This is an excerpt from Critical Terrorism Studies: A Dictionary by Lee Jarvis and Alice Martini. Available in all good book stores, and via free download from E-International Relations.

Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber, or make a donation, to support our work.

The ‘Bush Doctrine’ was the foreign policy framework adopted by the United States under George W. Bush: the 43rd president of the United States of America. This doctrine became the foundation for the US’ approach to the war on terror. As with other doctrines, it is a label applied to Bush’s foreign policy priorities, rather than one used by Bush himself to describe or justify his actions. Some scholars argue it marked a significant shift in American foreign policy, while others highlight its continuities with the past – for example in relation to previous US ‘wars on terror’ (see Winkler 2006) – and with the foreign policy of subsequent presidents such as Barack Obama.

The Bush doctrine was based on a series of ‘pillars’. These included the legitimacy of unilateral action where necessary, a willingness to resort to pre- emptive war, a commitment to internationalising democracy and liberalism, and a determination to maintain American hegemony in the international system (see Jervis 2016). Although there are tensions between some of these aspirations, these pillars became the foundations of the post-9/11 war on terror. The military interventions in Afghanistan (2001–) and Iraq (2003–), for instance, were justified both through the existential threat posed by terrorists and their state sponsors, and through a need for new governing regimes therein, however poor the planning for regime change was in practice.

The Bush doctrine is interesting in part because it sat between realist approaches to foreign policy (with their emphasis on military capabilities, relative power, and international anarchy) and idealist or liberal approaches (which emphasise the importance of domestic political systems and regimes for a state’s ‘outward’ foreign policy behaviour). The doctrine is sometimes characterised as neoconservative in order to capture this combination of ideological positions and the belief in the ‘good’ that can be done by American power internationally. This label is a helpful one for understanding the values of key figures in Bush’s administration, although the........

© E-International