George W. Bush Foreign Policy in Persian Gulf and Offshore Balancing, How Come?

Offshore balancing in the Bush foreign policy seems ironic but this article reveals that the Bush administration pursued this grand strategy to deal with the problems it had been faced with in the Persian Gulf after the growing internal conflicts in Iraq since 2006. Using poliheuristic theory, it is argued that this transformation of the strategy from preponderance to offshore balancing is rooted in the dynamics of US domestic politics. However, the Bush administration did not discard its hegemonic objectives like democratization entirely. They just adopted new methods and approaches to achieve the same goals, in which they engage regional players and employ over-the-horizon capabilities to favor democratization. This can be called hegemonic offshore balancing.