U.S. Policy toward Rogue States:

The Bush administration’s Policy toward Iraq

and North Korea Compared

Jaechun Kim and David Hundt

The Bush administration resorted to war to respond to thethreat of WMDs in Iraq, whereas it virtually ruled out the useof force to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. By utilizingvarious strands of realist International Relations theories, wetrace motivations behind the administration’s divergentforeign policy choices toward rogue states. That the U.S.rushed to war against Iraq while procrastinating on NorthKorea presents a puzzle to conventional realism, whichpostulates that great powers observe changes in relativecapabilities and respond accordingly. The North’s deterrentcapabilities and different threat perceptions offer betterresponses, yet leave some issues unaddressed. We argue thatpolicy differences should be embedded in discussion of theadministration’s foreign policy grand strategy, which soughtto sustain hegemonic status of the US in the world. Iraq andNorth Korea had different implications for Bush’s grandstrategy, thereby calling for different approaches. By tracingthe strategic design of the Bush administration, we attemptto provide a more complete account of policy differencestoward rogue states. We subsequently illustrate thesignificant changes in American policy toward rogue statesduring the second Bush administration and the Obamaadministration.

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Key words: U.S. Foreign Policy, George W. Bushadministration, North Korea, Iraq, Rogue States

1. INTRODUCTIONIn his State of the Union address delivered inJanuary 2002, George W. Bush claimed that NorthKorea, Iraq and Iran were intent on acquiring weaponsof mass destruction (WMDs). In the hands of this“axis of evil”, WMDs would pose a grave securitythreat to the United States. Of these three states,the North had the most advanced WMD programs and hadcome closest to developing the capability to strikethe U.S. and its allies with nuclear weapons.Iranian development of nuclear power facilities andlong range missiles was also a growing concern to theU.S., but North Korea surpassed Iran in WMDcapabilities. Consequently, some scholars andforeign policy practitioners contended that the NorthKorean nuclear issue should take priority over Iraq’sWMD programs (Dunn 2003, 279).

Toward the end of 2002, however, the Bushadministration prepared to attack Iraq in earnestwhereas it virtually foreswore the use of forceagainst the North. The basic foreign policy postureof the U.S. toward North Korea remained intact evenafter Pyongyang admitted to a secret nuclear programin direct violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework,which served as a basis for future negotiations. TheU.S. was reluctant to settle the nuclear issue withthe North through military means even when the SixParty Talks failed to produce satisfactory results.

Why did the Bush administration decide to attack

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Iraq while exercising restraint towards North Korea?That the U.S. rushed to war against Iraq, whilebehaving with restraint and patience toward the Northduring the Bush administration, presents something ofa puzzle. It also somewhat contradicts theconventional wisdom of realist theories ofinternational relations: that states rationally focuson the distribution of material capabilities and actaccordingly. Since North Korea’s WMD capabilitiessurpassed those of Iran and Iraq, it would have beenmore rational for the Bush administration to applysterner measures toward the North and to focus itsmilitary power on disarming Pyongyang first.

By utilizing various strands of realisttheories, this article assesses the motivationsbehind the administration’s divergent foreign policychoices toward rogue states. We conduct acomparative analysis of U.S. policies toward NorthKorea and Iraq, the two states which attracted themost attention during the Bush era, in the context ofthe administration’s grand strategy. In so doing,the article strives for a better theoreticalframework that can account for markedly differentapproaches to two members of the axis of evil.

This article proceeds as follows. The nextsection briefly notes that despite WMDs in the handsof “rogue states” being a pressing security issuefollowing the Cold War, U.S. policy toward Iraq andNorth Korea differed markedly after 9/11. Section 3reviews the realist paradigm, and illustrates how itsconventional variety explains American policy.Section 4 argues that a more complete account ofBush’s policy choices should draw on a broaderdiscussion of the Bush administration’s foreign

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policy grand strategy. The final sections of thearticle explore how recent debates within the realistcamp contribute to a more satisfying explanation ofthis policy divergence and trace recent developmentsin U.S. policies toward rogue states.

