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Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy examines the relationship between secrecy, power and interpretation around international political controversy, where foreign policy orthodoxy comes up hard against alternative interpretations. It does so in the context of American foreign policy during the War on Terror, a conflict that was quintessentially covert and conspiratorial. This book adds a new dimension to the debate by examining what I coin the ‘Arab-Muslim paranoia narrative’: the view that Arab-Muslim resentment towards America was motivated to some degree by a paranoid perception of American power in the Middle East. Immediately after 9/11, prominent commentators pointed to an Arab-Muslim culture of blame and a related tendency towards conspiracy theories about America’s regional influence as an important cultural driver of anti-Americanism. This narrative subsequently made its way into numerous US Government policy documents and initiatives advancing a War of Ideas strategy aimed at winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of Arab-Muslims. The book provides a novel reading of the processes through which legitimacy and illegitimacy is produced in foreign policy discourses. It will also appeal to a wider cross-disciplinary audience interested in the burgeoning issues of conspiracy, paranoia, and popular knowledge, including their relationship to and consequences for contemporary politics.
Beneath the violence of the U.S. war in Iraq was a subterranean conflict between President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, rooted in their different beliefs and leadership styles. Bush was prepared to pay a high cost in American lives, treasure, and prestige to win. Rumsfeld favored turning the war over to the Iraqis, and was comfortable with the risk that Iraq would disintegrate into chaos. Only after Bush removed Rumsfeld in late 2006 did he bring U.S. strategy into line with his goals, sending additional troops to Iraq and committing to continued U.S. involvement. Bush abandoned Rumsfeld’s withdrawal approach, predicated upon the beliefs that “it's the Iraqis’ country,” and “we have to take our hand off the bicycle seat.”
In Leaders in Conflict, Stephen Benedict Dyson shows that Bush and Rumsfeld thought about international politics, and about leadership, in divergent ways. The president embraced binary thinking, was visceral in his commitment to the war, and had a strong belief that the U.S. both could and should shape events in Iraq. The secretary saw the world as complex, and was skeptical of the extent of U.S. influence over events and of the moral imperative to stay involved.
The book is based upon more than two dozen interviews with administration insiders, and appeals to those interested in the U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. presidency, leadership and wartime decision making.
This book analyses the Syria crisis and the role of chemical weapons, in relation to US foreign policy. The Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons and their subsequent elimination would dominate the US’ response to the conflict, where these are viewed as particularly horrific arms – a repulsion known as the chemical taboo. On the surface, this would seem an appropriate reaction: these are vile and intolerable weapons, and eradicating them would ostensibly comprise a ‘good’ move. But this book reveals two new aspects of the taboo that challenge this view. First, actors employ the taboo strategically to advance their own self-interested policy objectives. This is in contrast to the highly static and constructivist approaches that have informed conceptualisation of the taboo until now. Far from a situation of normative adherence, this is a case in which the taboo exists as a strategic political resource, used to achieve aims that may have nothing to do with preventing chemical warfare. Second, it is argued that applying the taboo to Syria has exacerbated the crisis. While many expound the benefits of the taboo, it is demonstrated here that the exact opposite is true. The taboo has actually made the conflict significantly worse. As such, this book not only provides a timely analysis of Syria, but also a major and original rethink of the chemical taboo, as well as international norms more widely.
This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Japan’s new security
partnerships with Australia, India, countries and multilateral security
structure in East Asia, as well as with the EU and some of its member
states.
Most books on Japanese bilateral relations focus exclusively on the
Japanese perspective, the debate in Japan, positions of Japanese government
leaders and parties, or the public discourse. This edited volume is organized in
pairs of chapters, one each analysing the motivations and objectives of Japan,
and a second analysing those of each of the most important new security
partners.
After solely relying on the United States for its national
security needs during the Cold War, since the end of the Cold War, Japan has
begun to deepen its bilateral security ties. Since the mid-2000s under LDP and
DPJ administrations, bilateral security partnerships accelerated and today go
beyond non-traditional security issue are as and extend far into traditional
security and military affairs, including the exchange and joint acquisition of
military hardware, military exercises, and capacity building. It is argued, that
these developments will have implications for the security architecture in the
Asia-Pacific.
This book is a primer for those interested in Japan’s security
policy beyond the US-Japan security alliance, non-American centred bilateral and
multilateral security cooperation through the eyes of Japanese as well as
partner country perspectives. It is also an ideal as a course reading for
graduate courses on regional security cooperation and strategic partnerships,
and Japanese foreign and security policy.
For over five decades, the Cold War security agenda was distinguished by the principal strategic balance, that of a structure of bipolarity, between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR). This book seeks to draw from current developments in critical security studies in order to establish a new framework of inquiry for security in the Middle East. It addresses the need to redefine security in the Middle East. The focus is squarely on the Arab-Israeli context in general, and the Palestinian-Israeli context in particular. The character of Arab-Israeli relations are measured by the Israeli foreign policy debate from the 1950s to the 1990s. A dialogue between Islam and Islamism as a means to broaden the terrain on which conflict resolution and post-bipolar security in the Middle East is to be understood is presented. The Middle East peace process (MEPP) was an additional factor in problematizing the military-strategic concept of security in the Middle East. The shift in analysis from national security to human security reflects the transformations of the post-Cold War era by combining military with non-military concerns such as environmental damage, social unrest, economic mismanagement, cultural conflict, gender inequity and radical fundamentalism. By way of contrast to realist international relations (IR) theory, developing-world theorists have proposed a different set of variables to explain the unique challenges facing developing states. Finally, the book examines the significance of ecopolitics in security agendas in the Middle East.
This book represents the first ever comprehensive study of the EU’s foreign and security policy in Bosnia since the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation in 1991. Drawing on historical institutionalism, it explains the EU’s contribution to post-conflict stabilisation and conflict resolution in Bosnia. The book demonstrates that institutions are a key variable in explaining levels of coherence and effectiveness of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and that institutional legacies and unintended consequences have shaped CFSP impact over time. In doing so, it also sheds new light on the role that intergovernmental, bureaucratic and local political contestation have played in the formulation and implementation of a European foreign and security policy. The study concludes that the EU’s involvement in Bosnia has not only had a significant impact on this Balkan country in its path from stabilisation to integration, but has also transformed the EU, its foreign and security policy and shaped the development of the EU’s international identity along the way.
from established orthodoxies are at least as important as concerns about allegedly poor standards of political interpretation. This is particularly the case in the American foreign policy context, where the actions and approaches of the US government are regularly thought controversial. I suggested that studying the way conspiracy theories emerge as subjects of concern can
In this chapter, I seek to answer crucial questions: when and how do leaders matter in shaping a state’s foreign policy? Which dimensions of leadership are important? I then offer a portrait of Bush and Rumsfeld as leaders, utilizing multiple sources of evidence to understand their worldviews and management styles. Readers less concerned with matters of political science
. The interaction of these styles shaped every stage of the Iraq conflict. The shock of 9/11 motivated President Bush to focus intently upon foreign policy. He was drawn to a stark framing of the post-9/11 world as a battle between good and evil. His history-making bent drew him toward an ambitious and proactive response, and moralism combined with ambition in a deeply held commitment to the promotion of
THIS CHAPTER SHIFTS THE focus from foreign policy commentary to War on Terror doctrine. It does so by engaging with the Bush administration’s War of Ideas strategy, which aimed to undermine the cultural drivers of terrorism by winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of Arab-Muslims thought vulnerable to radicalisation. The strategic significance of this