NPR for North Texas
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Bush Doctrine - A Commentary

By Chip Pitts, KERA 90.1 Commentator

Dallas, TX – The Bush Doctrine began by equating terrorists with the nations harboring them. It then aimed to stop the "Axis of Evil" nations - Iraq, North Korea, and Iran - from using weapons of mass destruction. In its new form, it's about "acting first" against such nations before they can harm the U.S.

Such serious threats may undoubtedly justify force in self-defense. But will this truly novel doctrine of preemptive force really work to prevent the threats, or will it just make them worse?

The current legal framework for the international use of force favors collective security. The exception allowing self-defense by individual nations doesn't allow unlimited self-defense against other nations merely perceived as possible threats. For example, how would we feel if the doctrine were applied by India against Pakistan, or Israel against Palestine? As it has done before, the administration is forgetting the important test of reciprocity.

Aside from the problems under international law, the Bush doctrine has no logical stopping point. The justification for criminal law in the new Tom Cruise movie - as in real life - goes beyond punishment and deterrence. It tries to prevent future harm by incarceration and, at the extreme, execution. But transferring this rationale to the international stage without criminal law's proof requirement raises the same problems as in the movie.

Efforts to prevent manageable risks are vital. But attempts to prevent all risk are both impossible and counterproductive. They can actually create new risks by breeding more terrorists and fracturing the coalition.

Preemption may seem to be possible and even attractive for a nation like the U.S., whose military, economic, and other power so dwarfs that of other nations. But as previous empires throughout history have learned, arrogant actions taken from a seemingly invulnerable perch can be the first cause of serious decline.

Classified reports from the administration cast doubt on whether the Afghan war has reduced the terrorist threat. Instead, the experts think the threat may have merely mutated, as al Qaeda operatives dive deeper undercover, work with other Muslim and non-Muslim extremists, use harder-to-identify operatives from non-Arab countries, and adopt new and different targets and strategies.

The Afghan war was cathartic for the U.S. and may have achieved some short-term tactical advantages. But to think that further attacks on nations will defeat the resilient networks of individual terrorists is as much fiction as the new Tom Cruise movie. Victory will come only through keeping and strengthening the shared human bonds that tie the citizens of the world together. That includes, above all, cultivating and using common legal norms and law enforcement efforts.

Chip Pitts is an international lawyer based in Dallas.