01:790:319 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Robert Kagan, Bush Doctrine, Unilateralism
18 Dec 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Fall 18 - Lecture 23
Bush, Obama and the Iraq War I
The Power Divide (Kagan)
Of Paradise and Power- Book by Kagan
• The most influential books in the study of IR generally of the last 30 to 40 years
• Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
• More famous in policy circles than in scholarly work
• New books - same critique of Obama and Trump
o The Jungle Grows Back
o The World America Made
• The Power Divide
o Enormous Impact
o Published the year before the Iraq War
o Transatlantic solidary - high in the wake of the attacks
Robert Kagan
• Close links to Bush Admin
o Intellectual framework used to rationalize:
▪ Bush Doctrine
▪ Iraq War
• Part of the GOP foreign policy establishment
o Republican - conservative commentator
o Leading neoconservative intellection scholar
• Hates Donald Trump- Rather have an internationalist democrat than isolationist republican
o Why does he hate Trump? If you switch Iraq for Iran its the same argument
o Trump doesn’t read books - doesn't know who Kagan is
o Obama reads Kagan's book - held the book the World America Made to communicate he
is not withdrawing from the world
Different worldviews of Americans and Europeans
• Divergence over American intervention in Iraq
• Crisis of Transatlantic Relations
• US from EU perspective
o Resorts to force more quickly
o Less patient with diplomacy
o World divided between good and evil
o Favor coercion rather than persuasion
o Punitive sanctions
o Finality in IR affairs
o Tend toward unilateralism
o Less include to use IR institutions
• How Europeans view themselves:
o Sophistication
o Tolerate of failure - patient
o Prefer persuasion and internarial option
o Commercial and economic ties to binding nations together
Document Summary
Robert kagan: close links to bush admin. Intellectual framework used to rationalize: bush doctrine. 1990s nato: fought military campaign against serbia in kosovo war, give alliance boost in a post cold war period. Importance of nato was rising high until 9/11. Or a more fundamental conflict of interest between eu and us: both can agree saddam hussein was a problem, policy instrument: how to deal with the problem - how do we deal with saddam. Power divide: differences in approaches do not reflect diplomatic incompetence on either sides, power divide: europeans favor non military approaches because they are regional powers with a weak military. The us has overwhelming military strength; when you have a hammer problems look like nails. Differences in power explain policy preferences: power divide: change the american president, put some different, put someone more intelligent and much nicer, someone the europeans will like a lot, like obama.
