New Old World Order? The Foreign-Policy of the George W. Bush Administration

Will the election of Republican George W. Bush as President usher in changes in foreign policy with regard to Serbia, Yugoslavia, and the Balkans? Will there be a continuation of „humanitarian interventionism“, „military humanism“, „economic globalism“ and „globalization“?

The Bush Administration foreign policy team has rejected the selective humanitarian interventionism of the Bill Clinton/Al Gore Administration, as espoused by Madeleine Albright and James Rubin. John Hulsman, Balkans adviser to Bush, announced that Bush was concerned about „imperial overstretch“ and has rejected a foreign policy that uses the US military in „nation building“. Hulsman has announced a „philosophical sea change“ in Balkans foreign policy? But is that assertion valid? Who will make up the new foreign policy team in the Bush Administration?

President-elect George W. Bush has announced his foreign policy team: Colin Powell will be Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld will be Secretary of Defense, and Condoleezza Rice will be the National Security adviser in the new cabinet. Along with Vice-President-elect Dick Cheney, they are Republican conservative veterans of the Cold War foreign policy paradigm. They are all experienced in Cold War diplomacy, all are hard-nosed Cold Warriors. Donald Rumsfeld joined the Richard Nixon Administration in 1969 and was Secretary of Defense in the Gerald Ford Administration in 1975. Colin Powell was Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman in the George Bush Administration. Rice was a senior adviser on Soviet affairs and Eastern Europe during the same Administration.

Like Cheney, Rumsfeld was part of the Gerald Ford Adminstration. Rumsfeld was Ford’s chief of staff. He became a Congressman in 1962, resigning in 1969 to join the Richard Nixon Administration during the Vietnam War. He was ambassador to NATO, headed the poverty program, and was part of a Commission in 1998 that warned of a missile threat to the US by „rogue“ states. He strongly supports the missile defense program, the revamped „Star Wars missile shield“ from the Ronald Reagan era. Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee called his nomination a strong choice. Republican John Warner of Virginia stated that it was â€œfortunate that this experienced, tested, tough-minded old hand had returned.

Rice will be the chief foreign policy adviser to Bush. She has a political science background and was a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. After 1986, she worked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. on nuclear strategic planning as part of the Council for Foreign Relations. In 1989, she was the director of Soviet and Eastern European affairs within the National Security Council in the Bush Administration. She was senior director for Soviet affairs. She is thus a political scientist and a Soviet „specialist“. She is also a corporate board member of the Chevron Corporation, the Hewlett Foundation, Charles Schwab, and is on a council for J.P. Morgan. She is an experienced hand from the Bush Administration of 1989-1993 so she is merely making a return, like Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld. We are seeing the return of many old faces.

The Bush Administration is committed to withdrawing all US ground troops from the Balkans in four years. John Hulsman, the Balkans adviser to Bush, announced this change in US foreign policy as follows:

“There will be a philosophical sea change when Bush is in the White House. After four years there will be no American ground troops in the Balkans.”

There are currently 10,000 US ground troops in the Balkans. As part of the Kosovo KFOR contingent, there are 5,500 US troops at Bondsteel in eastern Kosovo. As part of SFOR in Bosnia at the Tuzla base there are 4,500 US troops. The Bush Administration has plans to change Sfor, Stabilization force, to DFOR, Deterrence force, with a reduction in troop strength. Richard Perle, a foreign policy adviser to Bush, supports „a drawing down“ of US troops. The Bush foreign policy team thus rejects humanitarian interventionism as developed by Madeleine Albright and rejects using the US military in nation building and peace-keeping projects. Colin Powell has long voiced the view that the US military should not be used for peace-keeping and nation building. The US should only use massive force to achieve clearly defined military objectives, the so-called Powell Doctrine. Powell, a veteran of the Vietnam War, seeks to avoid Vietnam-style quagmires. Instead, the Bush team wants to base foreign policy strictly on national interest. What do these changes in foreign policy entail?

The George W. Bush Administration is by all appearances merely a continuation of the George Bush Administration of 1989-1993, which itself was merely a continuation of the Ronald Reagan Administration of 1981-1989. This was the Administration that intervened in Panama and launched the Persian Gulf War. Many of the foreign policy staff of that period will be returning to the new administration, including Powell, Rice, and Perle. The new administration looks a lot like the old administration. Is it the Old World Order or is it the New World Order or the New Old World Order? There is a return to the past rather than a turn to the future. Indeed, the anachronistic Star Wars missile defense shield of the Reagan Administration is returning under the sponsorship of Rumsfeld. Is the US really in danger of missile attack from „rogue states“? Moreover, the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty with the Soviet Union would be violated if the US created a „Missile Shield“. This new/old Star Wars Program endangers relations with Russia. Will there be a new arms race? Will we see a return of the Cold War? Everything old is new again. There is an atmosphere of déjà vu. But what changes does this return entail for the Balkans?