2. ROGUE STATES AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICYDealing with rogue states and their attempts toacquire WMDs emerged as a foreign policy priority forthe U.S. following the Cold War. This concern wasevident in the Bush administration’s first NationalSecurity Strategy (White House 2002). The security issueswhich the U.S. has faced in the post-Cold War era,such as the threats posed by terrorists and roguestates, have mainly been asymmetrical. The 9/11attacks demonstrated that terrorists can inflictconsiderable damage on states. Conventionaldeterrence does not work against terrorists, becausethey put a low price on their own lives. This hasresulted in calls for a new strategic framework todeal with asymmetrical threats. Since WMDs in thehands of groups such as Al Qaeda is one of the mostfeared scenarios for the U.S., policy has focused ondiscouraging rogue states from developing WMDs andsupplying them to terrorists.

The Bush administration used military force toenact regime change in Iraq, while stressing theimportance of diplomacy and negotiation to respond tothe North’s WMD programs. North Korea outclassedIraq in its capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclearmaterials. A Central Intelligence Agency reportstated that Iraq “probably does not yet have nuclearweapons or sufficient material to make any” (CIA2002, 1). The main obstacle to Iraq’s nuclear

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ambition was its inability to produce weaponisableplutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU). Thereport concluded: “Iraq is unlikely to produceindigenously enough weapons-grade material for adeliverable nuclear weapon until the last half ofthis decade” (CIA 2002, 6).

The North, by contrast, had the capacity toproduce fissile material — reprocessed plutonium —and Pyongyang even admitted to possessing such acapacity. While North Korea claimed to have producedonly gram quantities of bomb-grade nuclear materialsprior to 1994, the U.S. estimated that Pyongyang hadone to two bombs’ worth of plutonium (ICG 2004, 2).Fuel rods removed from the Yongbyon reactor duringthe 1994 crisis remained in sealed containers underIAEA surveillance until December 2002. However ifthe North had reprocessed these fuel rods, it couldhave produced enough plutonium for five or six bombs.By reactivating its Yongbyon reactor and completingtwo other reactors under construction, Pyongyangcould produce up to 50 bombs per year (Howard 2004,807–08). The DPRK’s nuclear tests in October 2006and 2009 confirmed this plutonium-based nuclearweapons capacity. North Korean nuclear capabilitiesproved even more significant as the North admitted tothe existence of uranium-based nuclear programs inNovember 2010.

Compounding the gulf in nuclear capacity was asimilar disparity in delivery capacity — i.e.,missile technology. According to the CIA, “Saddamretains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud-variant short-range ballistic missiles with ranges of650–900km” (CIA 2002, 2), which was estimated to beIraq’s most advanced delivery vehicle. North Korea,

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in contrast, possessed far more potent missiletechnology. The North’s launch in 1998 of a medium-range Taepo-dong I ballistic missile, with apotential range of at least 2,000km, created a newlevel of concern about its nuclear and ballisticmissile programs (Cronin 2005, 57). The launchdemonstrated North Korea’s progress in developingmulti-stage inter-continental ballistic missiles.Pyongyang launched an experimental communicationssatellite in 2009 in order to refine the capacity ofthe two-stage Taepo-Dong II missile to carry asubstantial payload (ICG 2009, 7). When deployed, itwould be capable of reaching the American west coast,while a three-stage version of the same missile wouldput the entire U.S. within range (Howard 2004, 809).To make matters worse, the North had demonstrated awillingness to sell its missile technology.

Allowing such an unpredictable regime tocontinue with a nuclear program would present a gravesecurity risk to the U.S. and to global anti-proliferation efforts (ICG 2009). In January 2003,Bush indicated that he would take decisive action toprevent rogue states from acquiring and using WMDs:

There are countries which are developingweapons of mass destruction, and we will dealwith them appropriately. One country isIraq. Obviously we expect them to live up tothe UN Security resolutions and disarm, and ifthey won’t, we’ll lead a coalition to disarm them. Anothercountry is North Korea. And we are workingwith friends and allies in the region toexplain clearly to North Korea the fact thatit’s not in their nation’s interest to

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develop and proliferate weapons of massdestruction... It’s a diplomatic issue, not a militaryissue (White House 2003, emphasis added).

