Bush Doctrine - Components

Components

The Bush Doctrine has been defined as a collection of strategy principles, practical policy decisions, and a set of rationales and ideas for guiding United States foreign policy. Two main pillars are identified for the doctrine: preemptive strikes against potential enemies and promoting democratic regime change.

The George W. Bush administration claimed that the United States is locked in a global war; a war of ideology, in which its enemies are bound together by a common ideology and a common hatred of democracy.

Out of the National Security Strategy, four main points are highlighted as the core to the Bush Doctrine: Preemption, Military Primacy, New Multilateralism, and the Spread of Democracy. The document emphasized preemption by stating: "America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few," and required "defending the United States, the American people, and our interests at home and abroad by identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches our borders."

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld remarked thus in 2006, in a statement taken to reflect his view of the Doctrine's efficacy: "If I were rating, I would say we probably deserve a D or D+ as a country as how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place. I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but we have not found the formula as a country."

In his 2010 memoir Decision Points, President Bush articulates his discrete concept of the Bush Doctrine. According to the President, his doctrine consisted of four "prongs," three of them practical, and one idealistic. They are the following: (In his words)

1. "Make no distinction between terrorists and the nations that harbor them--and hold both to account."
2. "Take the fight to the enemy overseas before they can attack us again here at home."
3. "Confront threats before they fully materialize."
4. "Advance liberty and hope as an alternative to the enemy's ideology of repression and fear."