Preemption as an instrument of US foreign policy. (c2004)

Abstract

The future direction of American foreign policy in the post-cold war changed dramatically with September 11, 2001. The September 11 terrorist attack on U.S marked the collective conscious of the country and of its foreign policy. The neo-conservatives who for the first time in U.S history occupied the highest positions in the Bush Administration saw this catastrophe as an opportunity to achieve their long held goals and objectives. The most prominent objective was the use of preemption as a self-defense against rogue regimes. In the absence of the Soviet Union threat and in the aftermath of September 11 crisis, preemption was elevated to the status core of the security doctrine and coupled with regime change strategy, unilateralism and democratization. This doctrine was first applied in Afghanistan and then on Iraq and tend to be the 21 st century American foreign policy. This thesis concludes that the preemptive strategy on Iraq has showed that this strategy was only used to allow the U.S to intervene and spread its power abroad. Hence preemption under the power of the neoconservatives has become the raison d'etre of U.S imperialism.