In Defense of the Bush Doctrine

We "Circle Back," Republican Style, to a 2007 Book (and his 2016 Book on Obama) by Professor Robert Kaufman, Pepperdine School of Public Policy, Malibu, Calif.

When Robert G. Kaufman was 12 years old and spending the summer in Nantucket, where his father, an educator, was from, he read, because he was bored, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

As a 12 year old.

Kaufman says, if you think there’s something strange about him, he’s always been a bit of an outlier.

That experience sealed the deal for him. He wanted to spend his life understanding and opposing totalitarianism, figuring out who the enemies were, and supporting the good guys against them.

It led him to Columbia in New York for a Great Books undergraduate education, culminating in a Ph.D. in International Relations. He was the only Republican. He was the only Republican on faculty when he was later tenured in Bernie Sanders’ country, University of Vermont.

He’s used to being alone. Just because you’re alone doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

One bright day Malibu, California, I popped into the Starbucks by the Ralphs and what used to be Coogie’s (not there anymore), by the little post office. There are two Starbucks down the hill from Pepperdine, one in Malibu Country Mart that has no bathroom, and one that has a bathroom by the Ralphs. It was at that one that I first saw Professor Robert G. Kaufman, there in a tie, khakis, talking with anyone around about anything (or so it seemed), but mostly about foreign policy. It seemed he mostly engaged with graduate students at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, but it also seemed like he was a Socrates of sorts — a Malibu Republican Socrates — this was during the George W. Bush administration, talking even to homeless people.

I relayed that anecdote to him yesterday and he got a kick out of it. He clarified: be careful because some of the billionaires in Malibu appear homeless. Once he was talking to one such man who’d just sold two basketball teams.

This portrait continued on, as far as my recollection goes, even into the Obama administration. At some point in my 10+ years of teaching at Pepperdine, I began bringing my own coffee (or making it with the little Starbucks Via packets), but I still occasionally saw him down there between classes between 2009 and 2017. And of course, I saw him at the School of Public Policy, up the hill on the Malibu campus from Seaver College where I taught. (Seaver is the undergraduate campus).

I recognized him that first time from his picture in the book that I’d bought in the university bookstore on the Pepperdine campus. The university bookstore had at the time (hopefully still does) a faculty section with books written by the faculty. His brand new book, In Defense of the Bush Doctrine (2007) was featured prominently there in 2007, 2008 and after. That was my first year teaching at Pepperdine, Spring 2007. I bought the book and read it, and used it in a Political Philosophy course the following year, and in subsequent Ethics courses at LMU down PCH where I was faculty as well (also an alum).

Why revisit the Bush Doctrine ? There are a couple of key reasons we could note.

One, isolationism, a rival doctrine of US Foreign Relations, has a pronounced history in the Republican Party, and indeed, in American history. There are some indications that parts of the Republican movement want to return to it. This features in criticism of the invasion of Iraq, and in criticism for current support for Ukraine against the Russians. This rhetoric predominantly comes from those who seem to be the contrary of Never Trumpers, what might be called “Always Trumpers.”

I’ve cautioned against the Never Trump position in 2016 and now against the Always Trump position for 2024 for the same reason: They each may hurt the country’s ability genuinely to move forward.

If a key feature of the Always Trump position is the staunch Monday morning quarterbacking of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it behooves us to go back and double-check: was there anything substantive to that ? Mind you, this isn’t a question on the Bush family, or George W. Bush alone, but about the Bush Doctrine, what Kaufman calls Moral Democratic Realism. To understand that theory in contrast with the others requires an attention span, one would have to know what it is, and what the others are. And there is something to the Bush Doctrine, as Kaufman rightly reminds us. There was then and there still is, now.

Two, if there is something to this aid to Ukraine thing, or to opposing China militarily, as well, in the case of Taiwan or the South China Sea, we might want to pay attention to careful, courageous people like Kaufman. He contrasts the two approaches of Republicans and Democrats in his two books. And they are more starkly opposed than you probably realize. The security of our country and indeed other parts of the world depend in some significant measure on everyday Americans coming to understand the truth of these things. That’s a scary thing for me to say outloud, because in my experience, American’s right now have virtually no attention span, and many are quite confident in their politics based little more than on memes on Instagram . The twit sized attention span that Twitter has helped foster in a generation (actually more, because it affects all ages now) gives individuals confidence in their politics based merely on feelings, but not on substance. Most, if asked, would admit they don’t read that much, but might defend the lack with confidence and self-assurance that earlier generations didn’t have in their own bullshit.

(Bullshit is defined by Harry Frankfurt as talking without regard to the truth or falsity of what one says, but with the emotion or confidence appearing as if one cared about the truth or falsity of it. It’s more dangerous than lying, for in lying, one knows that, and cares for, truth, for one cannot lie without regard to awareness, at least, of truth valence—there is no bullshit here on TRP).

Three, if Bush was wrong, that needs to be understood very well. Much better than I hear from my students or typical interlocutors. Was he right then, but only for a time ? Or wrong then, but right now with Ukraine ? Why Ukraine but not Taiwan ? Explain if you can. These are things to dig into. Relatedly, was our response to 9/11 correct re: Afghanistan ? Right then, wrong now ? (That seems to be the Biden/Democrat answer). Then why Ukraine now ? Why not Taiwan ? Relatedly and historically, was our strategy in the Cold War correct as it was manifest in those administrations ? Who had the best understanding of what was happening and how to handle it ? Did we handle World War 2 correctly ? Could we have mitigated that somehow ? How ? What about World War 1 ? Kaufman gets into all of this.

These are questions that won’t go away, but Kaufman’s work helps us move forward in a real way, and handle these questions truthfully and substantively.

Having said that, I very much enjoyed yesterday’s TRP Podcast episode with Pepperdine School of Public Policy (Malibu, Calif.) Robert and Katheryn Dockson Professor, Dr. Robert G. Kaufman, Ph.D., J.D., LL.M.

We discuss his 2007 book, which I read in 2007-2008 my first year teaching at Pepperdine, published by the University of Kentucky Press, called “In Defense of the Bush Doctrine.” His later book is “Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America” (Univ. Kentucky Press, 2016).

Both are absolutely essential for understanding developments in American foreign policy since the Cold War.

As for the Cold War, I highly recommend Kaufman’s excellent biography of Democrat senator from Washington, Henry “Scoop” Jackson.

Here’s a link to the audio and video of the episode.

I’m happy to hear what you think, but I’m not interested in comments from those who haven’t read or listened to it, first.

Professors hear students talk who didn’t do the reading. That’s not called contribution, but detraction. I can tell when it happens and I don’t like it, so please don’t do so here.

Thanks,

Luke, for TRP