Abstract:
The ‘Bush Doctrine’ can be defined as the set of foreign policies that President George W. Bush implemented in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and formalised on 20 September 2002 in his National Security Strategy. Bush declared that the United States would make ‘no distinction between terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them’, a statement that defined the doctrine and launched the policy of pre-emptive war against potential aggressors before they were capable of launching an attack against the United States. Providing the core rationale for the 2003 Iraq invasion and subsequent conflict, the National Security Strategy of 2002 is often depicted as a marked departure from the policies of deterrence that characterised US foreign policy during the Cold War and ‘Phase 1’ of the post-Cold War period (1991-2001). If one thoroughly examines US history, it is evident that elements of the Bush Doctrine pertaining to pre-emption and regime change have been implicit in US foreign policy for the last 150 years. However, to pursue such an analysis would be to miss the main point.
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