Clinton, New Terrorism and the Origins of the War on Terror

ISBN-13: 9781138841727 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 178 str.

Chin-Kuei Tsui

Opis

A frequent assumption of the American-led war on terror and its accompanying discourse originated largely with the George W. Bush Administration, and that there was a counterterrorism policy revolution in the U.S. political arena. Challenging these assumptions, through a genealogical analysis of U.S. terrorism and counterterrorism discourses, this book demonstrates a distinct continuity (and lack of change) of U.S. counterterrorism policy, from Ronald Reagan, to Bill Clinton, and through to George W. Bush.

The book focuses on President Clinton s discursive construction of new terrorism, or catastrophic terrorism, and the counterterrorism practices implemented by the Clinton Administration, while simultaneously comparing it with President Reagan s and President George W. Bush s approaches to counterterrorism. It shows how the war on terror can be traced to earlier periods, and that the so-called Bush revolution was largely built upon the existing framework established by President Reagan and President Clinton. Prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks, Clinton had expanded Reagan s first war on terrorism discourse and constructed the new terrorism discourse, characterised by the notions of borderless threats, home-grown terrorism, WMD-terrorism, cyberterrorism, and rogue states. Clinton s new terrorism discourse provided a useful framework for George W. Bush to discursively respond to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Aiming to uncover the myth of President George W. Bush s foreign policy revolution and contribute to a deeper historical understanding of the U.S.-led war on terror, it will be of great use to postgraduates and scholars of US foreign policy, security studies and terrorism studies.

"

O autorze

Chin-Kuei Tsui is a postdoctoral fellow at Institute of Strategic and International Affairs, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan. His research interests are U.S. foreign and security policies, the American-led war on terror, and critical terrorism studies. His post-doc research focuses on President Obama’s counter-extremism initiatives.