Mary Baldwin College
Staunton VA 24401
This page last updated April 12, 2012
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| Feb. 14 | Midterm Exam Feb. 16 | Feb. 21 | Feb. 23 | Feb. 28 |
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| Mar. 27 | March 29 | April 3 | April 5 | April 10 |
| April 12 |
Prof. Bowen's inclement weather policy: If the College is open, class will occur; if the College is closed, class is cancelled. To learn if the College is closed on any snowy/icy day, call 540-887-7000. Any exception to the statement above will be posted here.
January 10, 2012
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class: follow this link.
Course requirements (as explained in the course syllabus), and optional extra credit term paper will be explained.
Digital Pictures of Class Members will be taken for the instructor's seating chart.
Course members will introduce themselves to each other.
Using a slide show, Prof. Bowen briefly will refer to biographical information, and his professional background.
January 12, 2012:
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Introductory functions:
- For students new to political science, review of the basic concepts of political science and of basic elements of the international state system prior to class may be helpful. Also, go here for clear contemporary facts on the U.S. comparative status in the international system, assembled by Laura Sobers, MBC Class of 2007. (These also can be compared to similar charts made using 1998 figures which are found here.)
- Class discussions today, and on any class day, may focus us on any of the many contemporary challenges faced by the U.S.
- Today, Dr. Bowen mentioned a Washington Post story that featured an official U.S. Marines’ study about Afghanistan. The study itself merits attention by those commissioning into the Armed Services (and others interested in U.S. war problems), as it directly addresses how U.S. military personnel should proceed in dealing with the Afghan people there. A link to this study is now provided here.
- Course materials useful for studying today's content:
- Webpage discussing the concept of national interest is linked here.
Announcements:
- At our first class, Prof. Bowen may have mentioned that he writes an editorial column that could be of interest to his students. Here is a link to scans of all 50+ of his editorials, 2001-2012.
- One recurring theme in our course, and throughout my teaching, is that the difficult waters our ship of state is passing though almost always resemble difficult passages overcome by earlier peoples. In this context, I will certainly point (today or later in the course) to the influence of idealistic thinking about foreign affairs, which has recurred at intervals in U.S. history, and which was abundant on the eve of World War I, and after it. In introducing idealism at MBC, emphasis often is placed on Woodrow Wilson, and with such a focus idealism comes across as a peculiarly American disposition. This point can be overdrawn: the idealistic temptation has had impact on other societies, too, even though it most has influenced the policies of the U.S., only. I would like to draw attention to 1933 Nobel Prize winning journalist Norman Angell, a British citizen, and his influential 1910 work on why war between Britain and Germany, or war among any other of the advanced countries, had become irrational due primarily to economic ties among the European states. Angell was a pacifist, and pacifism was then much in vogue on both sides of the Atlantic. Believers in this doctrine readily were convinced that economic "laws" made war "impossible." After war nonetheless broke out in Europe (1914), Angell was a darling of the worldwide pacifist movement organized by the "Peace Society," during and after World War I, often speaking to huge rallies. His book sold more than two million copies, and in all likelihood this is more than any other English language book on international relations in all history. Angel went on to write more than 40 books, and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles over the next several decades. But, the book in which he most forcefully made his pacifist arguments, and which did most to secure his Nobel Prize, was The Great Illusion (1910). In it he argued that it was an illusion that conquest could produce prosperity, or that military strength could insure peace: "military power is socially and economically futile." The will to believe such nostrums was large then, and not small now. These beliefs were especially influential in the 1930's, when economic Depression consumed the nation and problems abroad were believed to be remote. Angell sought and found a large U.S. audience, and as a young man had lived in the U.S. for part of his life. But , he was born an Englishman, gaining experience as a journalist in California as a young man, and later as the Paris, France, correspondent of the British newspaper The Daily Mail. He lacked university degrees, and never served in any nation's armed forces. For more on Angell, read The Great Illusion, or for those pressed for time, read Dr. Bowen's retrospective on it: "1910: Angell Advances Pacifism," Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century, 1901-1940 (Pasadena CA: Salem Press, 2007): 790-792. Copies are available from your professor: just ask.
Synopsis of Presentation that is planned for delivery: Prof. Bowen usually presents a PowerPoint presentation on "how the American experience shaped the way the United States approaches the world." Beginning with the purposes and Biblical inspiration behind the original settlement of the colonies on the East coast, the thesis developed is that in religious beliefs of the settlers, and in the man-environment relationship, andin the attitudes that accompanied this relationship, lasting habits were built. These shaped not just the behavior of settlers in the first two centuries, but the character of the people of the United States, the institutions of the U.S. Government, and the behavior of those institutions in their relationships with one another as they concern the rest of the world. Illustrations range widely across the 18th and 19th century, with a key point being that military force used initially against Native American nations smoothly was transformed into the key tool used toward other states, e.g. Mexico, as the United States matured as a country. By the time the nation emerged onto the world stage as a significant global actor (circa 1898-1918), a distinctive national style had emerged, one quite different from the principles guiding the behavior of other significant states of that era (e.g., Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia), or since.
January 17, 2012: Foundations of the American Role in the Contemporary World.
