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'The Deal': The Balance of Power, Military Strength and Liberal Internationalism in the Bush National Security Strategy
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‘The Deal’
The balance of power, military strength and liberal internationalism in the Bush National Security Strategy
Adam Quinn
a.j.## email not listed ##
London School of Economics and Political Science
Presented to ISA conference, San Diego, March 25
th
, 2006
Abstract:
This paper begins with a survey of some of the literature analysing American foreign policy under the administration of George W. Bush. It then goes on to argue that the Bush National Security Strategy, which calls for ‘a balance of power which favours freedom’, in truth rejects a balance of power approach to international order. Instead, it foresees the cooperation of all great powers under American leadership to further a common agenda of basic goals assumed to be founded in universal values. Such rejection of a balance of power represents a coherent evolution from America’s long tradition of foreign policy thought. Emerging from its founding tradition of separation from the European international system, the United States was influenced both by Theodore Roosevelt’s advocacy of military strength in the service of good, and, perhaps even more so, by Woodrow Wilson’s ideological conviction that American engagement in the world could be made conditional on the reform of the international system, and indeed other states’ domestic systems, in line with American values and practices. The conviction that this Wilsonian ‘deal’ is still valid, combined with a Roosevelt-esque belief in the need to back idealism with force, provides the ideological bedrock of this administration’s strategic outlook. Hence, the Bush worldview should not be seen as a radically new phenomenon, but as a logical outgrowth from the American foreign policy tradition.
The critical excoriation of George W. Bush
To some extent all politicians practice the art of high-functioning self-contradiction, or at least of maintaining its appearance. The skill of seeming to represent more than one ideological perspective at a time is one without which few who rely for their survival on public support, and the often complex coalitions required to obtain 50 percent and more of it, could cope. But rarely has this feature of political life been painted on so broad a canvas as it has in the case of President George W. Bush’s ambitious foreign policy, which has held a global public rapt and spawned a Cornucopia of interpretation. For though by some lights the Bush foreign policy has represented the apotheosis of unilateral, national-interest power politics on the part of the United States, it has simultaneously embodied some of the most internationally engaged and politically universalistic impulses of the American tradition, impulses deriving in part from the principles of liberal internationalism. It is to the discussion, and hopefully partial explanation, of these superficially contradictory impulses that this paper is devoted.
It was indicative of George Bush’s talent, and perhaps his good fortune too, that in his administration he managed to assemble ostensibly antithetical constituencies behind his foreign policy agenda, and hold them in place while driving action forward. Indeed, the taxonomy of ideological subgroups around the national security table busied analysts for no
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‘The Deal’
The balance of power, military strength and liberal internationalism
in the Bush National Security Strategy
Adam Quinn
a.j.## email not listed ##
London School of Economics and Political Science
Presented to ISA conference, San Diego, March 25
th
, 2006
Abstract:
This paper begins with a survey of some of the literature analysing American foreign policy
under the administration of George W. Bush. It then goes on to argue that the Bush National
Security Strategy, which calls for ‘a balance of power which favours freedom’, in truth rejects
a balance of power approach to international order. Instead, it foresees the cooperation of all
great powers under American leadership to further a common agenda of basic goals assumed
to be founded in universal values. Such rejection of a balance of power represents a coherent
evolution from America’s long tradition of foreign policy thought. Emerging from its
founding tradition of separation from the European international system, the United States
was influenced both by Theodore Roosevelt’s advocacy of military strength in the service of
good, and, perhaps even more so, by Woodrow Wilson’s ideological conviction that
American engagement in the world could be made conditional on the reform of the
international system, and indeed other states’ domestic systems, in line with American values
and practices. The conviction that this Wilsonian ‘deal’ is still valid, combined with a
Roosevelt-esque belief in the need to back idealism with force, provides the ideological
bedrock of this administration’s strategic outlook. Hence, the Bush worldview should not be
seen as a radically new phenomenon, but as a logical outgrowth from the American foreign
policy tradition.
The critical excoriation of George W. Bush
To some extent all politicians practice the art of high-functioning self-contradiction, or at
least of maintaining its appearance. The skill of seeming to represent more than one
ideological perspective at a time is one without which few who rely for their survival on
public support, and the often complex coalitions required to obtain 50 percent and more of it,
could cope. But rarely has this feature of political life been painted on so broad a canvas as it
has in the case of President George W. Bush’s ambitious foreign policy, which has held a
global public rapt and spawned a Cornucopia of interpretation. For though by some lights the
Bush foreign policy has represented the apotheosis of unilateral, national-interest power
politics on the part of the United States, it has simultaneously embodied some of the most
internationally engaged and politically universalistic impulses of the American tradition,
impulses deriving in part from the principles of liberal internationalism. It is to the discussion,
and hopefully partial explanation, of these superficially contradictory impulses that this paper
is devoted.
It was indicative of George Bush’s talent, and perhaps his good fortune too, that in his
administration he managed to assemble ostensibly antithetical constituencies behind his
foreign policy agenda, and hold them in place while driving action forward. Indeed, the
taxonomy of ideological subgroups around the national security table busied analysts for no
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