Combate ao terrorismo após 11/09 : uma análise comparativa dos governos Bush e Obama.

Abstract

The attacks against the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred on September 11th, 2001 in New York redirected the foreign policy of the United States to the Middle East, changing the focus of the country’s actions and generating wars and political crisis. It has emerged the argument that the American interventions in the zone after the attacks could be justified by the requirement of permanence in the global superpower position and maintenance of national security, as well as the duty of possession of the oil reserves, because if another State did it would be compromising the world’s biggest potency position occupied by the United States. Considering that, the goal of the present study was the investigation of the differences and possible similarities in the providences taken by George W. Bush and Barack Obama to contain or prevent the terrorist threat, indicating the internal and external factors that influenced in the decision making process to thereby answer the research problem, that questions which were these measures used by both the leaders. Moreover, the consequences of both policies for the international security were also presented just like the main groups that threaten the global security to the West. The methodology was guided by bibliographic, historical-descriptive, explanatory, exploratory research methods, with descriptive analysis and hypothetical-deductive procedures. To relate the internal and external variables and to facilitate the process of formulation of external actions utilized by the countries, the study had the Foreign Policy Analysis theory as research method, focusing on the Hermann’s Method (1990). As results, the research confirmed the hypothesis that the two external policies, although reflect reactions of the United States in different contexts and both have been accomplished by two rulers with different political views, convictions and personalities, didn’t detach completely from each other. The use of force to achieve a predetermined goal (terrorism containment) was present in Bush Doctrine and Obama Doctrine, although more unilaterally in the first one, and more discreet and with the defense of the multilateralism and cooperation in the second one. Furthermore, the events occurred mainly in the 20th century (like the World War I, World War II and Cold War), contributed to the American prestige favoring the economic, political and military growth of the United States and therewith its elevation to the level of the world's unique superpower. Thus, the terrorism was not the first ‘enemy’ in the American conception, and even if the terrorist practice has gained prominence in the 21st century, the actions categorized as terrorists exist since the 18th century and go far beyond of radical attacks motivated by religious principles.