Dilemmas and Pathways of Liberal International Order - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 223

ica's national security strategy after September 11, 2001, articulated a new vision of Amer-
ican primacy. As provider of global security, the United States would operate more or less
above other states, making choices and deploying forces outside agreed-upon alliances and
cooperative security frameworks. The Bush administration also rejected pending internation-
al treaties and agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the Rome Stat-
ute of the International Criminal Court, the Germ Weapons Ban, and the Programme of Ac-
tion on Illicit Trade in Small and Light Arms. It also unilaterally withdrew from the 1970s
ABM treaty, which many experts regard as the cornerstone of modern arms-control agree-
ments. The Bush administration also triggered a global uproar over its torture and detention
politics. Together with the Iraq war, these actions by the Bush administration effectively con-
stituted a sharp and unprecedented departure from America's longstanding postwar approach
to international order. America's allies and partners—along with many other governments
around the world—pushed back. The repositioning of the United States was unwelcome and
unsustainable.
The costs that the Bush administration sustained were both specific and diffuse. On the
eve of America's invasion of Iraq, a chorus of voices from the United States and abroad
warned of the costs of acting unilaterally. Some of the expected costs were seen as practical:
if the United States went in alone it would not have sufficient support after the war to engage
in the expensive and lengthy process of reconstructing Iraq. As one commentary noted: “As
long as the United States stays engaged in the United Nations, it tacitly accepts boundaries
on its power in exchange for the benefits of multilateral backing. With U.N. approval, other
nations would share the cost of an attack on Iraq and the long-term nation building that must
occur afterward. If the U.S. goes it alone, fewer countries will be willing to share the bur-
den—not only for Iraq but for other international ventures, such as anti-terrorism drives.” 60 It
is difficult to measure the costs of lost cooperation in Iraq or the wider war on terrorism—but
the controversy and hostility that Bush's foreign policy generated certainly diminished world
support for the United States. More general and diffuse costs in lost American legitimacy
were also incurred, as was noted at the time. 61 The Bush administration's movement back to
a more traditional foreign policy in its last years is also an indication that it, too, recognized
the costs of its earlier grand-strategic vision.
The Obama administration has clearly acknowledged the failures of Bush-era unilateral-
ism and in its first years in office has charted a return to the restraints and commitments of
America's postwar orientation toward order. 62 As a candidate for president, Senator Obama
noted the importance of restraint and institutional cooperation as a feature of effective Amer-
ican diplomacy. In a 2007 interview with the journalist Roger Cohen, Obama argued: “We
can and should lead the world, but we have to apply wisdom and judgment. Part of our ca-
pacity to lead is linked to our capacity to show restraint.” 63 In other speeches after taking
office, Obama also stressed the need to learn from the failures of the Bush administration and