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.