Bush administration foreign policy has failed – and failed spectacularly. Bush sought to mobilise the world in a great campaign against new threats, but instead the world is openly questioning the legitimacy of a US-led global order. His administration is seized by the problem of terrorism and the rest of the world is seized by the problem of American unipolar power. The world may not be able to restrain the US by organising a counterbalancing coalition. But the world today is about as close as it has ever come to being in open rebellion against the one global superpower. This global rebellion is particularly intense among citizens in the advanced western democracies, America’s oldest and most established allies.

Mistakes over Iraq are emblematic of this foreign policy failure, but they are more its consequence than its cause. It is the deeper shifts in power within the state system that generate hostility and failure. Whoever wins the US presidential election will need to rethink Bush’s post-9/11 global strategy. If John Kerry wins, he will be given the most precious of political gifts – a honeymoon with the American people and its allies around the world. It will be a fleeting moment to recast the style and bargains that make up America’s global leadership strategy. Even if Bush wins, it will be necessary for his new team to send signals of restraint, commitment and reassurance – although signs of moderation and willingness to co-operate will not be fully believed in foreign capitals. But to renegotiate the global bargain, a new Kerry administration or a more sober Bush administration will also need its partners – most of all in Europe – to make compromises, compose their differences and fulfil promises. It will not be easy.

Future historians may see the last three years of American war and diplomacy as among the most ruinous since the Vietnam war. They will appreciate the difficulties that any government would have in addressing the unprecedented challenges confronting the US in the wake of 9/11. They will also give the Bush administration credit for its willingness to rethink old US national security ideas. But they will surely be puzzled at how such a powerful country – bolstered by the sympathy of the world in the wake of the terrorist attacks – could find itself so quickly disliked, resisted, isolated and bereft of legitimacy. This state of affairs is all the more tragic because it appears to be mostly self-inflicted.

• Share
•  Subscribe to post comments