It was George Bush who announced that he was drawing a „line in the sand“ in Kosovo in 1992. He warned that Serbia would be attacked if Serbia „invaded Kosovo“. It was George Bush who initially characterized the Kosovo Conflict in anti-Serbian terms, de-legitimized the borders, and rejected Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. The Bush Administration US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, the self-proclaimed „last ambassador“, Warren Zimmermann, initiated the disastrous foreign policy in Bosnia that resulted in civil war and the needless loss of life and suffering. Bush’s Secretary of State James A. Baker III initiated the anti-Serbian propaganda and infowar against Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox populations of the former Yugoslavia. His callous and cynical statement that the „US has no dog in that fight“ only encouraged the propagandists and the US State Department to manufacture an interest, whether it was to prevent genocide, to exert leadership around the globe, to expand NATO into Eastern Europe, or to find a role for the anachronistic NATO, to prevent Russia from establishing a warm water base in the Adriatic (as espoused by Cokie Roberts of ABC News). It was a propaganda free-for-all. The propaganda that worked best was the Holocaust propaganda and the genocide propaganda. The US had a dog in that fight, it was to see that minorities were protected, that all ethnic groups be given the right of self-determination, that democracy be espoused for all ethnic groups, that justice and democracy prevailed, that secession be negotiated with Belgrade and the successor states and not imposed by Germany. It was Baker who told Margaret Tutweiler to begin the infowar against Serbia as related in his memoirs The Politics of Diplomacy. Tutweiler was told to inform her contacts in the major US media networks what policy line they were to follow, i.e., handout journalism. Baker also informed Haris Siljadzic that the Bosnian Muslim leadership should seek to gain support for their position through public relations and through a propaganda war against the Serbian populace. Bush, Zimmermann, and Baker, thus, bear a large share of the responsibility for the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia and especially the conflict in Bosnia. Moreover, the Republican position on Bosnia and Kosovo, especially as espoused by Bob Dole, differed very little from the Democratic position.

What we are seeing is not only a return of the Reagan/Bush era, but a return of a Vietnam and Cold War era mentality or mind-set. The Bush Administration is made up of Cold Warriors who are anachronisms in the 21st century. There is no longer a Cold War. The primary foreign policy objectives now are economic development, commerce, and trade. Why did Bush select persons who are veterans of the Vietnam and Cold Wars? Is he looking forward or backward?

What about Bosnia and Kosovo? NATO expansion is a goal of the Bush Administration. The Bush Administration policy on Yugoslavia is identical to the Clinton Administration position. Bush and Gore and Clinton differ on that very little. So will there be a „philosophical sea change“ in Balkans foreign policy when Bush takes the helm from Clinton? Few recall that it was the George Bush Administration that committed US peace-keeping troops in Somalia, a crisis which the Clinton Administration inherited from Bush. Like-wise, the Bosnia conflict was inherited by Clinton from the Bush Administration. Now George W. Bush seeks to re-construct and re-assemble the Reagan/Bush Administration. The context and the conditions, however, have changed. The assertion that US ground troops will be returned from the Balkans is empty and hollow rhetoric and political posturing. It was Bill Clinton who asserted that US ground troops would be out of Bosnia within one year. Does anyone recall? It is now five years and the US ground troops are still there. With Bush, they will remain for another four years for a combined deployment of nine years. Is this a Vietnam-style quagmire? So the new assertions by the Bush foreign policy team are empty rhetorical statements meant as a slap in the face for the outgoing Administration. Very little looks to change in US foreign policy towards the Balkans. It will be business as usual.

Originally published on 2007-07-28

Author: Carl K. Savich

Source: Serbianna

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!

Donate to Support Us

We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

READ MORE!

Greece in the Mediterranean Security System

With respect to Greece’s role in the Mediterranean security system, the multilateralist formula applied to the region including the Balkans as well as is the orienting principle for the Greek foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Since 1994, the opportunities for NATO’s and EU’s initiatives were more than apparent for Athens when Greece (wrongly) understood the Euro-Atlantic community as a fundamental security player for the extending the values of security and co-operation into this structurally unbalanced region. During the Cold War, the Greek policy-makers also found (wrongly) since 1952 that the US-led NATO offered allegedly excellent opportunities ...

