January 30, 2002

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT & TOM DONNELLY

SUBJECT: The Bush Doctrine

At last, more than a decade after the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States has an understanding of its role in the world and a strategy for achieving its purposes. In his State of the Union speech last night, President George W. Bush has done what neither his father nor Bill Clinton could manage.

This “Bush Doctrine” has three essential elements:

• Active American global leadership. The president noted that our “enemies view the entire world as a battlefield” and vowed to “pursue them wherever they are.” He also made it clear that he was willing to act preemptively and quickly -- “time is not on our side,” he admitted -- especially when threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are involved.

• Regime change. Although President Bush pulled no punches when listing terrorist organizations as enemies, including Palestinian groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, he also made clear his determination to include rogue regimes as targets in the war on terrorism. “We can’t stop short,” he said. And in “naming names” -- North Korea, Iran and Iraq -- he clearly defined a meaning of victory.

• Promoting liberal democratic principles. “No nation is exempt” from the “non-negotiable demands” of liberty, law and justice. Because the United States has a “greater objective” -- a greater purpose -- in the world, Bush sees in the war not just danger but an opportunity to spread American political principles, especially into the Muslim world.
  

The Bush Doctrine is also notable for what it is not. It is not Clintonian multilateralism; the president did not appeal to the United Nations, profess faith in arms control, or raise hopes for any “peace process.” Nor is it the balance-of-power realism favored by his father. It is, rather, a reassertion that lasting peace and security is to be won and preserved by asserting both U.S. military strength and American political principles.