Introduction: Bush and the middle east

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingForeword/postscript

Abstract

Confronting a terrorist threat that struck the American homeland on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush responded by laying out a bold foreign policy and national security strategy with few precedents in the modern record of American diplomacy. To deal with the threat of global terror, Bush did not explore a reconfiguration of the global balance of power, as, in very different ways, his father had at the end of the Cold War and Richard Nixon had in the early 1970s. Bush did not propose the creation of a new network of alliances, as Harry Truman did at the outset of the Cold War. Likewise, Bush did not call for the development of new international institutions or a system of collective security, as Franklin Roosevelt had envisioned rising out of the rubble and ashes of World War II. Rather, facing the defining challenge of his presidency, Bush developed and pursued a policy approach that can be described as Wilsonian (or, perhaps, Reaganesque) in its ambition to secure America by changing the political orientation of states in far-flung parts of the globe. As this ambitious agenda took shape, it became increasingly clear that President Bush's approach to securing American interests in the post-9/11 world was focused primarily on the Middle East, defined broadly to include important non-Arab states in the Muslim world, such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationThe Road Ahead: Middle East Policy in The Bush Administration's Second Term
PublisherBrookings Institution Press
Pages1-11
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)0815752059, 9780815752059
StatePublished - 2005

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Social Sciences

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Introduction: Bush and the middle east'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this