Mel Gurtov's Superpower on Crusade According to Mel Gurtov, most would say that foreign policy has an erratic temperament. In his insightful book, "Superpower on Crusade: The Bush Doctrine in U.S. Foreign Policy", Gurtov shows that Bush's foreign policy follows his predecessors' policies of regime change, unilateralism, and an expanded military. The big things he believes to be Bush's gift to future presidents are two new highly controversial concepts. These key concepts are preemption and unprecedented secrecy. These two changes are something that Gurtov views as unwise and misleading to the population. Thomas Donnelly, in his book "The Underpinnings of The Bush Doctrine," gives the reader three underlying principles of the Bush …show more content…
His second allegation is that the Bush doctrine supports the expansion of autonomous and democratic states. This is based on the idea that a free Islamic world would be devastated if Iran or Iraq were ever to become nuclear capable. In addition, if North Korea were ever to acquire nuclear weapons, democracy and security in East Asia would become history. His final claim states that the US is the only country with enough military, economic, and diplomatic power to "fix" the world. In the text, he gives examples of how America has unprecedented power. For instance, all of the world's navies combined together would still be inferior to that of the American Navy. Moreover, the US generates 30% of the total world economic output. These two factors, among many others, give America the responsibility to watch over and "fix" the world. Fortunately for us, a great man has risen against what the mainstream media has given us. A man who can cast light on the darkness handed to us by the Bush administration. A man well, you get the picture. That man's name is Mel Gurtov. As I have stated earlier, he gives two new and highly controversial differences between his predecessors and himself: preemption and secrecy. While these two are quite obvious to anybody who watches the news, Gurtov gives us more information about the illegitimacy of the matter compared to, say, Donnelly. For instance,
America’s role in the international arena during the 1900s is best captured in the poem by Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” and had been clearly articulated in the speeches of Roosevelt and Beveridge. The American government believed that it is the American duty to interfere and be an influential power in the civilizing of nations that American’s perceived as unable to rule over themselves or as savages, illiterate, and the cause of chaos which ultimately affects the America’s vision of successful world commercial activities. However, it must be clarified that this goal is characterized by conflicted opinions within the American nation itself. Some believed that America should not interfere with the fate of other nations and argue for their
United States a world power. The desire to expand was described by newspaper editor John
Over and over again, Williams illustrates this theme of “American Exceptionalism.” Throughout the book, there are several occurrences in which the “We are the best, and all that we are doing is of benefit to the world” mentality is shown. On one hand, there is nothing wrong with being proud of roots as an American and believing that America is the greatest country, but on the other hand, using this thought process in in order to legitimize the domination and control of other nations unlike America while preaching one set of values and acting on others, is wrong. We see these actions play out time and time again as America invades and controls other countries “to help” them, however, prohibits the country from experiencing the full advantages of self-determination – a value that America claims to hold i.e. a tragedy of American Diplomacy.
John O’Sullivan wrote “Other nations have undertaken … hostile interference with us, … hammering our power, limiting our greatness, and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
shown through his firm claim, “But if the spirit of America were killed … , the America
[At the end of the article, Fridman exercises a series of rhetorical questions to draw an extra emphasis on how nerds keep America a world superpower.] During paragraph eight Fridman proposes the question “How long can America
One of the hypotheses is that the United States is unfit to rule foreign lands. This hypothesis is drawn from the text without being blatantly stated. The reader can extract this hypothesis by looking at the examples of countries that the United States has tried to take over. For example, in the Central American countries of Honduras and Nicaragua, the United States overthrew leaders who could have lead the states to social reform. Instead, the states are now
George W. Bush agrees with preemptive war, he believes that this is the best approach in seeking balance of power that favors human freedom. In the article "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America" Written by himself in 2005, he declares that his mission is to defend peace by fighting terrorist, preserve peace by building good relations among the great powers. Also, continuing the topic of peace by extending later by encouraging free and open societies. How is he going to do this? Bush has himself and the United States of America taken the responsibility to lead building a world that trades in freedom and therefore growing in prosperity. In unison with their allies and their new found cooperation with Russia that is partnering
To start, he talks about how large the colonies are and their current status. He presents a list of the British troops and tells how America could build comparable army. He says this to help guarantee America's security and prosperity as a country. He also explains that America is small enough now to be united now, because if much more time were to pass, and the population increase, the American people would not feel the need to unite anymore. This showed the American people that there was a chance to beat Britain in a war if need be, but only if they united now and did not wait any longer.
“America, to be sure, has never policed the whole world, nor is it feasible for one country to do
Beginning with the creation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, up to the current Obama doctrine, presidential doctrines have dominated United States foreign policy. A presidential doctrine highlights the goals and positions for United States foreign affairs outlined by the sitting president. Many of the country’s major foreign policy successes or disasters can be explained by tracing the doctrines of sitting or previous presidents and analyzing their evolution and eventual impact on world events. After established, a presidential doctrine often takes on a life of its own. This can be explained by the military resources and human capital involved in carrying out these doctrines. Future presidents often feel compelled to abide by previous doctrines, or find the reality of change can only be done with incremental changes over a period of years. For this reason, presidential doctrines often outlive their creators and consequently effect American foreign policy for years to come.
The sixth major point also George Washington’s Farewell Address mentions that “No Foreign Alliances”. America had some times to where we stay isolated but needed to form any policy that if we wanted to be described as the “power house”, we didn’t have to follow anybody but to be a leader and an example to
“America was conducting business as usual, but others were joining the game.” (Zakaria, 221). All this time we thought we were on top, we were actually slowly becoming less and less of leader and more a bystander as the rest of the world is slowly rising around us. Zakaria shows in that quote that as America has been continuing business like always, and because of this we have failed to realize our standing with the world around us. In the book The Post-American World, Zakaria shows us the challenges that America faces today. I believe the United States is most affected by our ignorance, competition, and worldly participation.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the unquestioned hegemon of the western world acting in a unipolar world. However, recently the United States has fallen into a series of deprival causing its reputation to fall as a state. Despite this, under the Bush Doctrine, the United States currently has a preemptive hegemonic imperative policy. Under this policy, the United States takes into account that the world is a perilous environment in need of a leader to guide and to control the various rebel states unipolarly. Under this policy though, the United States acts alone with no assistance from other states or institutions. Global intuitions that would assist under other types of policies are flagrantly disregarded in this policy in spite of its emphasis on the international level. As well as not participating in international institutions, this policy states that the United States should act entirely in its own wisdom. The UN (the United Nations), GATT (General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade), along with other institutions advice is not heeded within this self-made policy. Though the United States currently acknowledges these global organizations, it no longer takes them into account with severity. Instead of acting under the international system, the United States currently acts through its military, and large economy to instill fear within the various actors in the intercontinental system. According to this philosophy the
The Next Decade, a novel by George Friedman, talks about the predictions of countries in the upcoming decade and how the United States should react to the various challenges. The novel’s first major claim is that the United States is actually an empire, similar to how Rome and Great Brian were. However, unlike the previous empires, the United States refuses to acknowledge its status as an empire. “What makes the United States an empire is the number of countries it affects, the intensity of the impact, and the number of people in those countries affected.” The implication of this quote is that the US has gotten to be so large, if the US decided to draw out of global affairs, the impact would be detrimental. Instead of escaping its duty to the world, Friedman claims that the United States must acknowledge its status as an empire and function as such in order to maneuver the next decade. This claim is a wise claim made by Friedman, but it his only claim of worth in the novel. In The Next Decade, Friedman fails to make his thesis credible because he doesn’t his sources, provide logical arguments on his predications of the future, or examine alternative possibilities.