In October 2002, Bush dispatched James Kelly,Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian andPacific Affairs, to Pyongyang in order to convincethe regime to relinquish its WMD program.Intelligence reports indicated that North Korea hadcheated on its 1994 deal. At the same time, Bushrequested that Congress authorize the use of forceagainst Iraq for defying UN resolutions. Notably,Bush did not mention the North’s nuclear capacity inpublic for more than five days after Kelly’s return.In the interim, Congress passed a resolutionauthorizing the president to use force to halt Iraq’sweapons programs. It was suspected that Bushdeliberately withheld information about North Koreaso that Congress would authorize the use of forceagainst Saddam. Some claim that intelligence reportson the North’s HEU program were delivered to theWhite House in November 2001, but that 9/11 and theWar on Terror diverted focus from North Korea (Chaand Kang 2004b, 235).

In November 2002, UN Security Council Resolution1441 gave Iraq “a final opportunity” to comply withits disarmament obligations and an enhanced weaponsinspections regime, or else face “seriousconsequences.” In revealing North Korea’s statementto the public, however, the Bush administrationstated its intention to solve the North’s HEU issuevia diplomacy. Bush dispatched diplomats to “conferwith friends and allies” (Howard 2004, 807), butstalled on the issue and “spurned engagement with

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North Korea” (Washington Post, 22 June 2005), inpreparation for war against Iraq. For the Bushadministration, Iraq took priority over the North.

Two conclusions flow from this circumstantialevidence. First, North Korea’s WMD program was moreadvanced and posed more of a threat than that ofIraq. Second, the administration rushed to war withIraq without exhausting diplomatic options, whilestressing the importance of diplomacy in dealing withthe North. What would be a better theoreticalframework with which we can explain such divergentapproaches?

3. REALISM AND THE STUDY OF WORLD POLITICSOf many theories of International Relations, it seemsthat realism sheds lights on divergent foreign policychoices of the U.S. toward rogue states. To be sure,realism is not a theory of foreign policy: realistsargue that individual state actions and foreignpolicy decisions cannot falsify their theory (Waltz1979). Nonetheless, IR theory serves as a tool ofstatecraft: practitioners subscribe to it when theyformulate, implement and interpret particular foreignpolicies. In turn, realists often refer to foreignpolicy statements to support their arguments(Fettweis 2004, 95), with some stating that U.S.foreign policy has been generally consistent withrealist principles (Mastanduno 2003). For instancethe George W. Bush administration initially saw theworld through the lens of realism, which is generallydisdainful of “nation building”, although Bush becamesomething of a liberal crusader following 9/11.

International agreements are conditional on thewillingness of states to observe them. States must

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be prepared to sacrifice international obligations infavor of self-interests if the two come intoconflict. Therefore, the only fundamentalresponsibility of policymakers is to advance and todefend national interests. Bush’s foreign policyteam criticized Clinton’s efforts at nation-buildingand democracy promotion on the grounds that Americannational interests were not at stake. The Bushadministration indicated its intention to concentrateon issues that materially affected U.S. interests.

Realists contend that states focus on thedistribution of material capabilities and actaccordingly. States with the largest materialcapabilities determine the structure of worldpolitics. To protect their position, they seek todeny any relative gains to their competitors orpotential competitors. In this regard, realistsargue that the development of WMDs is a relativegain, for it offers a quantum leap in materialcapabilities. The potential danger of an uncheckedNorth Korean nuclear program was so severe that theU.S. was prepared to go to war in 1994 to preventPyongyang from acquiring nuclear weapons.Consequently, realism suggests that the North, ratherthan Iraq, would take priority for U.S. foreignpolicy after 9/11 (Howard 2004, 809–10). Thesituation was particularly paradoxical since the DPRKadmitted to its nuclear ambitions and expelledinspectors from the International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA). Baghdad, by contrast, deniedpossessing WMDs and admitted inspectors for thespecific purpose of verifying its claims of havingdismantled its programs (Bleiker 2003, 720).