Announcements:
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class has met: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
1. Current events issues are always germane.
2. Your questions are always appreciated. Email them to the instructor prior to class if you prefer: gbowen@mbc.edu
3. Lecture: "Constitutional and Historic influences on the roles of US institutions in Foreign Policy." Along with the course notes from today, this online file presents much of what the PowerPoint presentation in class intends to convey. One additional point:
The impact of the perceptions of the particular set of post World War II U.S. leaders should be emphasized. Individuals matter, as their experiences shape their perceptions of what they saw to be imperative. This "Greatest Generation" (as Tom Brokaw famously has called them) was determined not to repeat avoidable mistakes. They learned from the failures of the first half of the 20th century, having paid high costs on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. From Harry Truman to George H. W. Bush, presidents benefitted from the received wisdom of the generation that was alive during the inter-war years, many of whom fought to preserve American freedom in World War II, and succeeded in that often at great personal cost. Think of Robert Dole, or Daniel Inouye, each long-time Senators who bore a lifelong effect from battle wounds. In determining post-World War II U.S. policy, this generation of U.S. leaders seems to have been determined not to repeat several mistakes, among them:
- They saw in Congress' rejection of the Versailles Treaty a sound reason to defer to future presidents when tough decisions needed to be made about key matters of national security. Congress often is too close to the people to understand broad national interests in the same ways presidents must.
- They saw in the reticence of Britain and France to stand up to Hitler another wide lesson. First, on matters crucial to U.S. national security, the conclusion became widespread and accepted that the U.S. must lead, not follow, our European friends. Second, they concluded that recent experience had shown that appeasing aggressor states (as France and Britain had appeased Hitler at Munich in 1938) only had invited further aggressions. The policy implications were also clear: to protect U.S. security, the U.S. must confront aggressor states early on, and firmly, lest more difficult circumstances present themselves later. This latter perspective greatly contributed to the broad support given to Pres. Truman's policies designed to stop Soviet aggression after World War II.
January 19, 2012:
The War Presidency: hub of foreign policy
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
1. Students' questions may be answered to start class today. Email them prior to class to: gbowen@mbc.edu
2. Review: last class argued that, overall, a president-centered foreign policy process best illustrates the actual situation of "who does what" in U.S. foreign policy making. Prof. Bowen is likely to emphasize two additional points from Tuesday's class that were in Tuesday's projected notes and the supporting online lecture, but not delivered. First, the Versailles lesson, wherein the post WWII generation came to believe that actions by Congress after WWI (rejecting the Versailles Treaty and turning inward toward "isolationism") were ill advised, and caused by excessive meddling by Congress in a realm of foreign policy where national interests best are understood by presidents; and the "Munich lesson," wherein it was concluded that, rather than following Europeans, we need to lead them into resisting aggressors early, before they threaten us.
3. A film on the role of the Presidential War Power in Foreign Policy may be shown: "White House at War" (Discovery Times Channel, October 12, 2005; Bowen tape #78).
4. Discussion of the film followed, with details provided on the War Powers Act of 1973, and its history in practice. These matters are documented in today's notes that were projected on the screen.
5. Other topics related but not discussed in 2012: last classes' presentations on the social, constitutional, and historic forces that have contributed to the rise of a presidency-centered foreign policy; and the two articles assigned for today may then take place.
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Items in the news related to the course:
- Six years ago at this season Prof. Bowen published an editorial on Jan. 22, 2006 concerning an act of terrorism committed against the United States in 1985 which should never be forgotten: the wanton and unnecessary killing of U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, a native of Waldorf, MD, who simply happened to be on an airplane hijacked by Muslim radicals and taken to Beirut, Lebanon. The editorial can be read here. The enemies of the U.S. discussed in that OpEd still remain beyond the reach of U.S. justice, protected from accountability for their actions by anti-American forces in Lebanon. In January 2011, the Hezbollah militia --the group that most was responsible for violence against Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s-- succeeded in removing the pro-American Prime Minister of Lebanon and, in league with others, placed an anti-American into that top role there. In such circumstances, achieving through judicial processes a measure of justice for Stethem or for other American victims of the political violence caused by Hezbollah and other Muslim radicals in Lebanon, became still more difficult. If justice cannot be obtained through law, other remedies must be contemplated lest the lesson be taught that the taking of innocent Americans' lives has no consequences.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Additional optional readings include: Bowen essay on U.S.-Soviet Russian relations which enlarges on points made in today's lecture; and the content of web pages on this website that are linked below.
Films on the U.S. invasion of Russia, 1918-20 (discussed elsewhere on this website), and on the outbreak of the Cold War, 1945-50, may be shown.
1. Discussion study questions that will help in review would include:
Why were the Soviets suspicious of the U.S. c.1945?
Were the Soviets, or was the U.S., primarily responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War? Why?
a. Alternative interpretations to the Hook/Spanier text's and to Prof. Bowen's views. Both Hook/Spanier and Prof. Bowen argue that Soviet aggression produced the Cold War. We believe a fair and balanced reading of the evidence supports this interpretation. This explanation, however, sometimes does not harmonize with students' prior beliefs, or with ideas students encounter in other contexts while in college. Students seeking to inform themselves about the arguments behind alternative interpretations of the Cold War period will find many alternative explanations that locate the moving forces creating the Cold War within U.S. economy, polity, or society. Some of these include:
- Gar Aperowitz, Atomic Politics
- William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy
- any of the works of his student, Gabriel Kolko, e.g. The Roots of American Foreign Policy
- Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace, who argues that bureaucratic imperatives created a National Security State; or
- Melvin Lefler, The Specter of Communism
b. Other Bowen web pages on this site that address the roots of Soviet suspiciousness in this period:
- The impact of U.S. actions during the Russian Civil War (1918-21)
- Timeline on early U.S. - Soviet relations
- Russia's geopolitical history of repeated invasions
- Marxism-Leninism: capitalism as the enemy
2. Themes developed in the lecture:
a. U.S.- U.S.S.R. diplomatic isolation, 1918-33:
-viewing Soviet Russia from Riga, Latvia
-The League of Nations
-the Lessons of Munich, 1938b. U.S.- U.S.S.R. relations, 1933-41
- Munich Crisis of 1938
- webpage on Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939
c. WWII:
- Detailed discussion of how wartime relations as allies both built cooperation and reinforced earlier suspicions
- Overview of large points made about wartime relations.
