Does the Bush Foreign Policy Revolution Have a Future? In Search of Monsters

For the past three years, and especially since the September 11 2001 attacks, a common critique of American foreign policy under President George Bush has run as follows.

The World Today
5 minute READ

The administration’s foreign policy is all brawn and no brain; military force has replaced diplomacy and negotiations as Washington’s main foreign policy instrument. The president is a foreign policy lightweight who knows little about the world. Therefore, foreign policy is run by Bush’s advisers, especially Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For all intents and purposes, Bush has been the puppet of darker forces in his administration, above all the neo-conservatives, who in Senator Joe Biden’s words ‘captured the heart and mind’ of the president.

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