Akkam’s Razor

…and if they did, they’d probably agree with it.

Many of us are making a big deal out of Sarah Palin’s inability to articulate the paramount legacy of this White House - The Bush Doctrine [wiki]. Here is a partial transcript and video of her interview with Charlie Gibson of ABCNEWS (more at HuffPo):

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine? PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

I’d like to make an effort to formally define the Bush Doctrine, to provide context for its existence, to examine its success, and to look at future challenges.

Regardless as to your political leanings, the Bush Doctrine exists for one reason and one reason only - to reinforce the Unitary Executive Theory, weakening what, to this point, had been the sole responsibility of Congress over the Executive Branch - the ability to declare war. Similarly, it seeks to remove any external, non-domestic restrictions by foreign bodies over US actions, including international agreements and treaties. In short, the US, as the sole remaining superpower (after the fall of the Soviet Union) would have the justification for acting unilaterally against any threat. This is further quantified by allowing the ability to wage preemptive war against perceived threats both in the near- and long-terms. In short, it means never having to say you are sorry.

The supportive ideology of the Bush Doctrine is dependent on a steadfast belief in American Exceptionalism, and the use of that belief informs a perspective of American Primacy, as described in the AEI publication by Thomas Donnelly:

• The United States possesses the means–economic, military, diplomatic–to realize its expansive geopolitical purposes.
• America faces no immediate great-power threat, no superpower doppelganger to replace the Soviet Union. [...] The two other candidates as great-power balancers to American primacy, the People’s Republic of China and the European Union, likewise are not immediately up to the challenge. [...] Any comprehensive U.S. “threat assessment” would conclude that the normal constraints of international politics–counterbalancing powers–no longer immediately inhibit the exercise of American might. At the same time, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction promises to upset the “normal” rules of power among nation-states, devaluing the conventional military strength (and other kinds of power, as well) amassed by the United States. This undercuts the general peace won by the victory in the cold war and would complicate any future great-power competition or challenge to the American-led international order. Small “rogue” states and violent, but nevertheless weak, international movements like Islamic radicalism are coming to have a disproportionate “weight” in global security calculations. Moreover Islamism represents a kind of ideological threat to the Western political principles that made the end of the cold war against the Soviet Union also seem like the end of history.
• A third reality that argues for assertive U.S. power is that the opportunities to extend a “balance of power that favors freedom”–or, more precisely, a preponderance of American power that favors freedom–outlined in the Bush Doctrine are genuine. [...]

  The opportunities to expand the Pax Americana also rest upon one of the few solid truths of social science: Democracies rarely war on other democracies. [...] Pax Americana enjoys a “strategic rear” that is remarkably peaceful, prosperous, and free. What were once feuding great powers have more or less permanently, and apparently quite happily, ceded their security interests to American management.

• This suggests a fourth and final factor favoring the continued and vigorous exercise of American power: The realities of primacy, rising threats, and emerging opportunities combine to give the United States a “systemic” responsibility, that is, a responsibility for preserving the viability and legitimacy of the liberal international order of nation-states. [...] Because power is measured everywhere in relation to the United States, regional events have greater global significance, beyond even the linkages supposed between cold war “dominoes.”

The justification for preemptive war is described here via the Council for Foreign Relations:

The legal justification for this doctrine resides in the concept of anticipatory self-defense — that is, the notion, long recognized in international law, that states can take defensive action even before an attack has occurred if the threat is truly imminent (traditionally when an opposing force mobilizes in anticipation of an attack). The classic example is Israel’s preemptive attack that started the 1967 war, which came in response to the imminent threat of invasion by its Arab neighbors. What makes the current situation different from previous instances is the need, as the Bush administration sees it, to “adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries” — i.e., terrorists and tyrants armed with mass destruction weapons. Since it cannot be known when a state or terrorist organization that possesses weapons of mass destruction will use them and since weapons like these can be delivered without much if any warning, the administration argues that rogue states pose an “imminent threat” when they seek to acquire technologies necessary to build these weapons, and especially nuclear weapons. Accordingly, preemption is justified not just to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction but also their acquisition.

As Frontline illustrates, all roads lead back to Cheney (and his controversial post-Gulf War preemptive stance), the Project for a New American Century, and the Neocons. The document was codified and eventually released in the 33-page [pdf/html] National Security Strategy in September 2002, during the period when the second Gulf War was being planned.

What is similarly implied, and not explicitly stated, is that Energy Policy is actually National Security Policy. Those that control energy control the world.  When you get down to it, the execution of the Iraq War and the application of the Bush Doctrine really was all about the oil.

Despite the specious reasoning that we have never been attacked after 9/11, conveniently forgetting the Anthrax Attacks, of course, the Administration has considerably insisted that we are safer. Domestically, this may in fact be true. However, global extremism, and the attendant effect of volatility in oil producing regions has been consistently rising. An emerging China and resurgent Russia threaten the Bush Doctrine to footnote status.

It is difficult to believe that bilateral and trilateral Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) between nuclear superpowers would be preferable to America acting alone, yet here we are…

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