Great article! BW on the Bush Doctrine

September 28, 2002

Bruce Nussbaum, Business Week: Bush Is Half Right on Foreign Policy -- The President's national security report to Congress asks good questions but offers the wrong answers -- and the wrong attitude

My apologizes for the long quote. This isn't even the best part of this essay but it's the part that echos (more clearly than I have put it) what I am concerned about.

"Russia is reformulating its war rationale against Chechnya in terms of preempting terrorists. China is adopting the language of preemption in battling Muslim separatists. Will India follow in Kashmir or against Pakistan? And what of Israel? An American strategic policy of preemption without internationally agreed-upon rules could increase global violence and instability.

The notion of conditional sovereignty, introduced by the National Security Strategy paper, may undermine stability as well. Since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, the sovereignty of states has been sacrosanct. There is international agreement that nations are open to attack only when they do something that threatens or harms others. Under the Bush Doctrine, however, nations that simply amass weapons of mass destruction forfeit their sovereignty.

Iraq, of course, is the first example of this policy. Its case is relatively clear, having violated no fewer than 19 U.N. resolutions to disarm. But who is the second? And what about nations whose citizens help finance terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia? The rules are fuzzy."

This is exactly what I've been talking about over the last week! I also like his conclusion, that if the document wasn't so unclear, a lot of concern would be eliminated and the world could work together on this rather than have duel (and dueling) strategies in the world for security and peace.