Counterterrorism from Bush to Obama

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-147
Author(s):  
Joana Cook
Keyword(s):  
Bush Administration ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
The U.S

Terrorist actors, the nature of the threat they pose, and responses to them have evolved significantly since 9/11. This chapter provides an overview of how terrorism evolved under the Bush and Obama administrations, how they articulated their strategies to counter terrorism, and how women became visible within these. It first discusses terrorism in the U.S. prior to 9/11, demonstrating that many of the discourses related to women and security that became visible in the subsequent years were not new, but reflected trends already underway, though increasingly framed in relation to counterterrorism. It second analyzes the Bush administration (Republican, 2001--09) and its strategic approach to counterterrorism over his tenure, before thirdly analyzing the Obama administration (Democrat, 2009--17). It highlights the comprehensive, 'all-of-government' approach to counterterrorism articulated by both administrations. The chapter concludes with a summary of key discourses pertaining to women in the Bush and Obama administrations.

The Troubled Inheritance: The National Security Agency and the Obama Administration

2010 ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Aid
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Coordinator ◽  
Signals Intelligence

This article discusses the National Security Agency under the Obama Administration. Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2009, Obama inherited from the Bush administration an intelligence community embroiled in political controversies. Of the sixteen agencies of the intelligence community, the National Security Agency (NSA) faced the greatest scrutiny from the new Obama administration and the Congress. NSA was the largest and the most powerful member of the U.S. intelligence community. Since its formation in 1952, NSA has managed and directed all U.S. government signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection. It is the collector and processor of communications intelligence (COMINT) and the primary processor of foreign instrumentation signals intelligence (FISINT). And since 1958, NSA has been the coordinator of the U.S. government's national electronics intelligence (ELINT) program. It has also the task of overseeing the security of the U.S. government's communications and data processing systems, and since the 1980s, NSA has managed the U.S. government's national operation security (OPSEC) program. In this article, the focus is on the challenges faced by the NSA during the Bush administration; the role played by the NSA during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the challenges faced by the Obama administration in confronting a series of thorny legal and policy issues relating to NSA's eavesdropping program.

Specter of vietnam

Lovecidal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trinh T. Minh-ha
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The Other ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Exit Strategy ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
The One ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses the problem of an exit strategy during the final days of the George W. Bush administration and how these issues echo the U.S. policy on Vietnam of many years before. It goes further, however, to analyze how the Obama administration approached future conflict in its initial years. On the one hand, the Bush administration's official storyline had revived the familiar paranoia of having victory turned over to the enemies. On the other, the exit strategy for withdrawal also raised widespread doubt about what was achievable in Iraq and Afghanistan and what the comprehensive results of the Iraq War turned out to be. The classic double bind thus wrote itself into every discussion of the “post-Iraq” era of U.S. foreign policy.

The Ghost of Helms-Burton

2019 ◽  
pp. 205-224
Author(s):  
Jonathan C. Benjamin-Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Executive Action ◽  
Normalization Process ◽  
The U.S

In spite of the significant policy initiatives undertaken by the Barack Obama administration to “normalize” U.S. relations with Cuba, serious barriers and impediments lie ahead. This chapter investigates the daunting policy challenges that face the United States and Cuba in their effort to advance their bilateral diplomatic and economic affairs, owing largely to the draconian conditionality codified in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996 (Helms–Burton Act). Given the highly partisan and divided nature of executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government, it remains uncertain as to whether Congress will allow progress in the normalization process to move beyond the limits of executive action. The chapter identifies and details the concrete steps that must be undertaken by the Congress to dismantle Helms-Burton, and under what conditions that might occur.

The United States, the International Criminal Court, and Afghanistan: The Rupturing of Mutual Accommodation

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1068-1107
Author(s):  
Kevin S. Robb ◽  
Shan Patel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Chief Prosecutor ◽  
The U.S

Abstract In September 2018, then U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton delivered a speech that ushered in a new, more aggressive era of U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court (icc). Washington’s disapprobation over the icc’s interest in the alleged crimes of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan has been seen as the cause for this change. While this is certainly partly true, little attention has been paid to Fatou Bensouda’s prosecutorial behaviour as an explanatory factor. Using the framework from David Bosco’s Rough Justice, this article demonstrates that a distinct shift in prosecutorial behaviour occurred when Fatou Bensouda took over as Chief Prosecutor. In contrast to Luis Moreno Ocampo’s strategic approach, avoidant of U.S. interests, Bensouda’s apolitical approach directly challenged the U.S. This shift in prosecutorial behaviour ruptured the ‘mutual accommodation’ that previously characterised the icc-U.S. relationship and, in turn, produced the shift in U.S. policy that now marginalises the Court.

