On the President's Speech at the National Defense University on March 8, 2005

President Bush’s speech at the National Defense University today relied heavily on reflective time and space imagery that might allow him to constitute and maintain a stable role for the U.S. in a fluid international scene marked by quick happenings (via Publius Pundit). Bush declares that:

Twice in six decades, a sudden attack on the United States launched our country into a global conflict, and began a period of serious reflection on America's place in the world. The bombing of Pearl Harbor taught America that unopposed tyranny, even on far-away continents, could draw our country into a struggle for our own survival. And our reflection on that lesson led us to help build peaceful democracies in the ruins of tyranny, to unite free nations in the NATO Alliance, and to establish a firm commitment to peace in the Pacific that continues to this day.

The attacks of September the 11th, 2001 also revealed the outlines of a new world. In one way, that assault was the culmination of decades of escalating violence -- from the killing of U.S. Marines in Beirut, to the bombing at the World Trade Center, to the attacks on American embassies in Africa, to the attacks on the USS Cole. In another way, September the 11th provided a warning of future dangers -- of terror networks aided by outlaw regimes, and ideologies that incite the murder of the innocent, and biological and chemical and nuclear weapons that multiply destructive power.

This text seems to interpret U.S. history through a lens that recognizes two significant times--Pearl Harbor and September 11th--that compelled changes in the U.S.' understanding of our place in the world. President Bush’s reflection is couched in a historical view that presents today’s policy in light of a perspective built on events in “decades” past that led to spatial adjustments on our part. Pearl Harbor compelled shifts in the U.S.’ attitude towards “far-away continents,” and ultimately led to the rise of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and “peace in the Pacific.” September 11th, 2001 has an even stonger role in reorganizing the United State's spatial understanding of the globe, since it “revealed the outlines of new world." Underscoring this intimate and significant connection between space and time, Bush's text proceeded to point out how places--Beirut, WTC, American embassies in Africa, and the USS Cole--created a temporal trajectory that landed the U.S. into the time of September 11th ("the culmination of decades of escalating violence").

Given the close relationship between time and space found in Bush's speech it seems appropriate that the two significant fissures Bush discusses, Pearl Harbor and September 11th, 2001, can be understood in terms of space and time, respectively.

Throughout the rest of the speech Bush relies on reflections of the interactions between time and space to cast the world in an easily conceptualized way:

Many governments have awakened to the dangers we share and have begun to take serious action. Global terror requires a global response, and America is more secure today because dozens of other countries have stepped up to the fight.

For all these reasons, the chances of democratic progress in the broader Middle East have seemed frozen in place for decades. Yet at last, clearly and suddenly, the thaw has begun

Additionally, throughout much of the speech shorter phrases that convey movement can be found: “The advance of hope,” “History is moving quickly,” and perhaps what will become the most famous line from the speech:

We meet at a time of great consequence for the security of our nation, a time when the defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom, a time with echoes in our history.

It seems then, that Bush's speech presents a picture of the world that looks a little like this: Events in the United State's history have compelled us to take action outside of our own borders. In turn, our actions (involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq) have led to other actions within the world:

In other parts of the Middle East, we're seeing small but welcome steps. Saudi Arabia's recent municipal elections were the beginning of reform that may allow greater participation in the future. Egypt has now -- has now the prospect of competitive, multi-party elections for President in September. Like all free elections, these require freedom of assembly, multiple candidates, free access by those candidates to the media, and the right to form political parties. Each country in the Middle East will take a different path of reform. And every nation that starts on that journey can know that America will walk at its side.

These actions, however, reflect a different type of movement along a different axis. Whereas before, much of Bush's imagery involved horizontal movement that crossed international borders, a new movement now occurs within the Middle East. As Bush puts it:

In other parts of the Middle East, we're seeing small but welcome steps. Saudi Arabia's recent municipal elections were the beginning of reform that may allow greater participation in the future. Egypt has now -- has now the prospect of competitive, multi-party elections for President in September. Like all free elections, these require freedom of assembly, multiple candidates, free access by those candidates to the media, and the right to form political parties. Each country in the Middle East will take a different path of reform. And every nation that starts on that journey can know that America will walk at its side.

Due to the outside actions of the United States and its allies, then, a new sense of time and awareness creates action and change within the Middle East.

So, in an international situation filled with much confusion and complexity, a rhetorical response from Bush appears that employs reflective language about space and time that create two distinct types of movement within the U.S.' and other countries' space and time. This seems, at the very least, easily conceptualized and possibly stabilizing.