Article Analysis Essay on The Roots of the Bush doctrine

Introduction

The main argument made in the paper is that there was a shift between the original perspective of the way deemed as the way to spread democracy from leading by example to evangelism and then provides reasons for it. This is useful as it helps us understand America's policies on foreign affairs; why and how they came to be.

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Does the author support his argument?

In the third page of the article, the author clearly states that his argument is that moments of activist democracy advancement can be elicited by the furthering of material capacities and the existence of domestic nationalist ideology favoring vindicationism over exemplarism. Note here how the author owns the argument. That sentence among other instances throughout the article, clearly indicate the author's support of the arguments.

What is your assessment of the argument/material?

This paper is aimed at dissecting the various arguments that were raised in the article; for instance, herein, we will assess the concept of democracy and why it so important in the mind of the typical American. The paper then examines how the concept has evolved and how this affected the bush Administration and Americans in general. It also examines the various theories that explain the behavior of America's democracy promotion. Afterward, the paper then examines the various perceptions involved in how democracy has been promoted in the history of the U.S. Of major concern in this respect being exemplarism and vindicationism, which are thoroughly discussed herein. The fundamental underlying objective of the paper is to provide a good understand and critically examine in a nutshell a few events, drawing various analogies, that might have precipitated the adoption of one perception of democracy promotion over the other.

Bush and his administration fostered a firm belief that the spread of democracy is the ultimate solution to the furthering the United States' security and political interests (p. 2). They also believed that it was the ultimate solution for peace and freedom (p. 3). The idea of democracy has infiltrated the mind of the typical American, making them hold the belief that it is possible to democratize any government anywhere in the world. History, however, has taught us that enforcing a doctrine on a society that did not consensually ask for it is usually met with resistance. In response, the U.S. has, on various occasions, been observed to employ military force and its political influence to enforce democratic doctrines where diplomacy failed.

Bush's administration, however, cannot be blamed for promoting the doctrine of democracy as it is a prospect that is held dear by most Americans if not all. In fact, even the enforcing part can be justified as the administration has the best interests of not only the Americans at heart but also the whole world in general. This is due to the fact that, as argued in the article, democracy is central to the political identity of the U.S., in the sense that these are the principles that America was founded on by our founding fathers (p. 25). It was on these principles that the founding fathers liberated America from its oppressors, attained independence, and gave Americans a sense of national purpose. This is what is taught in schools and has been engraved in the mind of a typical American as the absolute truth, written in stone. Bush, thus being the quintessential typical American, is predisposed to act on these primordial ideologies. These reasons thus led us to believe that if a nation was to prosper, then democracy is central. History has also witnessed wars being fought over ideals such as those of communism against capitalism. And it is a well-established fact that capitalism cannot exist devoid democracy. This being a clear indication of the extent of our belief system and the much we are willing to do for it.

It is also shown, in the article, that there are two perspectives in which we can say America uses in order to foster democratic change in countries abroad (p. 12). The first one is known as exemplarism, which, as the word itself implies is that America leads by example. The logic here is that if America shows how it has industrialized, modernized and even how its peoples are prospering then other countries are bound to emulate their political structure so that they themselves can achieve similar prosperity as the Americans. This technique thus emphasizes on the perfection and preservation of the American institutions and values so that they appeal to the other nations. The other view is dubbed vindicationism. This perspective stresses on the fact that Americans should move beyond exemplarism and effect active measures in a bid to more efficiently spread its global political ideation and institutions.

According to the article, in the bush doctrine, the active, or even more appropriately, the coercive, approach to spreading democracy was the core component of America's majestic strategy (p. 15). In fact, it was the Bush administration that brought about this shift from exemplarism and vindicationism. The question that arises in all of this is how did the central democracy-promotion strategy morph from exemplarism to vindicationism? It has been argued that this grand shift was brought about by the change in the power of the state. It has been stated that exemplarism is the 'weapon of the weak (p. 7).' Throughout history that the expansion and contraction of a given state's political interests can be correlated with the relative power the said state has. Thus, this leap from exemplarism to vindicationism can be attributed to immense increment in the relative power.

In the founding days of America, the founding fathers presided over feeble and disjointed states. They were entirely focused on building themselves, and the fathers would have never conceived the thought that they would become a hegemonic state, involving itself in foreign matters in a bid to further its interests. It can be argued that this was not all part of a plan of some grand design orchestrated by the founding fathers. We, as human beings, are an adaptive species, and we want to effect the best behavioral pattern that will ensure the survival of our species. Thus, it can be argued that the founding fathers were concentrating on obtaining independence, but when they finally achieved it, more developments cropped up that the generations to come had to react to. The bush doctrine, for instance, may be said to have been precipitated by the events of the September 11th attack. The attacks of this day shook the whole of the world but mostly affected the U.S. undermining her security measures and protocols. This led to the Bush administration to come up with a plan that would have to thwart any future prevalence of such an occurrence. This means that the U.S. had to come up with even better policies of security to ensure that America could protect herself against states that shelter to provide aid to terrorist groups. Some of the key principles that were outlined in the policy include; unilateralism which denotes that America could pick and stick to an action that other institutions disagreed with as long as the said action held the state's best interest, the other involved the employment of preemptive war which denotes that if the U.S. perceived an imminent offensive threat or invasion on herself, she could take measures to make sure that the attack is neutralized before it materializes. Taking this action at face value without briefly looking at the history, one might suggest that the U.S. is behaving like a bully, but that is the consequence of trifling with a superpower state.

It can be argued that any country should be at a capacity to make its own decisions based on their beliefs without the meddling of other countries irrespective of the country's superpower status. Sometimes it can be hard to ascertain who started the trouble first as both parties in the conflict usually are in a bid to advance their political interests, but rather history usually supports the side of the story of the party that emerges out victorious in the conflict.

The article sites that one of the main factors that promote vindication over exemplarism is the material capacity of the nation coupled with the existence nationalist local ideology that supports the former perception over the latter (p. 36). It can be argued that it does not take much effort to get the citizens aboard the idea; in fact, it can be said that the state and the American citizens naturally and unanimously supported the prospect when its necessity became evident. For instance, taking the example of the 9/11 attacks, it obvious that the incident not only took a toll on the U.S. government, undermining its security structure and protocols but also adversely affected the citizens and some other foreign nationals that were present. This was also an embarrassing event for the U.S. in general given that with its superpower status, it could neither protect itself not its citizens against a domestic attack. It can thus be inferred that this made the nation very angry, united against a common enemy. Given that millions of people were affected by the incident; either loss of a loved one, destruction of property or even the shared dread that a similar event might precipitate in the future and this time it would be they that suffer while there is something that they could do about it; this made the nation thirsty to make sure that the culprits are brought to justice and that future occurrence of such an event will not happen. So, when the government came up with various policies to remedy the situation, then it was only natural that the citizens gave their support.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have seen that key components of the bush doctrine precipitated from necessity given the various events that occurred during his term. It has been observed, that Bush, just like any American citizen, even today, believes that democracy is the true road towards peace and furthering of American political and security interests and his actions followed by the ethical theory of consequentialism that put, in a nutshell, can be summarized in a single statement as thus; the end justifies the means.

References

Monten, J. (2005). The roots of the Bush doctrine: Power, nationalism, and democracy promotion in U.S. strategy. International Security, 29(4), 112-156.