- Detail on the extent of Lend Lease aid. E.g., the U.S. provided 2000 locomotives to the USSR.
- The Yalta Agreements of 1945
d. Content areas from the Truman era may be mentioned in lecture, film, or other media used during the class, and that are addressed elsewhere on this website in greater detail:
- Origins of the Cold War:
- Overview of large points made in lecture
- Extended analysis of this topic
- The Truman Doctrine and the Greek Civil War, 1947
- U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia
- Truman's decision to recognize Israel, 1948
- U.S. Economic Primacy in 1948
- The Marshall Plan
- The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948-49
e. Truman Era Study Questions: Who did what? How?
1. What factors promoted the growth of Presidential supremacy in foreign policy prior to the Truman Administration?
2. What factors promoted the further rise of presidential leadership in foreign policy under Truman?
Agenda: January 26, 2012
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Announcement:
- Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Topics for the day: Today we will explore Pres. Harry S. Truman's approach to "containing" communism, and begin thinking about the debate within our Government over what limits there should be on the means with which to wage the Cold War (and on foreign policy more generally). This is a debate that first appeared in April 1950 in a argument over a secret document prepared for the National Security Council, NSC 68, and it blossomed again just months later in disagreements over the Korean War strategy chosen by Truman. Truman declined to initiate a global World War III (as contemplated in NSC 68) in response to communist aggression in Korea, electing to pursue a "limited war" confined to the Korean Peninsula, only. Against the advice of his theater commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, he chose not to widen the war into China, North Korea's ally. While his firing of MacArthur for "insubordination" in 1951 temporarily made plain the limits to U.S. war efforts in line with his overall "containment" policy, the wider debate on what limits, if any, ought to constrain U.S. actions in the global Cold War would resurface elsewhere in the 1950s and beyond. Among the foci of today's class dealing with these issues:
Planned content:
1. Review: Why was there a Cold War? Review of content from last classes.
Presidentialism: the concept of precedent, lessons from interwar years, and nature of the threat, 1945-49
2. Harry S Truman: the policy of Containment
broad goals, measured means: Marshall Plan, Greek/Turkey Aid, Berlin Airlift, forming alliances,
Discussion / study q uestions:
- what did anti-communism produce on the home front?
- why were many of the agreements made with other countries done through executive agreements, rather than through treaties?
- What was the challenge to containment contained in NSC 68? Would U.S. policy have been more successful had the recommendations in NSC 68 been more fully adopted?
3. Korea: Can the U.S. fight Limited Wars?
The relationship of the American tradition of crusading via total wars may be contrasted to Truman's objectives in Korea.
The role of the U.S. in what was technically, but not really, a "U.N. police action"
4. CIA covert operations: What had changed in the Soviet - U.S. military balance that made it prudent for this approach to be chosen? Where and when were covert operations undertaken as part of the overall "containment" policy? To what extent were these covert operations successful?
video, lecture and Q and A on Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1959-65)
These cases depict a tension between publicly stated U.S. goals and the means adopted to achieve these goals.
The democratic element in our foreign policy objectives can be contrasted to the anti-communist objectives. When a tension developed in achieving both goals, students should seek to explain which priority was primary, and why.
Film: President Kennedy will be linked to the spirit of these times, and will be shown to have authorized policies inconsistent even with his own publicly stated limits for policy. Richard Bissell, a key leader in Directorate of Operations the CIA in this period (i.e., the covert operations division), will be shown describing the ethos of the Agency at that time. Listen to him carefully and reflect on what he said.
Prof. Bowen will seek to link these attitudes to three presidencies (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy; 1947-63), arguing that consistent policy objectives are to be found, despite differences in emphasis regarding the appropriate means through which to achieve the goals.
5. The Taylor Report points policymakers to draw a line in S.E. Asia, and will be featured in our next class. Students should be able to place this study in its context.
Class notes projected on the screen during today's class now are available: follow this link.
Announcement:
- Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
- Additional optional readings include: Bowen essay on U.S.-Vietnam relations
- In addition to the larger essay (above), a webpage supporting this specific section of our course is available. It addresses the issue of public opinion about the Vietnam War. It includes evidence about when the public turned against the war, and which age groups and educational levels were most likely to be against the war.
F.Y.I.: The perspectives brought to our classroom by the instructor reflect decades of study of the topic in both secondary literature written by other historians and political scientists, and in primary documents from the eras under study. These perspectives he believes to be well informed, but students bring new eyes to the study of these materials and eras. He encourages students to engage in their own reading and reflection on the topic, especially in research with declassified documents from the era. In particular, Prof. Bowen calls attention to two archival sources for access to declassified historic documents related to U.S. foreign policy and Soviet (and other adversaries') behavior during the eras studied in this course. Links to the CIA Special Collections and to the (private) National Security Archive at George Washington University now are provided here.
