ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the identity discourse and its implications for the United States from the events of September 11, 2001, to May 2003, when the official end of the Iraq war was declared by President George W. Bush. The discourse on the War on Terror be characterized as a continuous process of deliberately re-imagining America and international security by Bush and his speech-writing team. The chapter outlines a theory of identity change from a post-structuralist perspective. It argues that post-structuralism is essentially critical theory, and that critical theory can learn significantly from post-structuralism. Drawing on discourse theoretical insights to make the argument, the opposition between realism and idealism that is advocated by IR scholars like Alexander Wendt and Colin Wight becomes blurred. The discourse on the War on Terror can be seen as a continuous process of re-imagining the identity of the United States.
