1st Edition

The Politics of Empire War, Terror and Hegemony

Edited By Joseph Peschek Copyright 2005

    In the year after the September 11, 2001 attacks the Bush administration put together the elements of a far-reaching foreign policy doctrine based on unilateral action, pre-emptive military strikes, and prevention of the emergence of any strategic rivals to U.S. supremacy. Bush’s grand strategy was formalized in a September 17, 2002 presidential report called The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. The report argued for pre-emptive strikes against rogue states and terrorists, even if faced with international opposition, and for the maintenance of American military supremacy. Additionally the report placed the U.S. off-limits to international law, asserting that the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court "does not extend to Americans." Underlying the Bush doctrine is the notion that the U.S. must remain the unchallenged power in world affairs. "The United States possesses unprecedented – and unequaled – strength and influence in the world," the report began. Supremacy involves maintaining forces that "will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States." Many questions are raised by the trajectory of U.S. policy under George W. Bush. What is distinctive about the Bush administration’s militarism and unilateralism? What are the political, ideological, and economic roots of the turn in U.S. foreign policy under George W. Bush? In what ways has the "war on terrorism" affected politics inside the United States in terms of civil liberties, treatment of immigrants, domestic and economic policy, and political discourse more generally? The Politics of Empire examines critically these and other urgent political and analytical questions.

    This is a Special Issue of the Journal New Political Science

    Introduction

    Joseph G. Peschek, Hamline University



    US Grand Strategy and Its Contradictions

    Carl Boggs, National University, Los Angeles



    Pretexts and U.S. Foreign Policy: The War on Terrorism in Historical Perspective

    David N. Gibbs, University of Arizona



    Neoliberalism By Other Means: The War on Terror At Home and Abroad

    Gordon Lafer, University of Oregon



    War Without End: The Domestic Economic Fallout of Empire

    Sheila D. Collins, William Paterson University



    We Don’t Torture People in America: Coercive Interrogation in the Global Village

    Edward Greer,



    Minority Report on the Bush Doctrine

    Gerard Huiskamp



    Preemptive Strikes and the War on Iraq: A Critique of Bush Administration Unilateralism and Militarism

    Douglas Kellner



    What to Expect From U.S. Democracy Promotion in Iraq

    William I. Robinson



    Consensual Deception and US Policy in Iraq

    Irene Gendzier

    Biography

    Joseph G. Peschek (Edited by)