Drawing on documents found in that latter collection, Prof. Bowen calls student attention to Document No. 15 in the "Did NATO Win the Cold War?" collection. Despite U.S. behavior which some may criticize, it is the view of Prof. Bowen that the Soviet Union and world communism nevertheless did, in fact, constitute a grave threat to the Western way of life, and that the Cold War was, in fact, not merely a conflict between two strong blocs of states but had substantial moral basis. The secret document linked here supports that conclusion, as it includes a transcript from Soviet archives of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saying to an Italian diplomat in 1961 the following: "The United States will start the war, and you will have to die," Khrushchev informed his Italian guest. "Understand me right. This is not a threat but a reality . . . . If we are attacked we will destroy the whole world. This is not an ultimatum but a realistic estimate." Within a week, Khrushchev provocatively began building a central symbol of communist tyranny: the Berlin Wall. Given this attitude in our adversary, do the steps taken by the U.S. in the era under study truly seem unwarranted?
Planned class content: The U.S. and the Vietnam War
Major components:
1. Questions/current events discussion.
2. U.S. in Vietnam
Setting the stage: There were Three Vietnam Wars, not one
- The Original Policy of aid to a non-communist Vietnam, 1954-60: Did the U.S. contribute to the outbreak of the Vietnam War?
-Geneva Accords of 1954
-US views of the Geneva Accords
-Covert Actions, north and south
The role of Col. (later Gen.) Edward Lansdale can depict this
- U.S. perceptions evolved, and the U.S. role changed between1961-65:
-The Taylor Report of 1961 convinced Pres. J.F. Kennedy that Vietnam was part of a global "a life and death struggle"
-Under Kennedy, the number of U.S. military advisors increased very substantially; the U.S. tacitly supported a military coup to remove Pres. Diem in 1963; and the security situation continued to deteriorate.
-The Tonkin Gulf Incidents, 1964, created a basis for Kennedy's successor, Pres. Lyndon Johnson, to portray the North Vietnamese communists as having attacked U.S. warships. This cConvinced Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which established the legal basis for the U.S. role to change from an advisory one (i.e., helping the anti-communist Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the South Vietnamese army) to one of direct combat operations being undertaken by U.S. Armed Forces. Some evidence suggests that the attacks at the center of the Tonkin Gulf incidents never, in fact, took place. Many believe Congress was deliberately misled by Johnson and Defense Department senior officials on this matter.
-The democratic process was undermined. Campaign commercials used by President Lyndon Johnson (1963-69) to portray his candidacy in the 1964 U.S. Presidential Election as the "peace" candidate, and to infer his Republican opponent might ignite nuclear war, can be viewed here. Substantial evidence now shows that Johnson was planning to escalate both air and ground war, even as he campaigned charging that his opponent would recklessly endanger the peace.
- The (American) Vietnam War, 1965-75:
Prof. Bowen is likely to emphasize how deception, a feature of U.S. foreign policy about Vietnam under Eisenhower and Kennedy, continued to be woven into the ways Pres. Johnson and other U.S. leaders engaged the public as the war escalated, 1965-68; and how deception continued during the process of winding the war down, 1969-73, under Pres. Richard Nixon. Both the 1964 and the 1968 U.S. Presidential elections involved substantial deceptions of the public about the true nature of the winning candidates' plan for Vietnam.
- Film often is shown on Pres. Richard M. Nixon, 1969-73, and his "secret plan" for peace.
Why the enemy's strategy was never effectively counteracted, or well understood. Vietnam expert Douglas Pike has suggested that the U.S. never grasped the Vietnamese concept of dao chun, an organizational ethos in which the entire people are mobilized behind the national war effort. "Mobilization by propaganda with guns," is how he once referred to it.
Two concepts: Guerrilla War (used by Vietnamese communists) vs. Counter-Insurgency (or C-I) war, the strategy used by the U.S.. Col. Harry Summers is the best expert to consult on this. His thesis is that C-I doctrine blinded the Joint Chiefs of Staff from recognizing that, after 1965, the chief U.S. enemy was no longer Viet Cong guerrillas but the conventional armed forces of the North Vietnamese regular army. In 1968, much of the irregular communist force known as the Viet Cong was decimated in the overly ambitious campaign they launched known as the Tet Offensive. Later, it was notable that it was the North Vietnamese regular Army that took Saigon in April 1975, not their southern Viet guerrilla allies.
A central point likely to be made is that waging a successful C-I war is quite difficult, then or now. The high human costs produced a breakdown of consensus within the American public (and Congress) about whether Vietnam was worth so much sacrifice, and questions about the whole Cold War project began to be raised from beyond merely radical fringe sources. Diivision among American political elites also characterized the period. Some reflection on whether the war in Afghanistan is producing similar effects may be appropriate. E.g., from Ron Paul on the Republican right to the legions of the Move On dot org group on the left, anti-war sentiments do seem on the rise across the political spectrum.
- It will be emphasized h ow the Tet Offensive of 1968 was catalytic in turning many Americans against the war.
The decisions made by Pres. Richard M. Nixon, 1969-73, that grew out of the spirit of his "secret plan" for peace will be addressed: e.g., his plan to change the color of the people in the coffins through his "Vietnamization" strategy, his "incursion" into Cambodia (1970) and the Secret War in Laos also reinforced earlier trends in which the public was kept far removed from key decisions. Most controversial was his claim that the Paris Accords (January 1973) represented "Peace with Honor."
Finally, the mechanisms of defeat may be addressed: Saigon fell, April 1975, to a frontal assault by the North Vietnamese regular Army. It became the communist-run Ho Chi Minh City it is today.
- Subsequent classes will address the legal changes imposed by Congress to limit the powers of the presidency in foreign policy that were put into effect as a consequence of ill ease over the "imperial presidency" that had been revealed through the Vietnam War and Watergate scandals.
