Essay On The Bush Doctrine

The Bush Doctrine was a major departure in American foreign policy because there was a radical change from national security strategies the U.S. foreign policy used before (i.e deterrence and containment). The Bush Doctrine dramatically changed the way the US act toward the rest of the world . The Bush Doctrine is known as various foreign policy principles of US created by president George W. Bush in the wake 9/11 attacks. The doctrine dictated that the US had the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves. Basically, this doctrine gives the US the justification for striking a country first if that country is deemed a threat to its security. One of the most important aspects of the bush doctrine was preventive war, which stated that America had every right to invade a foreign nation that haven’t attacked us if we believed they might one day attack us.

The Bush administration declared the war on terrorism with the main objective to eradicate terrorist groups …show more content…
The Bush doctrine was criticized worldwide, before and after the invasion of Iraq. Critics of the doctrine said that it has misled the US in the war on terrorism. The US became arrogant and created a mentality of war on Americans. The US was at risk of alienating world opinion and jeopardizing international cooperation, which is essential to the war on terrorism. With the preemptive war, rather than encouraging if adopted by other countries could increase regional conflicts. "It cannot be in either the American national interest or the world's interest to develop principles that grant every nation an unfettered right of preemption against its own definition of threats to its security.” said Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry