Interpretive disagreements were the focal point of the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) event last Monday night, when leading political science professors spoke about the lasting legacy of the Bush administration in foreign policy.
The FAS hosted Charles Kupchan of Georgetown University, Henry Nau from George Washington University and two professors from Princeton, G. John Ikenberry and Aaron Friedberg.
The night began with each professor summarizing his view on former president George W. Bush's impact on US foreign policy. Ikenberry started with the acknowledgment that he disagreed on many points with actions taken by the administration, but wanted to judge on a broad scale why he felt it had lost credibility. He outlined how the nature of foreign policy had shifted.
Prior to the Bush administration, he said, "The US had operated as an open and benign hegemonic power . . . the US would be user-friendly."
However, there was then a shift toward the US becoming "a kind of conservative leviathan . . . and the world would not play by those rules."
Kupchan spoke after Ikenberry, and while he also felt that the Bush administration had made many mistakes, he pointed out the importance of differentiating between Bush's two terms.
"I think it's important to distinguish between the first and second term," he said. "Most of the harshest critiques I could muster would be directed at term one."
He also addressed the fact that since September 11, there had not been another terrorist attack on US soil.
"Now, I don't know why that's true," he added. "But they must have been doing something right."
This same tone was apparent in his remarks regarding the Iraq War. While he stated that he was opposed to the war, he also acknowledged that Bush's troop surge did seem to have worked.
However, he ultimately dismissed the idea of a strong Bush legacy.
"I don't mean for this to sound catty, but I don't think that there will be much of a legacy," he said.
He went on to explain that the Bush administration's foreign policy would appear in the future to be an anomaly of unilateralism, rather than a major shift in the way the US would continue to interact with other nations.
Nau was next to speak, opening up with a critique of the tone of the discussion so far.
"I'm not going to let my colleagues get away with this love fest," he said.
He proceeded to analyze the Bush administration from a conservative internationalist point of view, a process he began by outlining the trademarks of a conservative internationalist.
These included: the belief that the "core purpose of international relations is to spread freedom throughout the world," recognition of the need for assertive use of power and the idea that the main constraint on government is the will of the people.
Using these criteria, Nau literally graded the Bush administration. For the first, he cited the Iraq War and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. While he acknowledged that spreading democracy was not the original goal of that invasion, he also pointed out that it had quickly become essential. Nau granted the administration a "B" for that.
For the second criteria, assertive use of power, Nau also gave the administration a "B." He described Bush as a "poster child for the preemptive and, more specifically, preventive war."
Finally, for the last criteria, constraint by the will of the people, Nau had to fail Bush.
"War has to be waged with the support of the majority," he said. "You don't need unanimity, but you do need a majority."
Finally, Friedberg addressed the audience. He felt that in some ways, it was too early to judge the Bush administration.
"How the Bush administration is judged will depend on what happens next," he said.
He discussed some key issues, specifically whether the administration interpreted the threat to national security after 9/11 correctly and whether they responded appropriately.
"I basically believe that the judgment about the severity of this threat was correct," he said. "I also think the administration was right in judging that this threat could not be dealt with in a satisfactory manner from a purely defensive posture."
His main points of contention were with the strategies of interrogation permitted by the administration and the tendency to make decisions in secret, rather than seeking a consensus from the public.
Questions from the audience ranged from whether the US still had the credibility and the right to lead the world to whether the US had violated the Geneva conventions, and if so what should be done.
Eventually the question and answer session even led to Kupchan demanding that Nau explain his interpretation of freedom, implying it could not be spread through the tactics utilized by the Bush administration. That unplanned outburst became one of the highlights of the evening for the audience.
"I've been to several FAS events, and this is the first one where the participants really engaged with each other instead of having to sort of talk around each other," said freshman Moshe Bildner. "I was pleased they took the opportunity to disagree."
Freshman Drew Rosenberg agreed. "A little friction made for a really interesting evening."
According to junior Michael Glenwick, FAS co-chair, the event "had a great mix of opinions."
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