- As this is Black History Month, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the matter of the unending Middle East conflict ought to be remembered. How many celebrations this month will recognize Dr. King's sympathy for Israel, or his clear understanding that the fashionable anti-Zionism was then, and remains, essentially a cloak for anti-Semitism? I quote Dr. King:
"...You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - this is God's own truth... All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less... And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism... Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - make no mistake about it."...
Excerpt from: This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York, 1971), pp. 234-235.
February 2, 2012
Materials projected onto the screen during today's class now are available: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
- The Changed Environment of the 1970s: a key change in this era was the achievement of strategic parity of nuclear forces by the Soviet Union. Other changes may have been responses to this deeper reality: revolutions in the Third World (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Nicaragua, Iran); the Nixon Doctrine; the role allies would play in the Nixon Doctrine's scheme for reducing direct use of U.S. armed forces; allies' misgivings about U.S. constancy, as illustrated in the conclusion of the Vietnam War (e.g., Israel builds nuclear forces; Taiwan seeks defense reassurances; Britain withdraws its navy from the Persian Gulf). Substantial changes within the U.S. also affected foreign policy: public loss of consensus about the goal in the Cold War, rising partisanship over foreign policy in Congress, Congressional-Presidential struggles to define limits to foreign policy.
- Prof. Bowen is likely to mention that while most matters reflected a shift in the direction of greater influence of the U.S.S.R. in world affairs in the decade, some problems for them also arose, especially after their invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979.
- Pres. Richard Nixon's approach to Major Powers: "detente" . Read closely your Hook/Spanier text on this, as this policy guided not just Nixon, but the Ford and Carter Administrations, 1974-December 1979. The end of the policy of detente occurred when Pres. Carter strongly reacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by declaring the Carter Doctrine and his refusal to permit U.S. athletes to compete at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, USSR.
- If you are uncertain about the Soviet leaders during this period, capsule biographies and summaries of policies of each are to be found by following this link.
- Pres. Richard Nixon's approach to Major Powers: "detente" . Read closely your Hook/Spanier text on this, as this policy guided not just Nixon, but the Ford and Carter Administrations, 1974-December 1979. The end of the policy of detente occurred when Pres. Carter strongly reacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by declaring the Carter Doctrine and his refusal to permit U.S. athletes to compete at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, USSR.
- If you are uncertain about the Soviet leaders during this period, capsule biographies and summaries of policies of each are to be found by following this link.
Congressional Reassertion of Co-Equal Foreign Policy Powers began in this era. The overall question about which to be thinking as you digest the materials in this phase of the course: What does the pattern show about Congressional ability to regulate foreign policy?
- The War Powers Resolution of 1973: Case Studies of Presidential - Congressional Discord: The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (specific terms, cases)
- Case studies of Presidential - Congressional Discord: undermining detente: The Jackson-Vanik Amendments
February 7, 2012
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Announcements:
- Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
- Midterm Exam will be on Thurs. Feb. 16, as stated in the course syllabus.
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. Those readings include an overview of this era by Prof. Bowen: "Foreign Policy of the United States," The Seventies in America (Pasadena CA: Salem Press, 2006): 395-399.
Additional optional readings on this era include: Bowen essay on Chile, Supplemental (optional) essay on U.S.-Chile relations available, Supplemental (optional) short timeline on U.S. Guatemalan policy available
Another recommended reading concerns the legacy of the 1970's and human rights problems then (and now) in Argentina: Juan Forero, "A child of the 'disappeared' finds himself," Washington Post (Feb. 11, 2010): C1, 3.
Class is likely to hear a lecture about:
- The Changed Environment of the 1970s: a key change in this era was the achievement of strategic parity of nuclear forces by the Soviet Union. Other changes may have been responses to this deeper reality: revolutions in the Third World (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Nicaragua, Iran); the Nixon Doctrine; the role allies would play in the Nixon Doctrine's scheme for reducing direct use of U.S. armed forces; allies' misgivings about U.S. constancy, as illustrated in the conclusion of the Vietnam War (e.g., Israel builds nuclear forces; Taiwan seeks defense reassurances; Britain withdraws its navy from the Persian Gulf). Substantial changes within the U.S. also affected foreign policy: public loss of consensus about the goal in the Cold War, rising partisanship over foreign policy in Congress, Congressional-Presidential struggles to define limits to foreign policy.
- Prof. Bowen is likely to mention that while most matters reflected a shift in the direction of greater influence of the U.S.S.R. in world affairs in the decade, some problems for them also arose, especially after their invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979.
- Pres. Jimmy Carter's approach to foreign policy: the Notre Dame speech of 1977, which advised Americans to move beyond an "inordinate fear of Communism," and the moral advocacy of human rights as a central element in the definition of U.S. interests.
1. President Carter sought a moral framework for foreign policy, which is an enduring American tradition.
It bears a strong relationship to the idealistic thought of Woodrow Wilson about international organizations, and the later development of these views by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It also can be argued that the first term policies of Pres. George W. Bush (i.e., during 2001-2005) bore strong resemblance to the sentiments behind this tradition, even as Bush distanced U.S. policy from strong reliance on international organizations as the chief means through which American ideals can be realized.
2. Congressional Reassertion of Co-Equal Foreign Policy Powers continued during the Carter years.
Executive agreements, the treaty power and Carter's abrogation of the mutual defense treaty with Republic of China on Taiwan will be addressed. (link to map)
Covert operations reforms will briefly be mentioned.
