from past U.S. foreign policy, or consistent with past practice; andwhether the doctrine represents a coherent strategic response to 9/11, or anineffective, even dangerous, reaction to the terrorist attacks.Many commentators claim that the Bush doctrine marks a fundamental rupture withpast American grand strategy. Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay argue that the Bushadministration‟s response to 9/11 “discarded or redefined many of the key principlesgoverning the way the United States should act overseas”, rejecting international lawand the policies of containment and deterrence in favour of “the unilateral exercise ofAmerican power” and “a proactive doctrine of preemption”.1 James Mann agrees thatthe Bush national security team has transformed U.S. foreign relations: “the Vulcansmanaged to set down an entire new set of ideas and principles. They were deliberatelychoosing to create a new conception of American foreign policy, just as the Truman1Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy(Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 2.1
administration had constructed a new framework of ideas and institutions at thebeginning of the cold war.”2Others have attempted to place the Bush doctrine in historical context. John LewisGaddis offers the most cogent attempt to find continuity, suggesting that the conceptsof “pre-emption, unilateralism and hegemony” were crucial to past American grandstrategies and that they are “surprisingly relevant” again.3 Similarly, Melvyn Lefflerargues that there is “more continuity than change” in the Bush doctrine, and that thepresident‟s “rhetoric and actions have deep roots in the history of American foreignpolicy.”4Argument overviewThe central argument advanced in this dissertation is that the Bush doctrine is not onlyconsistent with past American grand strategy but also, in both a conceptual andpractical sense, a logical strategic response to 9/11. In subsequent chapters, I compareeach component of the Bush doctrine (democracy promotion, prevention,unilateralism, and hegemony) with U.S. grand strategy under President Bill Clintonand, in a broader context, Cold War American foreign policy, thereby placing theBush administration‟s national security strategy in historical perspective. Ultimately, Icontend that the Bush doctrine should be interpreted as a grand strategy that embodiesfar more continuity than change.2James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Penguin Books,2004), 330.3John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 2004), 13.4Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and American Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History 29, no. 3 (June 2005):395.2
Chapter outlineChapter 1 defines the terms grand strategy and presidential doctrine. It also definesthe Clinton and Bush doctrines, thereby providing a conceptual framework forsubsequent analysis.Chapter 2 argues that Bush‟s policy of democracy promotion should be understoodas a rational strategic reaction to 9/11 that is entirely consistent with past Americanforeign policy. I contend that the Clinton and Bush democracy promotion strategiesdemonstrate the enduring influence of American nationalism on U.S. foreign policy.Chapter 3 reasons that Bush‟s critics have overstated the centrality and scope ofprevention in current American grand strategy. I explore examples of preventive logicin U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War and Clinton years, thus placing Bush‟sstrategy of prevention in context, before arguing for the inevitability of the 2003 Iraqwar.Chapter 4 asserts that charges of unilateralism levelled at the Bush administration arelargely false. U.S. grand strategy is rarely entirely unilateral or multilateral; instead,American presidents must blend both in a manner that advances U.S. interests. Inrecognising the utility of collective action, while placing American interests ahead ofmultilateral procedure, Bush does not depart from past practice.Chapter 5 argues that, in asserting American hegemony, the Bush administrationseeks security, not empire. As a strategy founded on the notion that American3
interests are advanced through the expansion of U.S. power overseas, the Bushdoctrine conforms to American foreign policy since the beginning of the Cold War.4
CHAPTER 1PRESIDENTIAL DOCTRINES AND AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY1.1 Grand StrategyInterpretations of the term grand strategy vary. For John Mearsheimer, the term referspurely to a state‟s military capacity to combat national security threats.5 Barry Posenand Andrew Ross endorse a wider definition that includes the military, political, andeconomic means utilised by a state to counter security threats. 6 Both definitionsrecognise that a grand strategy is a calculated response to a specific threat; they differ,however, on the range of instruments of statecraft that should be included within thesphere of grand strategy. The danger of employing too broad a definition, as ColinDueck notes, “is that it leaves the term without any distinct meaning or utility.”7Equally, however, too narrow a definition will offer an incomplete illustration ofAmerican national security strategy. President Bush, for example, has not usedexclusively military means to combat the threat of international terrorism; instead,Bush, like his immediate predecessor, has invoked American diplomatic andeconomic, as well as military, power to meet security threats.A broad definition of grand strategy will provide a more accurate narrative ofcontinuity and change in American foreign policy since 9/11. Robert Lieber offers acomprehensive definition, reasoning that the term explains “how a country willemploy the various tools it possesses – military, economic, political, technological,ideological, and cultural – to protect its overall security, values, and national5John J. Mearsheimer, Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (London: Brassey‟s Defence Publishers,1988), 17.6Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” InternationalSecurity 21, no. 3 (Winter 1996-1997): 5-53.7Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 10.5
