The Convinced, the Skeptical, and the Hostile

The Bush Doctrine represents the first new grand strategy since President Harry Truman introduced the containment doctrine in the late 1940s. In its various forms, ¹ containment was eventually embraced by both major political parties, favored by American public opinion, and supported, for the most part, by Western public opinion. As a grand strategy, the United States consistently followed containment for the roughly 45 years of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Will the same ever be said about the Bush Doctrine? Does the Bush Doctrine contain the seeds of sustainability in domestic and world opinion that suggest that it could successfully anchor the United States’ war against terrorism for decades hence? My answer, which I’ll return to in the conclusion, is that while the Doctrine is facing its share of difficulties, the rough early goings of containment suggest it is too soon to write the Doctrine’s obituary.