Case Study of Congressional support for Presidential initiatives: Human Rights Policy
Origins in 1973 Amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act: section 502(b)
Impact of earlier Chile Policy on Congressional attitudes toward Human Rights:
- termination of the Public Safety Program of the U.S. AID (1975)
- restrictions specific to Chile
Congressional-Presidential relations on human rights issues will be addressed:
Cooperation in the Carter years
Conflict during the Reagan years
Other cases of conflict over policy: Overview re Argentina, El Salvador and Guatemala
Announcements:
- Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
- Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. These include a brief overview of U.S. Foreign Policy in the 1980's. It is available: follow this link. Additional optional readings include:
Supplemental (optional) essays by Prof. Bowen available on today's topics:
- Conflict in Nicaragua in the 20th Century (published in 1999)
- Boland Amendments (1980's) (published in 1993)
- U.S.-El Salvador relations (unpublished)
- U.S. Afghanistan policy (chiefly a timeline; unpublished)
- For those interested in extending their analysis of U.S. foreign policy into the George W. Bush Administration: in the February 2009 issue of Vanity Fair a long, chronologically organized set of direct quotes about Bush-era policies by the architects of those policies, their chief assistants, and others who played a direct role appeared. While an interpretive account often does a better job synthesizing information for a student --and James Mann's "Rise of the Vulcans" would be a model first read of this kind for a extra credit term paper comparing the Obama and the Bush foreign policy decision making-- the Vanity Fair piece provides a raw, first cut on our recent political history. I recommend it. (If Vanity Fair's link goes dead, here is a link to a permanent copy of the article for use by my students).
today's class:
- In class some focus may fall on the continuation of Case Studies of Presidential - Congressional Discord: Arms Exports; relations with Iran before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and U.S. intervention in Lebanon (1982-84). Two resources on this website support student learning about the latter: a timeline about Lebanon from ancient times until about 2006, wherein pages 7-10 most pertain to content presented in our class meeting; and a timeline on the 1982-84 U.S. military intervention in Lebanon. Aspects of the in-class presentation as it concerned Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the problem of terrorism in Lebanon in the 1980s are addressed in this resource also on the Bowen website.
- Plan of organization for the class meeting today:
1. Discussion of Current Events may occur.
2. The Reagan Doctrine and the New Cold War.
a. Limits to which U.S. military forces were chosen as a tool of foreign policy under Pres. Reagan:
- The Grenada operation of 1983,
- the U.S. experience in Lebanon in 1982-84 :
- summary timeline;
- more detailed discussion with illustrations
- sources supporting points made in class
- the Weinberger Doctrine .
b. The Reagan Doctrine sought to raise the costs of empire to the Soviet Union in several ways. First, it continued the American practice of avoiding direct confrontation with the U.S.S.R. Second, it implemented a substantial build up of U.S. military forces, including implementation of the deployment of modernized nuclear missiles to Western Europe, and proposed to develop a space based anti-missile system to block potential surprise attack by the U.S.S.R. These elements were controversial, but did not lead to sustained confrontation with the Congress.
Confrontation with the Congress for control over the direction of foreign policy most was revealed by Pres. Reagan's Central America policy. In Guatemala, he was blocked from sending more than token military aid to the anti-communist government there that had sought substantial U.S. military assistance. Intelligence assistance was provided, however, enhancing Guatemala's war fighting capability. In El Salvador, a deal was made with Congress permitting significant U.S. military aid prior to the establishing of a democratic government there (1982-84), aid that markedly increased after the elected government of Jose Napoleon Duarte took office in 1984. Congress continued to monitor closely Reagan's aid packages to each of these nations even after democracy was established in El Salvador (1984) and Guatemala (1986). The most divisive set of Congressional - Presidential relations in this era concerned Nicaragua:
- Nicaragua and the Iran-Contras Scandal
- How Congressional reform of oversight of Intelligence Agencies' covert activities played a role in patterning conflict between Reagan and the Congress
One instance defies the pattern of the era. While Congressional - Presidential acrimony defined Reagan's Central America policy, covert aid to opponents of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan generally was popular in Congress:
- A case study of opposing Soviet Imperialism in Afghanistan can be accessed through notes projected during class, and also can be examined in readings in Hook and Spanier. This case also is likely to receive some attention on Thursday.
Lebanon: In this class meeting, Prof. Bowen frequently explains the U.S. role in Lebanon in the 1980s. (Follow this link for a linear explanation). It will emphasize the dangers posed to the U.S. by the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah (also spelled Hizbollah), a group which under U.S. law it is illegal to assist in any material way. He will likely refer pointedly to the killing of 241 U.S. Marines there in 1983, to the kidnapping of hostages during the 1980s, and the specific murders of three individual Americans: U.S. Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem, CIA station chief Christopher Buckley, and U.S. Marine Col. William Higgins. Both Stethem and Higgins have had U.S. Naval destroyers named after them.
- Here is a link to the U.S.S. Higgins, and another to a memorial to Col. Higgins.
- Here is a link to the U.S.S. Stethem.
- Here is a link to a 2006 editorial by Stethem's family, urging our government to do more to bring his killers to justice.
- Prof. Bowen's discussion of the situation in Lebanon in the 1980s in which each perished can be found by following this link.
- To read Prof. Bowen's 2006 published editorial about the Stethem case, and to two weblog commentaries about the case, follow these links: one, two.
- Details about the Presbyterian Church, USA's involvement with Hezbollah, the terrorist organization most responsible for each of these American heroes' deaths, are provided in a November 2004 published editorial, in numerous 2004-05 Bowen weblog entries (i.e., Nov. 15, 2004, Nov. 17, 2004, and Feb. 24, 2005), and in a 2006 update.
