War on Terror Greatly Reshapes US Foreign Policy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 18, 2002

War on Terror Greatly Reshapes US Foreign Policy

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The on-going global war on terror launched by the Bush administration following the September 11 attacks has greatly reshaped many aspects of US foreign policy and will have a far-reaching impact on international relations and global strategic configurations.

First, the Bush administration, widely criticized for adopting a unilateral approach in foreign affairs since it took office in January 2000, has gone even more unilateral in the wake of the unprecedented terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

In order to isolate terrorists and build up an international coalition against terror, US President George W. Bush came up with what was billed as the Bush Doctrine, saying "you are either with us or against us."

The doctrine not only makes no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them but also does not allow neutrality, effectively forcing countries around the world to choose sides in the US-led campaign against terror.

In the case of Iraq, the Bush administration has repeatedly threatened that country with unilateral military action and pronounced "regime change" in Baghdad as its stated policy.

Although Bush eventually went to the United Nations and US Congress on the Iraq issue, he only did so to ask that they recognize his freedom and authority to act.

For the Bush administration, as an analyst said on the US National Public Radio, even a seemingly multilateral approach is nothing but a means to an unilateral end.

Secondly, under the pretext of an anti-terror war, the Bush administration has formulated an aggressive national security strategy characterized by the right to strike preemptively and the development and eventual deployment of a national missile defense system.

In his first state of the union address, delivered in January this year, President Bush listed Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as "an axis of evil," accusing them of seeking weapons of mass destruction to threaten the US and its allies.

Speaking to cadets at West Point in June this year, Bush added preemptive strikes to his doctrine, arguing that the US could not wait until a potential threat to its security grew into a real one.

The president vowed his country would use every weapon and every means at its disposal in dealing with terrorists and would, if necessary, strike preemptively any potentially threatening targets, especially in the case of threats posed by weapons of mass destruction.

Three months later, the administration published its National Security Strategy, formally endorsing preemptive strikes as part of its foreign policy.

The administration also used the war on terror to justify its quest for a national missile system, saying that the US needs sucha system to deal with threats of weapons of mass destruction and to deter any potential new challenge to its military supremacy.

Thirdly, the war on terror, which has become the top priority of the Bush administration's foreign policy, has already had a direct impact on US relations with other countries.

On the one hand, Moscow, an unlikely US ally even yesterday, has successfully seized the opportunity to greatly improve its relations with Washington by lending support to the US-led campaign against terror.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call President Bush to convey his condolences to Americans shortly after the September 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000people and caused about 100 billion US dollars in direct economic losses.

When the Bush administration decided to respond with a military action against Afghanistan, Russia not only allowed the US to approach countries in its backyard for help, but also offered intelligence cooperation.

In return for Russian support, the Bush administration gave a tacit approval to Moscow's crackdown on the separatists in Chechnya and condemned the hostage taking by Chechen rebels in a Moscow theater in late October.

On the other hand, however, US relations with traditional allies such as Saudi Arabia and most member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have been strained by differences over the war on terror.

NATO countries, with the exception of Britain, had been uneasy with the Bush administration's unilateralism even before the September 11 attacks.

When the Bush administration threatened Iraq with military action and vowed to go it alone if necessary, France and Germany came out to be among the strongest opponents. The rampant anti-Americanism in Europe reflects growing cross-Atlantic differences.

The current focus of US diplomacy, needless to say, is Iraq. The Bush administration has announced a policy of zero tolerance towards Baghdad, vowing that it will lead a coalition of willing nations to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if he refuses to give up alleged weapons of mass destruction.

US media bills the Iraq issue as the first major test of Bush's preemption doctrine. Analysts here believe that the final settlement of the Iraq issue, whether by military means or in a peaceful way, will be a benchmark for judging how far the US foreign policy has gone on the path of unilateralism or aggressive interventionism.

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