-Assistant Professor of Political Scince, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Since taking office, the Obama administration has repeatedly affirmed its intent to prevent potential future international crises from becoming the source of costly new U.S. military commitments. In one of the earliest foreign policy pronouncements of the new administration, vice President Joseph R. Biden declared: “We’ll strive to act preventively, not preemptively, to avoid whenever possible or wherever possible the choice of last resort between the risks of war and the dangers of inaction.” This would not be the first time senior U.S. officials have extolled the virtues of better crisis management and conflict prevention as a way to avoid costly military entanglements. Yet for all the avowed interest in preventive action, the United States has repeatedly found itself responding to foreign crises belatedly and hastily with damaging consequences for U.S. regional interests and policy goals. In many other cases, moreover, regional instability and conflict have eventually necessitated major U.S. military interventions to stabilize and reconstruct the stricken country. The Obama administration’s declarations will intent to make preventive action a policy priority for the United States. The hypothesis of this article indicates a direct relation between Obama's foreign policy and preventive action in U.S. strategy. The Obama's foreign policy is the independent variable and preventive strategy is the dependent variable and the theoretical framework is based on Agent-Structure approach.
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