Easier Said Than Done free essay sample

After seeing Obama’s first term and the various foreign policy issues he has faced, there are ways Obama has kept his promise and distance from the Bush administration, but he has also continued several key components of the â€Å"Bush Doctrine,† being unable to ‘walk his talk. ’ I argue that in the case of drone usage as a form of imminent threat defense, Obama is using legal defense started by the Bush administration and continuing to arm Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s (UAV’s) in order to wage war on terrorism. However, the current president has moved away from Bush’s reliance on unilateralism to solve world conflict, especially in Libya. I will first introduce the legality of the use of drones and how Obama has built off Bush-era arguments, and then move to Libya and highlight the current administrations push for multilateralism in a post-Bush world. In order to provide a short roadmap of the essay to follow, I’ll provide a short summary of the necessary points. First, I will discuss Obama’s continuation of Bush’s use of drones in war. The continuation is based on the legal principle Bush created which enabled this use, a principle Obama has stood behind. Second, I will detail a divergence Obama’s administration took from Bush’s policies in the form of multilateralist approaches to foreign conflict. The definition I have used for multilateralism is a campaign or intervention is a campaign or intervention with shared responsibility amongst several different parties or nations. In the case of Bush, his policy are seen as more unilateral, or operations led substantially by only one group without committed cooperation from other groups. There are several examples of this throughout the last four years, so I will focus on solely the Libyan intervention for brevity. Then I will wrap everything up in a short conclusion. Building a case for drone usage in the War on Terror was very much a cornerstone of the 43rd President of the United States. During a speech at West Point, Bush warned, â€Å"if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. † (11) Beginning in 2004 as part of the â€Å"Bush Doctrine,† drone strikes have been carried out in Northwest Pakistan and areas of Yemen and Somalia as a means to limit American casualties. 3) According to current CIA director John Brennan: â€Å"They dramatically reduce the danger to US personnel and to innocent civilians, especially considered against massive ordnance that can cause injury and death far beyond the intended target. † (9) Due to the elimination of risk to human life drones provide, the number of drone strikes has incre ased exponentially since Obama took office, soaring from a five year total of 44 in five Bush years to 200 in three years under Obama. (4) Using this defense as a military strategy, there is little argument drone strikes can keep American soldiers safer. What allowed for a true continuance of unmanned air strikes is the legal precedent that Bush was able to establish and hand down to Obama. With recent concern caused by the drone killing of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Congress has put Obama’s legal defense to the test. The strikes are defended in two forums, one solid and the other fairly grey. In the instance of targeting Al-Qaeda, the mutual state of war with their organization allows for any and all uses of forces in order to defeat enemy combatants. The second defense comes from the imminent threat aspect of international self-defense. According to international law, the United States is given the chance to step in when it considers itself to be â€Å"under the immediate threat of enemy attack. † (1) Considering the subjective power that is placed in the hands of the CIA, imminent threat has drawn the sharpest criticisms. Stepping to Obama’s defense in the case of al-Awlaki was a surprising ally in John Yoo, the Bush administration lawyer who authored legal memos for the war on terror, stating â€Å"If an American joins an nemy with which we are at war, he is or she is a valid target as an enemy combatant. Thats been the rule throughout our history. † (2) Even though the use of drone strikes has been its most controversial in the past two months of Obama’s presidency, it is a military strategy in place since the Bush administration. Despite the similarities between the 21st century’s first two presidents, there are also some deep rifts between their approaches to foreign diplomacy. Bush’s policies are widely viewed as fundamentally unilateral, especially when you dig past the surface of symbolic gesture and look for the substantive actions. From the same speech at West Point mentioned earlier, Bush is quoted, â€Å"we cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically break them†¦ (our security will require) a military that must be ready to strike at a moments notice in any dark corner of the world. (11) This mistrust of nations other than his own portrays Bush in a way that appears unwilling to compromise early on in his presidency, especially in the 2003 Iraq War. The U. S. took on the most risk and covered the most costs in what would historically be considered as an argument against unilateralism. The predecessor to this war was Afghanistan, another equally unpopular war during Bush’s time. You could argue that Bush pursued a multilateralist