NY Times: The Complex Metamorphosis of American Foreign Policy

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The Complex Metamorphosis of American Foreign Policy

It would be an irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs, for all my preparation has been in domestic matters," Woodrow Wilson remarked as he left his home in Princeton, N.J., for his inauguration as president in 1913. But that was precisely what fate had in store for him. The same might be said for George W. Bush, who has become a war president, determined to imprint democratic values in the Middle East while wiping out terrorism in that region and then worldwide. At best the Americans will be seen as "democratic imperialists," struggling in a quixotic crusade to make the world safe for democracy.

In "America Unbound," two highly respected foreign policy experts, Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and James M. Lindsay, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, have written a splendidly illuminating book on "the Bush revolution" and the doctrine of unilateral intervention and pre-emptive war.

Buttressed by extensive research, the authors demonstrate convincingly that Mr. Bush is not the puppet of the vice president or the Defense Department hawks. He has fundamental beliefs that have reversed America's six-decade commitment to internationalism. His foreign policy for the 21st century marks a decided preference for unilateralism.

As the authors describe it, his policy rests on two beliefs: "The first was that in a dangerous world the best — if not the only — way to ensure America's security was to shed the constraints imposed by friends, allies, and international institutions." The second belief was that "an America unbound should use its strength to change the status quo in the world."

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The Complex Metamorphosis of American Foreign Policy

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Here are the books mentioned in the article:

Ivo Daalder

and

James Lindsay

America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy

and Noam Chomsky

American Hegemony