The Bush Administration And The Obama Administration's Foreign Concept And Practice Of Comparative Study

Foreign policy making is first and foremost human decision-making. Policy-makers are always under the influence of certain ideas and beliefs, and the combination of such ideas and beliefs are so-called diplomatic concepts which are the soul of foreign policy and guidance to diplomatic practice. Therefore, the study of a country's diplomatic concepts is very helpful to grasp a better understanding of its foreign policies.This paper starts from the definition of diplomatic concepts, discusses its influences upon policy-making and then examines the two major diplomatic thoughts that make up the basis of U.S. foreign policy concepts, namely Idealism and Realism. Based upon these, we analyze the differences between the diplomatic concepts of Bush's administration and those of Obama's administration. Through analyses, we find that due to the decline of American relative strength and different outlook on world, as well as different attitudes towards power and value, diplomatic concepts of the two administrations show great differences. The Bush administration is obsessed with the neoconservative thought featuring as absolute power superstition and blind pursuit of democracy, which can be called"Radical Idealism". On the contrary, the Obama administration is mainly under the influence of neo-liberalism, by which pragmatism is regarded as the core of its diplomatic concepts.? "Interdependence, collective security, international cooperation, partnerships, diplomacy and development, smart power as well as nuclear-free world" are the main contents of its diplomatic concepts. Through the promotion of "Transformational Diplomacy", the Obama administration's foreign policy objectives are to reduce the risks and costs of U.S. external action, to repair the damaged U.S. international image, and to restore America's hegemonic position.Obama has mastered the White House for more than a year, yet it is now too early to judge its diplomatic concepts, but to grasp these basic elements will help us to predict the future direction of Obama's foreign policy and gain some insight into the future development of Sino-US relations.