Wounded Hegemon: The 2003 Iraq War and George W. Bush's Grand Strategy of Primacy
Date
2020-12-10
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Abstract
The 2003 Iraq War stands as one of the most consequential events in the post-Cold War period and yet its causes remain its least understood aspect. This project aims to add to existing discussions by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the war. Using neoclassical realism as its analytical lens, this project argues that the 2003 Iraq War occurred largely as a result of American hegemony combined with the effects of the September 11 terror attacks on the George W. Bush administration. American hegemony set broad parameters for US foreign policy behaviour while September 11 served as the proximate cause. The terror attacks engendered a deep sense of homeland vulnerability that entailed the need to reaffirm American primacy in the international system. The US under George W. Bush saw itself as a wounded hegemon that needed to both tame its external security environment and re-establish its place in the world. In this respect, September 11 shed a new light on Saddam Hussein, his potential weapons of mass destruction, and the possibility that he could either use these weapons directly or pass them on to terrorists. The Bush administration believed that defeating Hussein and transforming Iraq would not only eliminate a longstanding threat and potential source of weapons of mass destruction for terrorists, it would also demonstrate America’s material power and the power of American values. This demonstration, in turn, would restore America’s credibility, prestige, and deterrent threat – it would allay the sense of domestic vulnerability that came as a result of September 11. The factors that formed the decision to invade also shaped the strategy applied in its pursuit. The Iraq War and the Bush administration’s grand strategy of primacy stood on the administration’s belief that America possessed the unparalleled capacity to remake a country in its image.
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United States, George W. Bush, 2003 Iraq War, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Neoclassical Realism
Citation
Veneracion, P. A. (2020). Wounded Hegemon: The 2003 Iraq War and George W. Bush's Grand Strategy of Primacy (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.