WAR ON TERROR AND REALISM

War on Terror and Realism

War on Terror and Realism

Introduction

The shock and moral outrage provoked by the September 11 attacks were deep, genuine and expressed by people throughout the world. Had someone denied that the attacks were grievous wrongs, the denial would have reflected badly on whoever expressed it rather than casting doubt on the wrongness of the attacks. Moreover, if asked why the attacks were wrong, the most natural answer is that they killed innocent people.

No realist thinker who spoke out after the September 11 attacks to say that moral condemnations of terrorism are misguided or naïve. Yet, realists could not honestly join in these moral condemnations. Honest realist must say either that morality does not apply to terrorist attacks or that such attacks are only wrong if they harm the national interest. Because moral realists evaluate such acts only from the perspective of interests, they could say that the September 11 attacks harmed the interests of the United States and benefited the interests of Al Qaeda, but they could not say that they were morally wrong. People who hold the moralized version of realism would, in fact, have to go farther and say that there is a moral duty to engage in terrorist acts if they would promote the national interest. They are committed to this conclusion because the moralized realist view evaluates all actions from the point of view of their own national self interest. The government of that time also reacted to the event of September 11 attacks from the perspective of self interest. The aim and objective of this essay is to talk about war on terror from the perspective of realism. In order to prove that the war on terror can be justified from the perspective of realism the reaction of the government and its members is of immense importance. This essay makes an attempt to discuss war on terror from the perspective of realism by discussing the reaction of government and its members.

Discussion

When we talk about the government's reaction by considering realism values on terrorist attacks the first thing that came in the mind is Bush doctrine. It was not only George W. Bush who supported to go for war on terror but there were other members in the government who also played an important role. Various quotes of the speech of George W Bush is a viable proof of the support of Bush of war on terror.

The strongest and clearest guidelines for U.S. foreign policy became clear in Bush's union address when he stated his first two primary objectives, of "ridding the world of terrorism", and defining and defeating the axis of evil. 9 These two defining points presented a clear direction of the administration, but there was some uncertainty about how these goals could be achieved (Gardner 2005, 15).

A clear point of the Bush Doctrine is that it calls for pre-emptive measures!' to deal with security threats. In his speech that President Bush has given at the ...