RSS
Print This PageIs There a New Bush Doctrine?
It’s a little late in the Bush administration to be creating new foreign policy doctrines, but the NYT suggests that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates did just that in his speech yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment. According to the NYT, this is the key sentence is the most expansive articulation yet of the nuclear deterrence policy:
Today we also make clear that the United States will hold any state, terrorist group or other nonstate actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction — whether by facilitating, financing or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts,
I don’t really see anything radical here, but then again I haven’t been parsing this stuff as carefully as some folks. I think that the NYT sees this as expanding deterrence and threats of military retaliation, not just against the states that use nukes against the US, but to any state that aids a terrorist group in obtaining nukes or WMDs.
As a legal matter, this is possibly a new and independent assertion of the President’s constitutional powers to use military force against WMDs and terrorists, since there is no emphasis here on the Sept. 11 resolution that limits such acts to groups that were involved in Sept. 11. Or it might be nothing. Since there are rumors that President Obama (?) would keep Gates on , at least for a while, maybe this doctrine has a future?
Related Posts
http://opiniojuris.org/2008/10/29/is-there-a-new-bush-doctrine/
2 Responses
-
[...] Ku at Opinion Juris says this is “possibly a new and independent assertion of the President’s constitutional [...]
Whether or not this statement is new depends on what it purports to say. One main question here is whether “hold . . . fully accountable” means will use force (or consider using force) against. Assuming that this is so, there are two points of note in this statement.
First, the US will use force directed not just against States but also directed at non-State groups. Second, the US will use force against those who not only use weapons of mass destruction but those who obtain it or those who facilitate, finance, provide or otherwise assist in obtaining WMD. Arguably, neither is a new doctrine for the US leaving only the question of whether they are consistent with international law.
The first point above - the US will use force against non-State actors - represents what the US did in Afghanistan post 9/11, what it has done in Somalia at various points in the past couple of years, in Yemen, and more recently in Pakistan. Other states have asserted a similar right. Think of Turkey in Northern Iraq (with regard to the PKK), Uganda and Rwanda in the DRC, Columbia in Ecuador (with regard to FARC). The question is whether it is lawful for one State to use force in self-defence against a non-State group located on another State but which has attacked the first State. This is a point that has been debated quite a lot in recent years. State practice increasingly says this is lawful where the State on which the non-State actor is located is not able or willing to. However, the ICJ in the Nicaragua case said that such a use of force is not lawful where the State on which the non-State group is located has not sent and does not control the non-State group. The ICJ confirmed this view in the Wall Advisory Opinion, the Armed Activities case (DRC v. Uganda) which of course both came after 9/11. So, the question is whether the ICJ is right to maintain this position. But nothing here indicates a new doctrine on the part of the US. Its a doctrine consistent with previous US policy and practice. The question is whether this policy and practice is consistent with international law.
The second point can be regarded as an interpretation of Bush doctrine of pre-emption. However, what it does is to give us a more concrete definition of the types of action that the US will regard as a threat sufficient to invoke that doctrine. So the mere acquisition of WMD or even facilitating the acquisition of one will be regarded as a threat. Assuming “hold . . . fully accountable” means “will (or might) use force against” then this statement means the US will use force against those who are causing the threat. I think those who oppose the bush doctrine of pre-emption would say they foresaw that the doctrine would be interpreted in this way and therefore Secretary Gates statement is not a new doctrine.
at 5:28 pm EST Dapo Akande