100 Days: Foreign Policy and National Defense

W A S H I N G T O N, April 24, 2001 -- As George W. Bush took the oath of office as the 43rd president of the United States, the most significant gaps in his experience were in the often-intertwined realms of national defense and foreign policy.

During the first 100 days of his administration, the new commander in chief confronted major controversies in both.

Clear and Present Danger?

"We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge," the former Texas governor pledged in his inaugural address.

Bush assumed the presidency determined to achieve that goal, in large part, by building a shield to protect the U.S. from ballistic missile attack — regardless of strong opposition from Russia and China, which the president has called "strategic competitors," and such traditional "strategic partners" as Great Britain and Japan.

"The president is not ambiguous," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in his first press Pentagon press conference. "He intends to deploy a national missile defense."

The administration's strong rhetoric on the $30 billion system, however, was accompanied by a more cautious approach on the diplomatic front.

"While they came into office with both six-guns blazing," observes ABCNEWS White House Correspondent Terry Moran, "… the attitude with allies and potential rivals is: 'We're going to do this, but the door is open — Let's talk about how we can get it done.'"

Few were surprised by Bush's push for missile defense, but the White House's announcement in February that a major defense budget increase would have to wait for a sweeping strategic review of the military's mission and needs caught many of the Pentagon's top brass off-guard.

"[R]eality jumped up and bit him in a part of his anatomy," former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleberger says of Bush. "I think what the president was doing, once he came into office, was to realize that simply [to] across-the-board dump money into the defense budget, was not a wise thing to do."

'Deliberate Non-Engagement'

"The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake," Bush said in his inaugural address. "America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice."

But the president quickly began to implement a foreign policy very much in-line with his campaign trail promise of a "humble" approach to international affairs — an approach marked decidedly by disengagement: Within weeks of taking office, Bush pulled back from the peace processes in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, discontinued negotiations with North Korea and explored ways to withdraw from peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans.

"It is up to Palestinians and Israelis to make the hard decisions that are essential if these two peoples are to live side by side," Secretary of State Colin Powell said of future Middle East peace talks.

Ivo Daalder, former director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, describes Bush's strategy as one one of "deliberate non-engagement."

"The striking thing in this administration is … a deliberate non-engagement in much of international affairs," says Daalder "An unwillingness, an extraordinary reluctance, to use American power to shape the international environment."

Boats, Planes and Espionage

A string of key international events — most of them beyond the White House's control — forced Bush to become actively engaged in foreign policy during his first months as president, testing the young administration's ability to perform on the world stage.

On Feb. 9, only three weeks after Bush was sworn-in, the Navy submarine USS Greeneville accidentally struck the Japanese fishing trawler Ehime Maru off the coast of Hawaii, killing nine. The deadly collision cooled U.S.-Japanese relations, but Bush soothed tensions by dispatching a top naval officer to Tokyo to issue a formal apology.

A week after the Greeneville incident, U.S. and British warplanes attacked Iraqi radar sites on the outskirts of Baghdad. They are the most aggressive allied air strikes since Operation Desert Fox in 1998 and the first offensive military action of the Bush presidency.

The commander in chief's efforts to explain the bombing, however, left some observers thinking he'd missed the mark.

"A routine mission was conducted to enforce the no-fly zone and it is a mission about which I was informed and I authorized," Bush said at a joint news conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox in San Cristobal, Mexico. " … We will continue to enforce the no-fly zone until the world is told otherwise."

"It was the worst moment, I think, of the first 30 days," says Moran. " … He simply did not look commanding. He was halting, he was hesitant — It was almost alarming, sitting there watching him."

On March 22, in the wake of the arrest of FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen on charges of espionage a month earlier, the Bush administration expelled 50 Russian diplomats suspected of spying. Moscow quickly retaliated by expelling 50 U.S. diplomats.

Bush's First Foreign Policy Crisis

In April, the president was forced to face the first foreign policy crisis of his administration, when a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II surveillance aircraft collided with a Chinese F-8 interceptor over the South China Sea. The Chinese jet crashed into the sea, killing the pilot, and the U.S. aircraft staged an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island, beginning a tense diplomatic standoff.

Beijing detained the EP-3 flight crew and demanded a full apology for the incident from Washington. Bush refuses and demands the prompt return of the plane and its crew.

"Failure of the Chinese government to react promptly to our request is inconsistent with standard diplomatic practice and with the expressed desire of both our countries for better relations," the president said the day after the collision.

It was the first of several stern warnings Bush would make in public statements, but the president also resisted calls by influential conservatives to take a harder line with Beijing.

On April 11, the Chinese government accepted a letter from the administration that, while not accepting responsibility for the midair collision, did say the U.S. was "very sorry" the Chinese pilot and plane were lost and "very sorry" the U.S. plane landed on Chinese territory without clearance. After 11 days in captivity, the 14 American servicemen and women were released.

International affairs experts generally gave the president high marks for his handling of the standoff.

"He kept the rhetoric down, he was patient and worked the diplomatic angle very hard," says Nick Lardy, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "He was low-key, he was firm, yet, diplomatically, he exhibited a lot of flexibility."

ABCNEWS.com's Carter M. Yang contributed to this report.