The Bush Doctrine: U.s. National Security Concept Of Progressive Change

As an aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attack, George W. Bush Administration put forward a series of aggressive and tough foreign policy, which was enunciated in The National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) issued in 2002. What has been clarified in NSS 2002 is named as the Bush Doctrine around the world, which also results in hot discussions about its nature of whether it is a revolution or a repetition in American foreign policy history.The so-called Bush Doctrine is comprised of four interrelated elements, namely, promotion of democracy, preventive war, unilateralism and the U.S. hegemony. Among the four elements seizing and maintaining the U.S. hegemony is the core and ultimate goal, while the other three are means for the U.S. hegemony.When reexamining the whole U.S. history, we should say that Bush Doctrine is anything but a revolution to the traditional American foreign policy. All the four elements of Bush Doctrine can find their forefather in the ideas and practice of American foreign policy from the colonial times to the foundation of the U.S., from the continental expansion to the Cold War.However, it is absolutely wrong that if we take Bush Doctrine only as a simple repetition of the former American foreign policy. World is changing. The 9/11 incidence underscores the threat of terrorism to the world. Bush administration takes an advantage of the emergence of the omnipresent terrorist threat to make a gradual reform to the traditional U.S. national security strategy in two fields, that is, the globalization of American homeland security and the combination of militarism and utopian thoughts. All in all, the gradual reform of Bush Doctrine to traditional American security strategy is not an accident and will exert a great long-term influence in the future.