Preemptive Hot War Policy Replaces Cold War

Dr. Bernard L. Brock

After George W. Bush's ceremonial aircraft carrier landing, he proudly addressed American fighting forces declaring an end to the "Iraqi War," while making it very clear that the "War on Terrorism" was not over. President Bush successfully pursued a "Preemptive Hot War" policy in Afghanistan and Iraq and is establishing this risky and prohibitively expensive policy as a new foreign policy doctrine.

The Cold War framed and guided American and the world's foreign and domestic policies for over 40 years. However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War Doctrine became obsolete, and President Bush Senior announced the need for a new world order. Yet neither Senior Bush nor Bill Clinton ever defined the nature of that new world order

However, without announcing it as a doctrine, George W. Bush's policy of pursuing war through preemptive strikes, as he did in Afghanistan and Iraq, is becoming the Bush approach to foreign policy. He described the policy when he was told that as many as 60 nations could be involved in terrorism. He responded, "We'll pick them off one at a time." In fact, the Preemptive Hot War Doctrine, with the United States as world policeman, is becoming Bush's organizing perspective for American foreign affairs and domestic policy.

In this new doctrine, Bush, essentially alone, labels countries he feels are a threat to the US and world "terrorists" and then decides what action he wants to take against them, including initiating war. This arbitrary, unilateral foreign policy threatens to replace the multilateral approach the US has followed for 50 years.

The US role as world policeman is both risky and prohibitively expensive in both the short and long run, partially because other countries view the US as the world's bully that they must oppose. Nobody likes the bully!

Having pursued a Preemptive Hot War policy for over a year, we can already see its short run negative consequences:

Not only are the short and long-term consequences of Bush's Preemptive Hot War Doctrine destructive to the US, but also history is replete with examples where the world's policeman/bully has been cut down to size - Great Britain, Russia and Germany in modern times. Is this the future we want for America?

It's not too late for President Bush to choose a different path in dealing with world terrorism. Instead of a "War on Terrorism" led by the US, the major nations in the world could, as equals, combine their intelligence resources and cooperate in investigating and bringing to justice terrorists throughout the world. Terrorism would be pursued systematically and intensely from a criminal perspective based on a, multi-polar world order.

In the new would order, America, Great Britain, continental Europe, Russia, China and possibly a few other national groups would be major powers with spheres of influence, but these powers would treat each other as equals working together in solving world problems according to the "rule of law." This approach to world order would attack terrorism directly without most of the negative consequences of the current policy

It's not too late for the American public to send the message that we must reject the role of world policeman. Saying "No!" to Bush's Preemptive Hot War Doctrine is essential for America's survival.

Dr. Bernard L. Brock teaches political communication at Wayne State and Oakland Universities.
Appeared in the MICHIGAN CITIZEN (June 7, 2003), A7.