Some realist scholars argue that the power

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disparities between Iraq and North Korea account forthe different American approaches to the two states.In short, the North was stronger than Iraq, and astate of “mutual deterrence” between the U.S. and theDPRK prevented a second Korean war (Kang 2003; Chaand Kang 2004b, 247). Likewise, invading Iran andoverthrowing the Islamic regime would have posedformidable “military and intelligence hurdles” thatthe U.S. could hardly cross (Tunç 2009, 9). Iraqdiffered from the North and Iran in that it had notreached the point where it could deter the U.S.(Smith 2006).

Subsequently, North Korea and Iran might havebeen a riskier target than Iraq for the Bushadministration. Particularly, the North, whichpossessed a nuclear capability, was not an ideal casefor demonstrating American resolve. The purpose ofthe war against Afghanistan and Iraq may have been toestablish the credibility of the new doctrine ofpreemption (Press–Barnathan 2004). In sum, NorthKorea’s military capability was one of the variablesthat can explain the policy divergence. There isconsiderable merit to this line of realistinterpretation, but this argument, which is basedsolely on material capabilities, overlooks variablessuch as threat perceptions and grand strategy.

To gauge the theoretical mileage of the“capabilities-based” interpretation, we can pose acounterfactual question: If the military capabilitiesof North Korea or Iran had not been greater thanthose of Iraq, would the U.S. have attacked the Northor Iran instead?

Another line of realist explanation suggeststhat the Bush administration would not have invaded

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North Korea, had the North been militarily inferiorto Iraq, on the grounds that the administration helddifferent threat perceptions toward each state. Bushsaw North Korea as less of a threat than Iraq. Somerealists, such as Walt (2001), argue that statesbalance against “threats rather than against poweralone”. The Bush administration labeled the threatfrom Iraq as “unique” (Howard 2004, 811). If so,threat-based realist explanations must demonstratethat the administration believed that Iraq was morelikely to use WMDs and explain why Bush believedNorth Korea was less likely to use these weaponsdespite its greater capability to do so.

North Korea and Iraq thus both engaged in“threatening” behaviors, but differing sets of rules,preconditions and perceptions makes it possible todepict the North’s expulsion of IAEA inspectors as anopening gambit in a game of reconciliation. Incontrast, Iraq’s expulsion of IAEA inspectors was anescalation to crisis in an ongoing confrontation(Howard 2004, 813–14). Remarks made by Secretary ofState Colin Powell supported such claims:

The international community has passed 16resolutions talking to Saddam Hussein,telling him to stop this. For eight years,1994 to 2002, the international communitythought that North Korea had heard itsmessage, and it had frozen its nuclearweapons capable program at Yongbyon. Currentplanning vis-à-vis North Korea reflectsmerely the beginning of a process to bringthat program under control (State Department2003).

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Tunç points out that, while the Bushadministration tended to see Hussein as irrationaland prone to miscalculations, there is littleevidence that it perceived Kim in North Korea and themullahs in Iran as “irrational and insane” and proneto miscalculations (Tunç 2009, 8). Bringing a newvariable, “perceptions,” into the equation thusenhances the explanatory power of realist analysis.Focusing on interactions between the U.S. and the tworogues can help explain policy divergences, but thisline of analysis suffers from the followingshortcomings.

First, the claim that North Korea and Irandiffer from Iraq in that its historical interactionwith the U.S. was different seems to contradict theBush administration’s assessment of the three roguestates. For instance, the National Security Strategycondemned both Iraq and North Korea for thedevelopment of their WMD programs:

At the time of the Gulf War, we acquiredirrefutable proof that Iraq’s designs were not limitedto the chemical weapons it had used against Iranand its people, but also extended to theacquisition of nuclear weapons and biologicalagents. In the past decade North Korea hasbecome the world’s principal purveyor of ballistic missiles,and has tested increasingly capable missileswhile developing its own WMD arsenal (WhiteHouse 2002, emphasis added).