Kosovo Wants to Establish its Own Armed Forces

RT: Kosovo wants to establish an army and has received several Humvee armoured vehicles from the USA. Although there was official NATO restraint, how much is the establishment of a Kosovo Army a fixed development?Marcus Papadopoulos: Kosovo is, effectively, a NATO protectorate today – and has been ever since Belgrade lost control of this Serbian province in 1999. It follows, therefore, that the illegal entity which is the Republic of Kosovo will begin the process of creating its own armed forces so that, in time, Kosovo will gain entry into NATO.RT: The EU has rejected the introduction of Kosovo sanctions ...

The Media Is Lying to You on Macedonia. US Is Backing an Illegal Coup D’état

Media narrative: Hateful protestors stormed the Macedonian parliament after an ethnic Albanian Talat Xhaferi was elected speaker for the first time. Truth: Protestors stormed the parliament because Xhaferi was declared speaker in an illegal, unconstitutional manner as part of an ongoing coup d'état. It had nothing whatsoever to do with his ethnicity. Even though Xhaferi was "elected" in an irregular manner, the US and EU have already stated they recognize his appointment. This now paves the way for ethnic Albanian parties and the smaller of two main Macedonian parties (Social Democrats) to proclaim a government without the constitutionally required go-ahead from the President of the Republic. The latter has defied ...

The Croatian National Revival Movement (1830–1847) and the Serbs (I)

Top personalities of the Croatian Revival MovementPreface This text investigates the question of relations between the Croatian national revival movement and the Serbs from 1830 to 1847. Special investigation attention is put on the problem of how the language influenced ethnonational group identity among the Croats and Serbs in Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia (the so-called Triune Kingdom) during the period of the Croatian national revival movement that was officially and not only formally named as the Illyrian Movement. This investigation is an attempt to reconstruct the mainstream of the politics by the leaders of the movement and their outlines on how ...

U.S. Presidential Lying is Nothing New

After escalated provocations with Mexico, until he obtained the necessary pretext in 1846, President James Polk announced, “War exists,” thus explaining away how it really happened. After defeating Spain, William McKinley said he wanted to “uplift and civilize and Christianize” the Filipinos, and “by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.” But they’d already declared independence, so doing the “best” actually meant allowing the worst — killing and burning villages during a 12-year war of resistance.In 1947, Harry Truman (image right) wanted to “assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.” But ...

Bill Clinton

A former U.S. President Bill Clinton's: Past, Present, Future:Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

Huge Defeat for Imperialists: The U.S. Broke Its Teeth in Venezuela

The miserably failed “humanitarian aid” delivery into Venezuela on February 23 is another nail in the coffin of the U.S. government’s coup attempt against President Nicolas Maduro and the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela.Before this day, the U.S. government and their allies, including Canada, thought that their puppet, self-declared “interim President” Juan Guaidó, still had a chance. The U.S. government made a callous bet that the installation of Guaidó, together with a cruel and illegal sanctions campaign against Venezuela would be enough to force the people of Venezuela to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. However, they ...

The U.S. Friendly Dictators

Many of the world’s most repressive dictators have been friends of America. Tyrants, torturers, killers, and sundry dictators and corrupt puppet-presidents have been aided, supported, and rewarded handsomely for their loyalty to US interests. Traditional dictators seize control through force, while constitutional dictators hold office through voting fraud or severely restricted elections, and are frequently puppets and apologists for the military juntas which control the ballot boxes. In any case, none have been democratically elected by the majority of their people in fair and open elections. They are democratic America’s undemocratic allies. They may rise to power through bloody ClA-backed coups ...

Jamala’s 1944: Song for Nazi Tatars

In April-May of 1944, the Crimean Tatar battalions took part in battles against the Red Army in the Crimea. The units that were evacuated from the Crimea in June 1944, were compiled into the Tatar mountain-Jaeger three-battalion SS Regiment. A month later, the group became the first Tatar-mountain-Jaeger SS Brigade (2,500 troops) under the command of SS Standartenführer Fortenbah. On 31 December 1944, the unit was disbanded to become a part of the East Turkic branch of SS as the Crimea battle group: two infantry battalions and one hundred horses. German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein testified: "Most of the Crimean ...

The “Green Traverse” and Radical Islamism in Bosnia

Information available to experts on international terrorism indicate that Bosnia Herzegovina is presently one of the epicentres of extremist Islamic circles in Europe, as it represents a hub for potential Islamic terrorists – the so called “white” or “European” Al-Qaeda . Money from Islamic countries that is laundered through “humanitarian” organizations finances the religious education of at least 100,000 young Bosnian Muslims. In addition to such education, which follows the interpretations of Wahhabi Islam, there is another type of “training” in various officially registered camps throughout the B-H Federation. There, the young and carefully selected Wahhabis attend “additional courses” in marksmanship, ...