interests.”8 Essentially, therefore, a grand strategy is a state-level attempt to balancethe relationship between means and ends in the realm of foreign relations.It is useful to consider typologies for change in grand strategy. Charles �“defensive,”and“expansionist”strategies.9 It is doubtful, however, that American grand strategy can be characterisedin such rigid terms. Dueck‟s concept of “strategic adjustment,” defined as a process giccapabilitiesandcommitments,” offers a more practical framework within which to analyse change andcontinuity in grand strategy.10 It is this study‟s central proposition that there has beenminimal “strategic adjustment” in American national security strategy since 9/11;instead, the core tenets of the Bush doctrine were evident in Clinton‟s grand strategyand, in a broader historical context, American foreign policy during the Cold War.1.2 Presidential DoctrinesA presidential doctrine is a succinct statement of grand strategy. As H. W. Brandsputs it, “the greatest effect of presidential doctrines is to summarize policies in a fewwords.”11 In this respect, the Bush doctrine does not set a precedent: from JamesMonroe to Ronald Reagan, presidential doctrines have conveyed the fundamentalguiding principles of United States foreign policy.8Robert J. Lieber, The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21 st Century (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005), 40.9Charles Kupchan, Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 67-68.10Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders, 12.11H. W. Brands, “Presidential Doctrines: An Introduction,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36, no. 1(March 2006): 3.6
Presidential doctrines serve a dual purpose: they allow policymakers to rationalise thestrategic decision-making process; and they express the foreign policy intentions of aspecific U.S. administration, both to the American public and Congress andgovernments abroad. However, they also encourage simplistic, often caricatured,narratives of American grand strategy; a tendency that is evident in much of theacademic and journalistic analysis of the Bush administration‟s foreign policy. Forinstance, the Bush doctrine is often equated with preventive war and unilateralism; yetmany of Bush‟s critics overstate the centrality of these concepts to current Americansecurity policy. As Stanley Renshon points out, the doctrine “is much wider in scopethan any of the singular elements for which it is criticized.”12 The Bush doctrineshould instead be interpreted as a comprehensive “conceptual and strategic responseto a set of important national security issues that the United States faces in the post9/11 world.”131.3 The Clinton DoctrinePresident Clinton is often criticised for failing to define a clear threat around which toformulate post-Cold War American grand strategy. Charles Krauthammer has labelledthe 1990s a “holiday from history” in which the dangers posed by rogue states andweapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation “grew more acute” while theClinton administration failed to act.14 Henry Kissinger has echoed these sentiments:“For a decade, the democracies had progressively fallen prey to the illusion that12Stanley A. Renshon, “The Bush Doctrine Considered,” in Understanding the Bush Doctrine:Psychology and Strategy in an Age of Terrorism, ed. Stanley A. Renshon and Peter Suedfeld (NewYork: Routledge, 2007), 2.13Ibid. 214Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,” National Interest, 70 (Winter 2002/2003):6.7
threats from abroad had virtually disappeared; that dangers, if any, were primarilypsychological or sociological in origin”.15It is important to acknowledge the unique international context in which Clintonoccupied the White House. The collapse of the Soviet Union signified thedisappearance of the raison d’etre for American overseas engagement during theprevious fifty years; consequently, despite its overwhelming preponderance of power,there was little intellectual consensus on how America should engage with the rest ofthe world. Stephen Walt terms this situation the “paradox of unipolarity”.16 The lackof a clear and present danger to American national security immediately after theCold War undermined Clinton‟s attempts to enunciate a logical purpose for Americanpower. As John Dumbrell notes, the “confusion and strategic uncertainty” of the1990s were not “conducive to presidential grand theorizing.”17Nonetheless, considerable blame for the lack of vision in American grand strategyduring the 1990s must be apportioned to the Clinton administration itself. A failure toclearly define the U.S. national interest has led Michael Mandelbaum to characteriseAmerican foreign policy during the Clinton presidency as “social work,”18 whileJoshua Muravchik has condemned Clinton‟s chronic vacillation, accusing the formerpresident of “carrying a small stick.”19 William Hyland provides a particularly cogentsummation of the foreign policy-making process during the Clinton years: “In the15Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century(London: The Free Press, 2002), 289.16Stephen Walt, “Two Cheers for Clinton‟s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 79, no. 2 (March/April2000): 65.17John Dumbrell, “Was There a Clinton Doctrine? President Clinton‟s Foreign Policy Reconsidered,”Diplomacy & Statecraft 13, no. 2 (June 2002): 45.18Michael Mandelbaum, “Foreign Policy as Social Work,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 1 (January/February1996): 16-32.19Joshua Muravchik, “Carrying a Small Stick,” National Review 48, no. 16 (September 2 1996): 57-61.8
