A Wisdom Archive on American foreign policy

A doctrine permitting pre-emptive war can be seen as a change from the practice of limiting preemptive strikes to the destruction of specific targets as a means of self-defense, and from focusing on the doctrine of deterrence (for instance, the Cold War policy of mutually assured destruction. Preemptive military action to destroy specific targets, short of war, has long been a part of American practice. The Bush Administration, in its September 2002 National Security Strategy[2] paper wrote, “The United States has long maintained th ...

Read more here: » Bush Doctrine: Encyclopedia II - Bush Doctrine - Comparison with previous US foreign policy

The term now generally refers to the set of policies unveiled by Bush in a June 1, 2002, speech to the graduating class of West Point. Unlike the initial "harboring terrorist" formulation, which clarified rather than altered long-standing US policy, the new statements marked a major shift in US foreign policy, and included these salient elements: Bush Doctrine - Preemption. A policy of pre-emptive war, should the US or its allies be threatened by terrorists or by rogue states that are engaged ...

Read more here: » Bush Doctrine: Encyclopedia II - Bush Doctrine - Broader formulation: The new role of the US as a collaborative power

By the late 1890s, with the increase in international conflicts, Adler switched his concern from domestic issues to the question of American foreign policy. While some contemporaries viewed the 1898 Spanish American War as an act to liberate the Cubans from Spanish rule, others perceived the U.S. victories in the Caribbean and the Philippines as the beginning of an expansionist empire. Adler at first supported the war but later expressed anxiety about American sovereignty over the Philippines and Puerto Rico, concluding that an imperialistic ...

Read more here: » Felix Adler: Encyclopedia II - Felix Adler - American foreign policy

Bush Doctrine - Paul Wolfowitz and the Defense Planning Guidance text of 1992. Tracing the history of the doctrine back through the Department of Defense it appears the first full explication of the doctrine was the initial "final draft" version of the internal Defense Planning Guidance guidelines written by Paul Wolfowitz, then in the role of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in 1992. When the guidelines, commonly termed the Wolfowitz Doctrine, were leaked to the press and a controversy arose, the George H. W. Bush White House ordered it re-written. The r ...

Read more here: » Bush Doctrine: Encyclopedia II - Bush Doctrine - Roots of the Bush Doctrine

He attended the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies before entering the civil service at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1972. He has served in embassies in Poland, India, Paris, and Moscow, and within the FCO he has worked on the Central American desk, the Russian desk and held several senior positions. He has represented the UK in Brussels and also at the International C ...

Read more here: » David Manning: Encyclopedia II - David Manning - Biography

Appropriately for a self-described "contrarian" who deliberately seeks to provoke, Hitchens is the subject of considerable praise and admiration, as well as of severe criticism. Among his admirers are The Observer writer Lynn Barber, who wrote a glowing profile of him in 2002 [10] and the editors, including David Horowitz, at FrontPageMag.com who appreciate his support for the Iraq war and his criticisms of the Left. In September 2005, Hitchens was named as one of the "Top 100 Public Intelle ...

Read more here: » Christopher Hitchens: Encyclopedia II - Christopher Hitchens - Praise for and criticism of Hitchens

In a national security policy review session held in the White House on October 6, 1993, President Clinton directed the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral David G. Jeremiah, to stop all actions by U.S. forces against Aidid except those required in self-defense. He also reappointed Ambassador Robert B. Oakley as special envoy to Somalia in an attempt to broker a peace settlement and then announced that all U.S. Forces would withdraw from Somalia no later than March 31, 1994. On December 15, 1993, Secretary of Defense Les As ...

Read more here: » Battle of Mogadishu: Encyclopedia II - Battle of Mogadishu - Consequences of the operation

Christopher Hitchens - Early career. Hitchens became a Trotskyist during his years as a student at Oxford University, where he was tutored by Steven Lukes and was impressed by the example of Noam Chomsky (Hitchens 1985). He wrote for the magazine International Socialism, which was published by the International Socialists, the forerunners of today's British Socialist Workers Party. This group was broadly Trotskyist but differed from more orthodox Trotskyist groups in its refusal to defend communist states ...

Read more here: » Christopher Hitchens: Encyclopedia II - Christopher Hitchens - Political views

With the establishment of Israel in May 1948, a binational solution became largely moot when much of Israel's native Arab population was displaced in the ensuing conflict. Some aspects of the binational ideal - such as equal political rights for the remaining Arabs - were granted in principle, but this was limited by the Israeli leadership's determination that the country would have a Jewish majority and political leadership. Successive Israeli governments have pursued a policy of encouraging Jewish immigration to Israel, known as aliyah (literally "ascent" ...

Read more here: » Binational solution: Encyclopedia II - Binational solution - Binationalism in Israel 1948-1973

Chomskyan models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages. This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical terms [4], and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists. A number of arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results. The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, us ...

Read more here: » Noam Chomsky: Encyclopedia II - Noam Chomsky - Chomsky's influence in other fields

There are many who criticize the Bush Doctrine, suspicious of the increasing willingness of the US to use military force unilaterally. Critics believe that requiring any country (including the United States) to obtain international support before undertaking offensive military action is necessary to prevent the escalation of conflicts and the dominance of one nation over others. In addition, many criticisms have arisen around the doctrine's assertion that the United States will never allow any potential adversary -- a term which is unlikely to exclude many states -- to develop the military ...

Read more here: » Bush Doctrine: Encyclopedia II - Bush Doctrine - Criticisms of the Bush Doctrine