The U.S. interaction with Iran has always beenturbulent since the CIA engineered a military coup

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that overthrew the legitimate Mossadeq regime in1953. Second, because neither the U.S. nor NorthKorea met their commitments, the 1994 AgreedFramework became essentially defunct long before theNorth’s nuclear activities were revealed in 2002 (Chaand Kang 2004a, 98–99). Moreover, from the outsetthe Bush administration was openly skeptical aboutthe Agreed Framework (Cha 2002, 42–43).

4. AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY UNDER BUSHAmerican policy can be better understood in thecontext of the Bush administration’s grand strategy.Even before 9/11, Bush had envisioned thepreservation of the unipolar moment. Bush’s foreignpolicy was geared toward maintaining andstrengthening American hegemonic status. The Bushadministration’s grand strategy was to reinforce theunipolar international system based on Americanhegemony. It seems that the Bush administration usedpublic outrage about the 9/11 attacks to realize itsgrand foreign policy design of creating a newAmerican empire (Barry and Lobe 2002).

In order to pursue his vision of sustainedhegemony, Bush broke with his predecessors whobelieved — by and large — in a foreign policy thatcombined American leadership and institutionalizedcooperation with other states (Talbott 2003, 1039).For instance, Bush unilaterally abrogated the KyotoProtocol, walked out of a UN conference on racism,and nullified the ABM treaty. However the doctrineof “preemption”, or striking before a crisisdevelops, did not mark a dramatic break with Americanforeign policy (Ahn 2003). Since the early days ofthe republic the U.S. has responded grave threats to

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its security with aggressive and preemptive actions(Gaddis 2004). Unilateralism and the doctrine ofpreemption were simply means by which the Bushadministration had pursued a more ambitious goal ofAmerican hegemony.

A two-pronged strategy governed Bush’s policy.One part of the strategy was to enhance itscapability to intervene, and the other was to securemore oil from other states (Klare 2004).Historically, American policy toward the Middle Easthas been geared toward ensuring access to oilreserves. The Persian Gulf is the world’s primaryoil-producing region, being home to two-thirds of theplanet’s known reserves. Representing a mere 5percent of global population, the U.S. uses 26percent of the world’s oil. American dependence onimported oil, which has already risen from one-thirdin 1985 to more than half today, is set to climb totwo-thirds by 2020 (Renner 2004). In this context,the strategic importance of the Middle East must haveloomed large for the Bush administration, which waswell aware that oil imports constituted a potentialimpediment to its aspirations to hegemony.

The Bush administration concluded by 2002 thatcontainment alone would not eliminate the threatHussein posed to U.S. oil interests and that moreaggressive action was required. Regime change inIraq was deemed to be the only option to safeguardU.S. oil interests in the Middle East (Klare 2004).Installing a friendly regime in Iraq would help toperpetuate Washington’s position of dominance in theregion. This would give the U.S. greater leverageover global oil markets and limit the influence ofOPEC. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. spent

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about $60 billion per year to defend theauthoritarian Gulf regimes (McIntyre 2002). A pro-U.S. regime would also reduce American dependence onSaudi Arabia. Although Washington and Riyadh havehad close relations since 1940s, the Bushadministration saw Saudi Arabia as a less than fullyreliable ally in the wake of 9/11 (Renner 2004).

In this regard, the Bush administration’sdecision to go to war with Iraq was closely relatedto the pursuit of oil and the preservation ofAmerica’s status as the paramount world power (Klare2003). In contrast, North Korea did not possessresources such as oil that would merit U.S.intervention. Iran is known to have possessed thethird largest oil reserves in the world at the timeof U.S. invasion in Iraq, but an attack on either theNorth or Iran, or any combination of axis of evilstates would have been a formidable militarychallenge to the US. The U.S. decision to go to warwith Iraq was not just about Iraq, but about allother rogue states to illustrate American resolve,and compel them to respect American hegemonic powerand follow U.S. foreign policy guidelines. Iraq wasan ideal target in this regard. Even an ambitioussuperpower will not seek to expand its power via “aconscious bid for hegemony”, which would entail waragainst multiple enemies simultaneously. Rather, itseeks “incremental, repeated, and localized effortsto expand power when such opportunities arise” (Labs1997, 12).