Course Corrections: The Obama Administration at the United Nations

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 335-349
Author(s):  
David Bosco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Most Significant Change ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Significant Change

Less has changed in US diplomacy at the United Nations than many observers expected when the Obama administration took office in January 2009. In the UN Security Council, the United States has pursued a generally steady course that in many respects builds on the accomplishments of the Bush administration. Unexpectedly, the Security Council’s pace of work diminished considerably during the first few years of the new administration. The most significant change is the atmospherics of US diplomacy, not its substance: the Obama administration has participated in processes that the Bush administration shunned and has toned down US criticism of the United Nations’ perceived shortcomings.

scholarly journals Meta-Strategic Lobbying: The 1998 Steel Imports Case

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Brook
Keyword(s):  
Steel Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Governmental Response ◽  
Comparative Examination ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The U.S

In 1998, the domestic steel industry in the United States devised and executed a complex and sophisticated effort to achieve an effective non-market response to a sudden, persistent, and damaging surge of imported steel. This campaign lasted until 2002, when President George W. Bush invoked Section 201 of the U.S. trade laws to impose tariffs on imports of most steel products. This case of the steel industry's trade policy campaign provides an opportunity to examine selected models of protection-seeking industries and lobbying to ask why and how the steel coalition achieved this extraordinary governmental response. These questions are explored though a descriptive case of the steel industry's protection-seeking campaign followed by a comparative examination of previous models of protection-seeking firms, and lobbying to achieve protectionist policies. A comparison with selected models of the determinants of protection-seeking and factors affecting lobbying strategies show that most, almost all, were present in the steel case. In fact, a meta-strategic approach that transcends the customary understanding of lobbying is suggested in a complex policy environment. Such an environment can be characterized by: the need to influence multiple governmental entities – legislative, regulatory, executive; the desire for multiple outcomes with varying levels of specificity – laws or resolutions, administrative rulings, policy choices; interactions between different levels and branches of government; employment of coordinated interrelated lobbying techniques; and simultaneity of these factors.

From “Strategic Partners” to “Strategic Competitors”: George W. Bush and the Politics of U.S. China Policy

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Baum
Keyword(s):  
Bush Administration ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Regression To The Mean ◽  
China Policy ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The U.S

Ever since Richard Nixon's 1972 “opening” to China, U.S. presidential election campaigns have been the occasion for the opposition party to strongly challenge the incumbent president's policy of engagement toward China. Once in power, however, successful challengers (Carter, Reagan, Clinton) have softened their criticism and accepted the strategic necessity of cooperation with China. In the first stage of this cycle, the 2000 election appeared to be no exception, as presidential challenger George W. Bush sharply criticized Bill Clinton's notion of a “strategic partnership” with the PRC and proposed instead that the U.S. and China were “strategic competitors.” This paper examines the first six months of the Bush presidency to see if the historic pattern of post-election reversion to the status-quo ante is repeating itself in the Bush Administration. Looking, inter alia, at the individual preferences of key administration policymakers, the administration's enhanced arms sale package to Taiwan, the president's pledge to do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan, and the mid-summer visit of Secretary of State Colin Powell to Beijing, the paper documents the existence of a sharp division between “soft” realists and “hard” realists within the Bush Administration; and it concludes that while there has been a perceptible shift toward a more adversarial outlook, it is too soon to tell whether this shift will be partly offset by the normal first-term “regression to the mean.”

The Security Dilemma in the U.S.-China Military Space Relationship

Asian Survey ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baohui Zhang
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
The Taiwan Strait ◽  
The U.S

The U.S.-China military space relationship has been driven by the security dilemma in international relations. China pursues military space capabilities in part to counter perceived national security threats posed by the U.S. quest for space dominance and missile defense. However, the current strategic adjustment by the Obama administration and the altered situation at the Taiwan Strait have moderated the bilateral security dilemma, offering an opportunity for arms control in outer space.

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