- In February 2008, it was reported that Imad Fayez Mugniyah, mastermind of the 1985 murder of Robert Dean Stethem, the U.S. Navy diver from Maryland killed in Beirut during a hijacking of an American passenger jet (for more on this 1985 event, follow this link), and the terrorist allegedly among those involved in the 1983 truck bomb attack on the U.S. Marines' barracks at Beirut (that killed 241 U.S. soldiers, sailors, and Marines), was killed on Feb. 13, 2008 by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria. While forensic evidence proving that the dead man was indeed Mugniyah may not ever be available, it is now consensus among experts that the long arm of justice finally did reach one of the world's most wanted terrorists.
February 14, 2012
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Announcement: Midterm Exam will be on Thurs. Feb. 16, as stated in the course syllabus.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Plan for class today:
1. Your questions about the Midterm Exam.
2. The Reagan Doctrine in Afghanistan will likely receive some attention as a review.
3. Factors leading to the ending of the Cold War (see also: timeline on this):
a. Berlin: its history, its meaning in the Cold War. A film on the 1989 Revolution in eastern Germany may be shown. Additional resources:
Presidents Truman and Kennedy (e.g., speech of June 26, 1963) on Berlin
A German Government resource commemorating the 136 victims killed by East German security personnel while trying to escape the walled-in city of East Berlin
President Reagan on (speech of June 12, 1987)
b. George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War, 1989-91
4. U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan in the 1980s
Questions:
What was new in the Soviets' behavior there?
To what extent was Reagan's policy a continuation of Carter's policy? In what ways was it new? Is it correct to refer to a Reagan-Bush policy, or did change occur?
Who were the mujihideen ? Why were they significant then, and now?
What impact did war in Afghanistan have on:
- the prestige and reputation of the Red Army?
- the Soviet economy?
- Gorbachev's will to continue the Cold War?
Political scientists often refer to the "demonstration effect" events in one place seem to have on other situations. In terms of the end of the Cold War, what did Soviet loss in Afghanistan demonstrate? to whom?
Detailed Outline with questions: The End of the Cold War, 1989-91
a. Eastern and Central Europe:
What roles were played in Eastern Europe by the following? Be specific:
- the Government of Poland?
- the communist party of Hungary?
- mass demonstrations in East Germany?
How did each of the above stimulate a broadening of the crisis of 1989?
What roles were played in Eastern Europe by the following?
- Civic Forum and other social forces in Czechoslovakia?
- Religious authorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania?
b. Minority Nationalities within the USSR:Why was the social fabric of the USSR unraveling?
War broke out in 1988 between Armenia SSR and Azerbaijan SSR; why?
What were some of the other settings of inter-ethnic conflict within the USSR at that time? What were the issues behind the conflicts? Have they been resolved in the years since?
In which SSRs were direct challenges to the authority of the CPSU made? Who did what in:Georgia
Lithuania
Latviac. Other International Factors
How did events in 1989 in China affect the end of the Cold War?
What did events in 1989 in Southeast Asia signify in terms of the end of the Cold War?
What did events in 1989-90 in Central America signify in terms of the end of the Cold War?
d. What moment truly was "the end" of the Cold War?
Why can a case be made that Nov. 9, 1989 was "the end"?
Why do Hook and Spanier contend that July 16, 1990 marks "the end"?
Why can a case be made that August 21, 1991 was "the end"?
Why can a case be made that December 25, 1991 was "the end"?
Bring a Blue Book and a pen, only. Put your name on the cover of the Blue Book, only. Write leaving margins for the instructor's comments.
February 21, 2012
Agenda of today's class meeting substantially focuses on U.S. - Israel relations.
Announcements:
- Extra time for term paper proposals. Prof. Bowen announced in class today that students who have not proposed to write a term paper may propose one this week even though the deadline set in the syllabus for such proposals passed on Feb. 16. If you desire extra credit in the course, read closely and adhere in your proposal to the guidelines about this in the course syllabus
- In the interest of keeping students well informed about the challenging situation in the region, Prof. Bowen recommends this highly revealing background study about the political roots and dangerous branches of the Egyptian political movement known in the West as the Muslim Brotherhood. Authored by Harold Brackman, the study comes via the Wiesenthal Center.
The Midterm Exam is likely to be discussed and tests will likely be returned. Essay writing issues may be addressed, as may the content of some of the most missed questions on the multiple choice exam.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Power Point presentations on U.S. relations with Israel will likely emphasize:
The origins of U.S. support for a Jewish state in Palestine under Pres. Wilson, and the role U.S. presidents (e.g., Truman) have played in realizing this goal.
The rivalry between the State Department and the Office of the Presidency over who would set U.S. Middle East policy objectives. Begun as early as the Wilson presidency, this theme of conflict over policy recurred under Truman and his successors.
Formal actions of International Organizations have not solved regional disputes, not in 1947-48, and not since. Conflicts among states and peoples often do not respond to U.N. urgings because the U.N. lacks meaningful means for enforcing its decisions. Illustrative of this is the Language of the U.N. 242 (1967). The 1967 "Six Day War" war greatly altered the map of the Middle East, and U.N. 242 has provided ever since the basic framework in which the search for peace has taken place. Yet, still in 2012, one of the key players in the contemporary conflict, the Islamist organization known as HAMAS, continues to reject the need to accept the 1947 Partition of Palestine by the U.N., and U.N. 242 (1967), and the 1993 Oslo Accords. Despite this rejection of every negotiated path toward peace, many (ill informed) observers claim negotiations with the Palestinian Authority through a U.N. organized Quartet of negotiators must now be pursued despite the fact that the P.A. and HAMAS concluded a Palestinian "unity" agreement in Amman, Jordan in Feb. 2012 without any mention of requiring HAMAS to accept earlier agreements (i.e., the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, U.N. 242, or Oslo).