policy with this conflict, rallying post-9/11 support from more than a dozen allies. However, what initially looks like a team approach to Afghanistan actually falters after two points. First, you have the tragedy of the Twin Towers, an act of terrorism which shook the entire western world into action. Alliances were upheld without any sort of effort from the Bush administration. Second, Bush’s multilateralist approach was symbolic early on but when push came to shove, his administration resorted to taking business into its own hands, especially as commitments from other nations began to fade with escalation. The unpopular public reaction to these wars most likely influenced Obama, who staunchly opposed the Bush administrations decision-making in Iraq. Addressing the U. N. General Assembly in 2009, Mr. Obama urged, â€Å"Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone. We have sought in word and deed a new era of engagement with the world, and now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges. (13) An early critic of Bush’s brutish approach to foreign affairs, Obama fired shots in 2008 during his campaign: â€Å"instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy. † (12) This multi-lateral and cooperative approach to foreign relations is a push by the Obama administration to re-establish poor ties with nations critical to the United States reinforcing its dominance. One of his first moves towards this was the Combined Task Force, assembled to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden in August 2008. The US, Russia, France, China, Japan, and India came together to rotate command of a fleet of 15 battleships in the region. (6) On top of this, the best current example of this departure from the Bush doctrine can be seen in Libya, where the president has a made a solid commitment to favor international cooperation and downplay the United States as a lone wolf. First, we waited for the Arab League to invite us to take action. Then we got the U. N. Security Council to authorize that action. And then we insisted that the air war be undertaken and commanded by NATO, not by ourselves. By winning agreement from NATO allies to assume command of the fight and securing a UN Security Council resolution authorizing â€Å"all necessary means,† Obama began the Libyan conflict by cementing global legitimacy and conflict sharing from many of its coalition members. (13) By â€Å"leading from behind,† the U. S. as able to strategically use its highly advanced military technology in order to open the door for a largely European suffocation of the Libyan enemies. In summation, American Foreign Policy in the hands of Obama does not have the massive makeover from the Bush Doctrine that Obama promised during his campaign. While there are a few fundamental changes, as evidenced with the lean towards multilateralism, there are still several continui ng Bush-era policies within his administration. When it comes to the drone strikes, Obama has seemingly ramped up their usage after many thought he would iscontinue them. There is also evidence of continued Bush policies in Guantanamo Bay and his promises against Syria based on chemical weapons usage. Despite these similarities, Obama maintains a 49% positive view from the world, while Bush left with only 28%. An interesting next step in the comparison of Foreign Policy from Bush to Obama would be exploring the differences in popularity between the two. I can only speculate that Bush may be a little bitter about his successor’s enduring global likeability. Works Cited 1. Byers, Dylan. Obamas Drones, Eisenhowers Poison.   Politico. N. p. , 29 Apr. 2013. Web. 2. Jackson, David. Bush Lawyer Defends Obama on Drones.   USA Today. Gannett, 8 Mar. 2013. Web. 07 May 2013. 3. Covert War on Terror the Datasets.   The Bureau of Investigative Journalism RSS. N. p. , 10 Aug. 2011. Web. 07 May 2013. 4. Covert War on Terror the Datasets.   The Bureau of Investigative Journalism RSS. N. p. , 3 Jan. 2013. Web. 07 May 2013. 5. Krauthammer, Charles. In Defense of Obamas Drone War.   Washington Post. N. p. , 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 07 May 2013. 6. Patrick, Stewart M. Council on Foreign Relations.   Council on Foreign Relations. N. p. , 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 07 May 2013. 7. Lyman, John. President Obama’s Multilateralism: Its Effectiveness and Weaknesses.   International Policy Digest. N. p. , 27 Mar. 2011. Web. 07 May 2013. 8. Cortright, David. A Major Win for Obamas Libya Policy.   CNN. Cable News Network, 22 Aug. 2011. Web. 07 May 2013. 9. Ghosh, Bob, and Mark Thompson/Washington. The CIAs Silent War in Pakistan.   Time. Time, 1 June 2009. Web. 07 May 2013. 10. AP Staff. Al-Awlaki Killed in Yemen.   Washington Post. N. p. , 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 6 May 2013. 11. Office of the Press Secretary. President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point.   President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point. N. p. , 1 June 2002. Web. 07 May 2013. 12. OKeefe, Ed. Obama Takes Issue With Bush Foreign Policy Speech.   ABC News. ABC News Network, 15 May 2008. Web. 07 May 2013. 13. Creamer, Robert. The Qualitative Diff erence Between Obama And Bush Foreign Policy.   The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost. com, 23 June 2011. Web. 07 May 2013.