Cheap Dignity of the Ukrainian Revolution

The interviews with three snipers of Georgian nationality, conducted by the Italian journalist Gian Micalessin and aired last week as a breathtaking documentary on Milan-based Canale 5 (Matrix program), still have not paved its way to the international mainstream media. That is hardly surprising taking into account the bombshell evidence against the real perpetrators and organizers of the 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev, generally known as the “revolution of dignity“.The documentary features Alexander Revazishvili, Koba Nergadze and Zalogi Kvaratskhelia, Georgian military officers who were recruited to carry out a “special mission” in Kiev by Mamuka Mamulashvili, a close aid of ...

The Hague Tribunal: Only the Serbs are Prosecuted

Long live the European court, the most humane court in the world! That is why seven times as many Croat and more than ten times as many (Kosovar) Albanian war crimes suspects, in percentage terms relative to Serbs, were acquitted by the Hague Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, with Radovan Karadzic being just its latest victim. (Source via this recent infographic from Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda). No matter that well before Srebrenica you had Sisak, where 595 Serb civilians of which 120 were women were disappeared by Croatian paramilitaries in 1991-1992. Everyone has heard of Srebrenica; almost nobody has heard heard of Sisak. The largest ethnic cleansing ...

The Banana Republic of America: Democracy be Damned

We are witnessing a presidential election of epic farce. The Republican Party nominates the caricature of a tinpot dictator. The Democratic National Committee is a caricature too, of comic opera: exposed in collusion with a favored candidate it anoints a felon, shown to be such but unindicted. We are witnessing the collapse of democratic presidential politics. It is a derelict process, complex, absurdly long, insanely expensive, tedious, inconsistent and now chaotic. Professional football is a public extravaganza, its six-month season culminating in the tangible climax of the Superbowl. It is dwarfed in spectacle however by the same suspense and dramatic finale of ...

Ms. Clinton, Stop Russian ‘Bear Hunting’!

It is now September 2016, just two months before the Presidential elections, and both political camps have already managed to disgust a great number of the US voters, by offering almost no comprehensive political or economic program, by offering… close to nothing! While Donald Trump is lashing out at the ‘enemy within’, during his dark moments that are increasingly resembling an advanced stage of delirium tremens (complete with a mad chase after white mice and promises to cleanse society from some imaginary and filthy rapists and social benefits guzzlers, that are constantly pouring from the south), Ms. Clinton is saddling her ...

Embracing the US-NATO War Criminals Who Destroyed Our Country

Seventeen years have passed and many people have already forgotten that the U. S. and a number of other NATO countries collectively waged one of the most destructive wars on the European continent since the end of World War II–the modern aerial bombing campaign against the Serbian people. In the tradition of the New World Order, this “intervention” wasn’t called “war.” It was argued by various Western politicians and the corporate media that the bombing campaign was directed against the late Serbian President Milošević and his “propaganda machine.”[i] In fact, the NATO bombs loaded with depleted uranium[ii] were falling on ...

The CIA and a Greater Albania: The Origins of the US Role in the Balkans

Introduction: The Missing LinkWhy did the US support the separatist and terrorist so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, or UCK in Shqip), which sought to create an ethnically pure Albanian Kosovo based on ethnicity? Why did the US sponsor a criminal and illegal separatist movement that sought to ethnically cleanse non-Albanians and create an independent state of Kosova? Why was the US supporting and sponsoring the re-establishment of a fascist-Nazi Greater Albania that Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini had initially created?When did the US begin to play a role in Kosovo? Did the US role in Kosovo begin with the arming ...

EuroMaidan Ukraine – (Selection of the Best Photos)

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement! Donate to Support Us We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations. Save Save Save

America’s Benevolent Bombing of Serbia

Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance. Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign “was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what it called ‘dual-use’ targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an attempt to terrorise the country into surrender.”Clinton’s unprovoked attack on Serbia, intended to help ethnic Albanians seize control of ...

The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons against Japan

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives. But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56): Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all ...

The Forgotten Orthodox Christians of Bosnia and Kosovo

I come from a member state of the European Union which is meant to uphold the rights of all religions, political ideologies, acknowledge national and cultural rights, and is meant to spread “European brotherhood.” However, it appears that this does not apply to the Orthodox Christians of Bosnia and Kosovo respectively because not only have they been abandoned but outside Islamic powers are stepping up their Islamization agenda in both Bosnia and Kosovo. In Kosovo the de-Christianization of the Orthodox Christian community continues and hundreds of Orthodox Christian churches have been destroyed but little was done to protect this community. It ...