George W. Bush: Challenging Collective Security

On the campaign trail in 2000, Governor George W. Bush talked about America being overextended abroad and needing to act "humbly" in world affairs. In his first months in office, he tended to eschew multilateral initiatives, especially global treaty commitments made by the Clinton administration, to reassert a traditional view of who our friends and adversaries were, and to pursue a realist course. The terrorists' attacks on September 11, 2001, altered Bush's assessment of the central purpose of his presidency and brought his commitment to unilateral U.S. action in the world to center stage. President Bush talked about the nation's mission, what he called "our responsibility to rid the world of evil." This responsibility morphed into a commitment "to end tyranny in the world," by spreading freedom and promoting democracy globally. The administration launched preventive war (what the administration defined as preemption) against Iraq without UN authorization. In Afghanistan, while sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, the American involvement largely ignored the UN presence in the country. The president's policies challenged the bedrock UN principle of collective security, claiming the world body had not lived up to its responsibilities. Yet, he provided no guidance on reforming the liberal international order to meet the new security challenges of the twenty-first century. The terrorists' attacks on September 11, 2001, altered Bush's assessment of the central purpose of his presidency and brought his commitment to unilateral United States (US) action in the world to center stage. President Bush's realism was infused with a belief in the goodness of America and in the potential of America's immense power not only to defend its interests unilaterally but also to promote universal values. There was a moral certitude to George Bush's thinking about America's role in the world. It arose in part from his conversion to evangelical Christianity in his adulthood. Many scholars have described the intertwining of the president's religious beliefs with his view of world politics and America's involvement in those politics. Prominent neoconservatives gravitated to the Bush presidential campaign and found positions in his administration.