Course correction for Dubya

Second terms in the White House open the way for second thoughts. They provide the least awkward moment at which to replace or reshuffle key advisers. They lessen, although nothing can remove, the influence of domestic political considerations, since re-elected presidents have no next election to worry about. They enhance authority, as allies and adversaries learn 8212; whether with hope or despair 8212; with whom they will have to deal for the next four years. If there is ever a time for an administration to evaluate its own performance, this is it.

George W. Bush has much to evaluate: he has presided over the most sweeping redesign of US grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The basis for Bush8217;s grand strategy, like Roosevelt8217;s, comes from the shock of surprise attack and will not change. None of FDR8217;s successors could escape the lesson he drew from the events of December 7, 1941: that distance alone no longer protected Americans from assaults at the hands of hostile states. Neither Bush nor his successors, whatever their party, can ignore what the events of September 11, 2001, made clear: that deterrence against states affords insufficient protection from attacks by gangs, which can now inflict the kind of damage only states fighting wars used to be able to achieve. In that sense, the course for Bush8217;s second term remains that of his first one: the restoration of security in a suddenly more dangerous world8230;

The narrowest gap between Bush8217;s intentions and his accomplishments has to do with preventing another major attack on the United States8230; The fact that more than three years have passed without such an attack is significant.

Connecting causes with consequences is always difficult 8212; all the more so when we know so little of Osama bin Laden8217;s intentions or those of his followers. Perhaps Al-Qaeda planned no further attacks. Perhaps it anticipated that the United States would retaliate by invading Afghanistan and deposing the Taliban. Perhaps it foresaw US military redeployments from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Iraq. Perhaps it expected a worldwide counterterrorist campaign to roll up substantial portions of its network. Perhaps it predicted that the Bush administration would abandon its aversion to nation building and set out to democratise the Middle East. Perhaps bin Laden8217;s strategy allowed for all of this, but that seems unlikely. If it did not, then the first and most fundamental feature of the Bush strategy 8212; taking the offensive against the terrorists and thereby surprising them 8212; has so far accomplished its purposes.

Excerpted from an article by John Lewis Gaddis from January/February issue of 8216;Foreign Affairs8217;