Schlesinger

Arthur Schlesinger focuses on the office of the Presidency.  In particular, Schlesinger argues that the Bush administration’s use of presidential power in war tells an old and new story.  The old story is the unilateral warfare and the new is the preemptive war.  Schlesinger states that the preemptive view is extremely dangerous, which is the manner in which Bush has taken advantage of his wartime mandate.  Schlesinger says that the preemptive war is dangerous because the reasons to go to war are not facts.  Schlesinger uses the example in which the Bush administration went to war with Iraq because Saddam was trying to get weapons of mass destruction.  Schlesinger says that this warfare also gets rid of the dissenters.  For instance, President Bush painted the individuals against the war as unpatriotic.  The other view was the unilateral war that President Bush pursued.  Schlesinger makes the point that in the past, previous wars included the assistance of other countries, and in turn became the most effective and efficient.  This is why the war on terrorism is an unwinnable war, because we do not have the support of other countries.  Finally, Schlesinger talks about how Bush expanded his presidential power by using his lawyers to get around certain laws.  However, this is not rare during wartime.  Finally, Schlesinger says that the new Bush doctrine has moved away from the strategy that won the cold war, the combination of deterrence and containment.  President Bush has moved from a policy of prevention of war with preventive war.  All these factors have given the United States a dangerous path for the future.

I agree with Schlesinger on some points that the President has tried to get around certain laws and that fact that this Bush doctrine has taken the United States down a lonely road.  However, Schlesinger makes his points on other historical events, which is significant because today was not 1990.  In other words, times have changed in that the world is technology driven and there are many dangers that did not exist during the cold war for example.  To make his point by comparing past historical events with the war on terrorism are two completely different things.  I absolutely agree that there should be world support and the United States needs its allies.  Nevertheless, I am not sure how realistic that is in this day of age.  The Arab countries have never been fond of America, and these are the countries that are the most important.  There are certain times where we cannot just wait for other countries to get on board before an incident occurs.