Since the end of the Cold War, many in U.S.foreign-policymaking circles have claimed that, topreserve America’s sole power status, the U.S. shouldprevent the rise of a “peer competitor”.

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Particularly, the hawks in the Bush administrationbelieved that a conflict with China was inevitable atsome point (Barry and Lobe 2002, 7). The QuadrennialDefense Review Report (QDR) stated: “The possibility existsthat a military competitor with a formidable resourcebase will emerge” (Department of Defense 2001, 4) inAsia, with China being the unspoken cause of concern.

The administration saw the impending need toprevent China from ascending to super-power status.The pursuit of national missile defense (NMD),ostensibly in order to safeguard the U.S. fromattacks from rogue states such as the North, wassuspected of aiming to nullify China’s second-strikenuclear capabilities. Like the U.S., China is runningout of oil. Since the U.S. exercises some degree ofcontrol to the Gulf and China lacks the power tobreak that grip, America can keep China in arelatively vulnerable position.

Until 9/11 U.S. involvement in Central Asia wasrestricted to economic, diplomatic and military aidagreements. To combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda inAfghanistan, however, the Department of Defensedeployed tens of thousands of combat troops in theregion (Renner 2004). The administration built basesin Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and thus established apermanent presence in the region. The bases wereostensibly for the purpose of assisting in the war onterror, but they also help safeguard the flow ofpetroleum. As the QDR stated, “The United Statesmust retain the capability to send well-armed andlogistically supported forces to critical pointsaround the globe, even in the face of enemyopposition” (Department of Defense 2001, 43).

Since its outset, the Bush administration had

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planned to remove the Hussein regime in Iraq andreplace it with the one more amenable to U.S.interests. But with Iraq posing no clear and presentdanger, the administration could not take action.The 9/11 attacks changed public opinion — bothinternational and domestic — so that Bush couldcontemplate military action. Most importantly, 9/11fundamentally changed American public attitudes aboutwhat to do with Iraq. It caused a dramatic upsurge,from 52 to 74 percent, in support for the use offorce to remove Saddam (Foyle 2004, 273). One seniorofficial recalled: “Without September 11, we neverwould have been able to put Iraq at the top of ouragenda” (cited in Foyle 2004, 275). Theadministration’s vigorous campaign for war againstIraq, which included the pressuring of the media,Congress and intelligence agencies to support Bush’sposition (Isikoff and Corn 2006), succeeded inshifting American public opinion.

5. REALISM AND BUSH’S FOREIGN POLICYThat the U.S. rushed to war against Iraq whileprocrastinating on North Korea and Iran presentssomething of a puzzle. According to Ninic (2005),contemporary state-centric IR theories, which tend tofocus on great power relations, are not adequate toanalyze asymmetric foreign policy dynamics betweenthe U.S. and rogue states. Nonetheless,sophisticated realist IR theories seem to providesomewhat satisfactory answers to this puzzle.According to realist logic, the military capabilitiesof North Korea and Iran effectively deterred Americanmilitary action, while the weaker Iraq was selectedas an easier target. But even if North Korea was a

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manageable threat, circumstantial evidence suggeststhat the U.S. still would not have invaded NorthKorea first. A more refined realist explanation, onewhich considers threat perceptions, also omits someimportant issues. But if we embed American policy inthe context of Bush administration’s grand strategyof preemption and bolstering American hegemony, amore complete explanation to the puzzle emerges. Byand large, that the Bush administration sought toexpand American hegemony by going to war with Iraq in2003 seems to concur with the language of offensiverealism (Kagan 2006).