absence of an overall perspective, most issues were bound to degenerate into tacticalmanipulations, some successful some not. Clinton stumbled from crisis to crisis,trying to figure out what choices would pose the lowest risk to his presidency.” 20 Asthe identification of an unambiguous strategic threat is a fundamental component ofany grand strategy, it could be argued that Clinton failed to articulate a substantiveforeign policy doctrine. Dumbrell‟s attempt to locate a Clinton doctrine, and in theprocess identifying five possible candidates, seems to support this conclusion.21However, strategic inconsistencies do not necessarily preclude the existence of aClinton doctrine; as Brands notes, it is possible for a doctrine to be one “in namerather than in fact.”22 Optimistic appraisals of Clinton‟s foreign policy identify twoplausible candidates for the title of Clinton doctrine: the policy of “democraticenlargement” and the strategic desire to nullify the threats posed by rogue states toAmerican interests.23 Although Gaddis Smith quipped that the concept was “banalityon stilts,”24 “democratic enlargement” probably represents the most convincingcharacterisation of Clinton‟s grand strategy. For Douglas Brinkley, the conceptendorses “the notion that as free states grew in number and strength the internationalorder would become both more prosperous and more secure.”25 Despite the shortlived relevance of the label itself, the underlying rationale behind “democraticenlargement” is a logical progression from Cold War containment and continues toinform American foreign policy under George W. Bush.20William Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy (London: Praeger, 1999),203.21Dumbrell, “Was There a Clinton Doctrine?” 43-56.22Brands, “Presidential Doctrines,” 1.23Douglas Brinkley, “Democratic Enlargement: The Clinton Doctrine,” Foreign Policy, no. 106(Spring 1997): 110-127; Dumbrell, “Was There a Clinton Doctrine?” 43-56.24Gaddis Smith quoted in “Clinton‟s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, no. 121 (November/December2000): 18.25Brinkley, “Democratic Enlargement,” 116.9
The Clinton administration‟s rogue state policy has also been suggested as a feasibleClinton doctrine. Dumbrell makes the compelling point that a rogue state doctrine isthe most credible candidate because it delineates a clear strategic threat to Americansecurity, a vital feature of any grand strategy.26 Thus, in proposing a Clinton doctrine,this study will unite two objectives of Clinton‟s national security strategy: thedissemination of democratic values abroad; and the eradication of the dangers posedby rogue regimes to U.S. security. Whether the Clinton doctrine was successfullyimplemented will not be dealt with here; instead, the aim of this study is to expose thestriking degree of thematic continuity between the Clinton and Bush national securitystrategies.1.4 The Bush DoctrinePresident Bush has proposed a comparatively consistent vision for American grandstrategy. For Gaddis, there is “a coherence in the Bush strategy that the Clintonnational security team never achieved.”27 Consequently, defining the Bush doctrineis a somewhat simpler task.The Bush administration does not publicly endorse the term Bush doctrine, so itscontent is open to interpretation. Peter Dombrowski and Rodger Payne contend thatthe doctrine refers exclusively to the right to employ preemptive military force againstrogue regimes that sponsor terrorism and seek to obtain WMD.28 However, such alimited definition offers an incomplete portrayal of Bush‟s national security policy.26Dumbrell, “Was There a Clinton Doctrine?” 54.John Lewis Gaddis, “A Grand Strategy of Transformation,” Foreign Policy, no. 133(November/December 2002): 54.28Peter Dombrowski and Rodger A. Payne, “Global Debate and the Limits of the Bush Doctrine,”International Studies Perspectives 4, no. 4 (November 2003): 395-408.2710
As Renshon points out, preemption “is an option, but not a doctrine by itself.”29Instead, the Bush doctrine should be understood as a broad strategic response to thethreats posed to American national security by the combination of internationalterrorism, rogue states, and WMD proliferation. A broader definition is thereforerequired.This study will employ Robert Jervis‟ definition of the Bush doctrine because itincorporates the most salient features of post-9/11 American foreign policy. ForJervis, the doctrine consists of four key elements:“A strong belief in the importance of a state‟s domestic regime in determiningits foreign policy and the related judgment that this is an opportune time totransform international politics; the perception of great threats that can bedefeated only by new and vigorous policies, most notably preventive war; awillingness to act unilaterally when necessary; and, as both a cause and asummary of these beliefs, an overriding sense that peace and stability requirethe United States to assert its primacy in world politics.”30Bush‟s detractors from both Left and Right contend that the emergence of the Bushdoctrine can be attributed to the influence of a “cabal” of neoconservatives on theBush administration. Conservatives Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke allege “theneo-conservatives have taken American international relations on an unfortunatedetour, veering away from the balanced, consensus-building, and itionalRepublicaninternationalism.”31 Liberal internationalist Michael Lind claims the doctrine is adiscredited “neoconservative fantasy of unilateral global hegemony” that will fade29Renshon, “The Bush Doctrine Considered,” 2.Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 3 (Fall2003): 365.31Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, American Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 9.3011
away when Bush leaves office.32 More recently, it has been erroneously argued thatthe neoconservatives form one component of a powerful “Israel lobby” that hasmanipulated American foreign policy in the Middle East to such an extent as tojeopardise U.S. national interests.33This dissertation rejects the notion that current American grand strategy is aneoconservative aberration. The Bush doctrine can more accurately be understood asa typically American blend of ideals and interests. Robert Singh appropriatelycharacterises the doctrine as “an intellectually coherent amalgam of traditional„realist‟ approaches to international relations and a
5 John J. Mearsheimer, Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (London: Brassey‟s Defence Publishers, 1988), 17. 6 Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security 21, no. 3 (Winter 1996-1997): 5-53. 7 Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy
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