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The George W. Bush administration has shifted from the six-decade US national security strategy of containment to one based on what is called "forward deterrence." Consequently, the president now claims for the US "the prerogative of using force preemptively & unilaterally, however its interests dictate." This represents the most sweeping reformulation of US strategy in over half a century. The result, however, will only erode the US's reputation & squander its ability to exercise leadership on pressing global issues. 32 References. Adapted from the source document.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, US president George W. Bush articulated a new national security strategy based on striking terrorist organizations & the states that harbor them before they could endanger the US. Though expressed in the language of preemption, the Bush strategy embodied a far more problematic doctrine of preventive warfare. Whereas the grounds for preemption lie in evidence of a credible, imminent threat, the basis for prevention rests on the suspicion of an incipient, contingent threat. We argue that an American national security strategy that embraces preventive war will set an inauspicious precedent, undermining normative restraints on when & how states may use military force. 50 References. Adapted from the source document.

The probable transition from a bipolar to a multipolar international system has inspired divergent predictions about the likely consequences for global stability. This article places two recent exemplary deductive models under examination, in order to evaluate the validity of their conclusions about the alleged stability of the cold war's bipolar competitive world relative to that of multipolar systems. A review of the empirical evidence generated by inductive investigations of this relationship suggests that acceptance of the pessimistic thesis that multipolar systems are inherently unstable would be premature, and that, if intervening variables are considered, a rival, more pacific image of a future multipolar world is equally plausible.

Within the study of world politics, the relationship between alliance formation and war remains one of the most perplexing problems. This paper contends that explanations of the linkage can be improved by inspection of the effects of global war on changes in the degree to which alliance norms support or reject binding treaty obligations. A macro indicator of alliance commitments is devised that is anchored in international law, and a longitudinal analysis of temporal variations in this indicator in the aftermath of global wars is conducted. Two hypotheses regarding changes in the content of alliance norms are derived from Modelski's well-known theory of the long cycle of world leadership, and are tested through focused comparisons of discrete historical systems. The results suggest that in the 19th century flexible conceptions of alliance commitments tended to predominate in the wake of global war. However, the evidence also suggests that in the aftermath of 20th-century global wars a secular trend toward support for binding conceptions of treaty commitments has prevailed. The historical patterns and permutations within alliance norms observed are evaluated in terms of their implications for cyclical theories of global change.

Alliances and international institutions formed since World War II; implications of changes for US foreign policy. Partial contents: The transformation of alliance norms; International treaty law; State practices.