One of the most interesting conceptualdevelopments within realism in recent years has beenthe emerging split between defensive and offensiverealists (Hwang 2003). Whereas defensive realistsare quite optimistic that conflict between the greatpowers can be avoided because their leaders recognizethat wars are expensive and unpredictable, offensiverealism claims that “anarchy encourages all states tomaximize their relative strength because no state canever be sure when a truly revisionist power mightemerge” (Walt 1998, 36). While agreeing on many keyassumptions about state behavior, these two variantsof realism “fundamentally disagree over whether theanarchic structure of the international system causesstates to want to preserve the status quo, asdefensive realists argue, or maximize relative power,as offensive realists believe” (Labs 1997, 4).

In contrast to defensive realists, who suggestthat states look for only an “appropriate” amount ofpower, offensive realists argue that “becausesecurity and survival are never assured in theinternational system, states seek to maximize their

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security by maximizing their relative power andinfluence where the benefits of doing so exceed the costs” (Labs1997, 11, emphasis added). States may exploit“windows of opportunity” during which they havesignificant power advantages over rivals, calculatingthat there are optimal times at which to expand theirinfluence (Hwang 2005). Since safety comes only frombeing the most powerful state in a system, rational,security-seeking states will engage in sophisticatedpower maximization (Mearsheimer 2001) including, iffeasible, hegemony. Offensive realism predicts thatdemocracies such as the U.S. are not immune to thetemptation of taking advantage of militarily weakeropponents and embarking on imperialist ventures.

Offensive realists would advise the U.S. toguarantee its long-term security through a grandstrategy of preponderance and hegemony, and pursueopportunities to weaken would-be rivals (Taliaferro2000, 1). They would also advise states to exploitopportunities created by superior military power.The Bush administration’s grand strategy aimed tosolidify American hegemony, which the end of the ColdWar has perpetuated (Foster 2006). It seems that aforeign policy premised on offensive realism hadinfluenced this grand strategy. Neo-conservativeshad advocated the preservation of the unipolarmoment, and the 9/11 attacks provided a rationale foraccelerating offensive realists strategies. Topursue hegemony, Bush transformed America’s globalmilitary posture and adopted the strategy ofpreemption (Chang 2003, 12). Much like the firstGulf war, the war in 2003 was fought to safeguardaccess to oil reserves, which was deemedindispensable to the perpetuation of American

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hegemony. If the Bush administration decided topursue its grand strategy in earnest, however, adecision to attack Iraq while procrastinating onNorth Korea would have been a shrewd policy option.

However, offensive realists emphasize therationality of state behavior, and are wary ofpredictions that states ignore existing distributionsof power. A rejection of rationality results insignificant analytical flaws: “Waltz leaves open thepossibility that states act in non-strategic ways,and ignore the logic of “balance of power”;therefore, it is not an accurate guide to thebehaviour of great powers and the operation of theinternational system” (Mearsheimer 2009, 242). Assuch, offensive realism advises even the mostpowerful states to choose their targets carefully.For instance, Mearsheimer argues that, rather thanrelying on “risky policies to maintain its presentpower advantage over China”, it is more rational forthe U.S. to allow “China to continue growing andrelying on a balancing coalition to contain it downthe road” (Mearsheimer 2009, 252).

Had Bush decided to attack North Korea, Chinawould have opposed vehemently, because China sees theNorth as a buffer against the U.S. and would haveviewed an American war against the DPRK as a threatto its geopolitical interests. Therefore a waragainst North Korea would have been a “risky policy”;opposition from Beijing must have weighed heavily inthe Bush administration’s decision not to usemilitary option against the North. The Bushadministration would have been conscious of NorthKorea’s record in war, especially its performanceduring the Korean conflict of the early 1950s. Given

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the inherent difficulties which an invasion of NorthKorea would entail, including the likelihood thatChina would intervene to protect Pyongyang, offensiverealism helps explain why the administration decidednot to attack the North and instead focused on Iraq.But Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and overthrow theHussein regime has been heavily criticized bytraditional realists and even careful offensiverealists alike in that Iraq war disrupted theprecarious balance of power that existed between Iranand Iraq in the Persian Gulf (Kagan 2006). Husseinwas a troublemaker for the U.S., but the U.S. neededa strong Iraq that could check Iran’s ascendance. Infact, the greatest beneficiary of the U.S. waragainst Iraq in 2003 turned out to be Iran. Iran hasnot bothered to hide its ambition to become aregional hegemon, destabilizing the regional orderand the non-proliferation regime by continuing itsWMD programs.

