The United States foreign policy orientation in the Middle East after September 11 in a neorealist perspective

Résumé du document

September 11, 2001 brought changes to the rules of the international system established at the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union allowed the United States to reign at the top of the international area. It was able to dominate the world as the only superpower in possession of superior capabilities and was able to impose its particular interests in political, military, and economic issues. It seems that eventually one voice was strong enough to answer Washington and the new thing is that this voice does not emerge from a concrete actor, as the USSR used to be. The terrorist groups are this new voice and that creates a set of new rules as they cannot be precisely identified as a concrete state-enemy. They are informal groups which cannot be localized and without a direct interlocutor to negotiate with. Faced with these new asymmetrical difficulties, the Bush administration decided to enter in conflict against the states where these terrorist groups were supposed to be located with a focus in the Middle East, and went back to an offensive interventionist foreign policy, named The War on Terror. As we know, US interests in the Middle East did not begin after September 11. Middle East countries have been a US interest since decades for their energy resources and geopolitics situations. During the Cold War US had a geopolitical need to keep this region under its authority to keep a way of pressure in USSR.

Extraits

[...] United States and Soviet Union were leading the international system. At the end of the Cold War in 1990 the structure changed to go back to a multipolar system, where the balance of power is favourable for more than two great powers. Neorealists conclude that a bipolar system is the most stable one. The bipolar system assures a greater international stability and thus greater peace and security, because the number of great power conflicts is fewer; and because as two great powers dominate the system, the chances of miscalculation and misadventure are lower. [...]

[...] US foreign policy in Middle East becomes more interventionist. When its security is on question US is acting as a strong power and does not care about elementary international rules, Neorealism helps us to understand this US position; after Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran seems to be the new US target to democratise to protect its power and own survival. If the attacks of September 11 do not have changed international relations, they have although resulted in the conceptualisation of a new enemy, Islamism. [...]

[...] It is not because we are in a unipolar system that the only great power is the single authority which eliminates the anarchic international system. This great power can be weak or strong but does remain, in the neorealist conception a relative one. The absolute power is quiet inconceivable, even if other actors are weak they still posses a minimal part of power through the distribution of capabilities. The neorealist theory now exposed we will apply it to the particular case of our problem question. [...]

[...] The terrorist attacks of September 11 have brought changes on this balance, US has been touched, its security has been threatened, its power has relatively decreased. US needed so to get back some power and Bush's administration has chosen the way of demonstration to achieve this goal with two war declarations in two years. But a realist critic of Bush doctrine of preventive war is that this way of action destroys even more the balance of power and creates dangerous instability. [...]

[...] This is the primary factor influencing their behaviour and that explain the state's implication in the development of offensive military capabilities, as a means to increase their relative power. Because states can never be certain of other states' future intentions, there is a lack of trust between states which requires states to be on guard against relative losses of power which could enable other states to threaten their survival. It is this lack of trust, based on uncertainty, that is called the “security dilemma”. [...]