BUSH DOCTRINE

Bush Doctrine

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initially

• described the policy that the United States had the right to secure itself from countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups, which was used to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.^[1]

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Later

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• policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a potential or perceived threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate;

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• a policy of spreading democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating terrorism

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• a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way