6. CONCLUSIONSThis article has sought to assess the motivationsbehind the Bush administration’s decision to chooseIraq as target of preemption among the three roguestates identified as constituting the axis of evil.A combination of various strands of realist IRtheories sheds light on Bush’s choice to go to warwith Iraq while exercising restraint with other roguestates. Our study of the Bush era confirms that someAmerican administrations may be tempted to pursuehegemony if they deem the conditions to be ripe fordoing so. The early phases of the Bushadministration witnessed the “perfect storm” of anassertive group of policymakers, an international

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environment which was permissive to Americanadventurism, a relatively sound budget position, anddomestic public opinion which supported thegovernment’s pursuit of perceived enemies in the formof the terrorists and rogue states. An opportunisticWhite House launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.If the early stage of the Bush presidency representeda high point in a cycle of superpower adventurism,the first years of Obama’s term seem to indicate alow point in that cycle.

Bush’s grand foreign policy design was aimed atperpetuating the U.S. hegemonic status by utilizingAmerican military supremacy, a doctrine ofunilateralism and pre-emption, and balancing offwould-be hegemonic challengers such as China. Todate, it seems that Obama does not feel comfortableabout this notion of American hegemony, and Obama’sforeign policy is more geared toward enhancingAmerican smart power.

The aggressive stance evident in the earlystages of the War on Terror moderated over time: asrelatively easy gains gave way to more difficulttargets, the willingness of the Bush administrationto pursue its goals via force diminishedcommensurately. Despite the ambitious scope of theneo-conservative project, in the fullness of timeeven its most ardent supporters conceded that therewere limits to what they could achieve. This is inkeeping with the advice of offensive realism, whichstipulates that not “all states are motivated byblind ambition (though some may be). States calculaterationally the best way to expand their relativepower” (Labs 1997, 12). The neoconservative elementswithin the Bush administration certainly saw the

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world through the theoretical lens of offensiverealism, but careful offensive realists would nothave endorsed the war.

Unlike its predecessor, the Obama administrationsignalled that its policy toward rogue states wouldbe that of accommodation as well as confrontation.Obama himself stated a number of times during thecampaign that he would sit down face to face withsuch rogue leaders as Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad ifhe became president of the U.S. While offensiverealist thinking was evident in the Bushadministration’s worldview, as exemplified by itstreatment of the North as a revisionist state whichsought to develop WMDs (Hwang 2003, 38), it seemedthat Obama administration would deal with roguestates in accordance with defensive realism, seeingthem as trapped in vicious security dilemma not asrevisionist states. While Bush was never seriousabout carrots in dealing with rogues, Obama at leastinitially seemed to be committed both to carrots andsticks, both to engagement and sanction. But theexigencies of dealing with the impending domesticeconomic problems and Afghanistan war have preventedObama from taking a proactive approach to these roguestates. Obama’s policy toward rogues (particularlytoward North Korea) can be summed up as policy of“strategic patience” or that of putting te issue onthe backburner. In the meantime, North Korea hasbecome an even bigger threat, sinking a South Koreannaval vessel (the Cheonan), disclosing its HEUfacilities to an American scientist, and shellingYeonpyeong island in the Western waters of the Koreanpeninsula in November 2010. Iran’s relentlesspursuit of nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, and

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bio-chemical weapons has not subsided, either. It istime for the Obama administration to use bothsanctions and engagement to cope with rogue states,as it pledged to do before its inauguration.

Jaechun Kim is Professor of International Relationsat Sogang University. He has published a number ofarticles on American foreign policy toward East Asiaand CIA covert action in Third World states.

David Hundt is Senior Lecturer in InternationalRelations at Deakin University. His primary researchinterests lie in the politics, security and politicaleconomy of the Asia–Pacific.

The authors are thankful for the supportive andconstructive comments offered by two reviewers, theEditor of this journal, and Dr Jihwan Hwang.

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