U.S. unilateral policy thus gains importance in understanding who really has done what in the region. Until the early 1970's, the U.S. role was fairly minimal. The decision by Pres. Nixon (1973) to come to the aid of Israel during a Soviet mobilization on behalf of Egypt during the 1973 Yom Kippur war was a decisive turn toward greater U.S. involvement in the region.
Among the important consequences that have followed from this decision and the 1973 war were:
- Increased U.S. military and economic aid to Israel.
- Unification of Arab League position on the Palestinian question: PLO designated as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" at Arab League summit in Rabat, Morocco (1974).
- Arab states' boycott of shipments of oil to the U.S. and to one European ally of Israel (the Netherlands).
- Sharp increases in world oil prices, setting off a U.S. recession and a global economic decline with particularly acute effects on Third World economies.
- Direct and strenuous U.S. diplomatic efforts ("shuttle diplomacy") in the region to attempt to start a process of negotiation pointing to ultimate peace. This approach connected the Nixon, Ford, and Carter presidencies.
- Sharp deterioration in relations between Israel and the allies of the U.S. in Western Europe occurred in the wake of the 1973 war. Only to a small degree have these trends been reversed. A Europe worried about its oil supply generally has tilted toward the Arabs in the Arab - Israel disputes ever since. (This does not mean that individual European states all have become anti-Israel. Germany, for example, continued to be more supportive than France, and Britain tended to be more supportive of Israel under Mrs. Thatcher, 1979-90, than under her successors.)
- Rekindling of U.S.-Egyptian relations, a process which eventually yielded a visit to Israel by Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat and ultimately the Camp David Peace Agreement of 1978, which led to the return to Egyptian control of all Egyptian lands Israel had captured in 1967. Since that agreement, U.S. military aid to Egypt has followed a formula in which yearly aid to Egypt been 2/3 the amount of the military aid granted to Israel. Continued U.S. adherence to his formula came under severe strain in Congress in December 2011-February 2012 after post-revolutionary Egyptian officials brought charges against 19 Americans working for pro-democracy civil society organizations such as Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute. (A total of 43 such international NGO workers of all nationalities were charged). The situation remains unresolved and it is unclear whether U.S. aid to Egypt will continue.
- The 1982-84 U.S. involvement in Lebanon, which ended in the disastrous attack on the U.S. Embassy and on U.S. Marines at Beirut (October 1983), withdrawal in February 1984, and the later enunciation of the Weinberger Doctrine. This approach initially meant, in practical terms, increased reliance on other states in the region to protect U.S. interests, a position that changed after 2001.
February 23, 2012
Announcement: Drawing connections: Among recent topics in our readings was the Weinberger Doctrine (November 1984) which had great influence on U.S. foreign policy, both during the Reagan Administration and during subsequent administrations. As is shown in James Mann's book Rise of the Vulcans, Weinberger's ideas greatly guided the thinking of Gen. Colin Powell, who later served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the G.H.W. Bush Administration and as Secretary of State during the first term of the G. W. Bush Administration. Powell's application of the principles expressed by Weinberger once was referred to by James Mann (Rise of the Vuilcans) as the "Powell Doctrine," and a summary of it can be read in this linked interview with Colin Powell.
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. These include Makiya on the pathologies rampant in Arab states and societies. Written in the early 2000s, Prof. Makiya's analysis holds up to the test of time: it makes as much sense now as it did when it first appeared, despite sweeping changes across the Middle East region.
Announcement: Earlier in the semester, Prof. Bowen may have mentioned to the class that he was being interviewed about the problems in the Middle East by Gulan, a newsmagazine in Kurdistan, a particularly pro-U.S. region of Iraq. The interview came out on Monday Feb. 27. He is proud to be included in a series of "exclusive interviews" that includes other interviews with noted experts in political science (Robert Dahl, Feb. 8, 2012; Philippe Schmitter, Nov. 29, 2011), Middle Eastern studies (Joshua Landis, Feb. 27, 2012), military affairs (Anthony Cordesman, Feb. 14, 2012) and foreign policy (Les Gelb, Nov. 29, 2011; Eliot Abrams, Feb. 23, 2012). However, the command of the English language of the interviewer, and of the people preparing the written version of the interview, seems to have been somewhat less than the best, and some of my ideas may have been a bit garbled in the way they were rendered. Read the interview with your professor for yourself here.
Class today will be a continuation of the lecture about Israel, the Middle East conflicts, and the U.S. role therein. Links and notes above and below all pertain.
Additional optional materials include:
- Bowen, “Roots of the Arab – Israeli Conflict”
- U.S. Department of State, Middle East Peace Chronology
Interesting supplements:
- A multi part film that analyzes the Arab - Israeli conflict with special emphasis on the "Peace Process" since 1993 substantially reinforces the points Prof. Bowen will make in this and coming class meetings. "Relentless" appears in five segments of approximately nine minutes each, and can be viewed at YouTube. (The link will take you to segment No. 1, use the key words "relentless" and "Israel" in applying your searching skills to locate segments 2-5 there. There apparently is no segment No. 6, despite appearances to the contrary). Prof. Bowen also owns the whole one hour film.
- In class discussion today, Prof. Bowen was asked about U.S. aid to Israel, and to Egypt. Charts on those matters now are linked here: Egypt, Israel. These are not entirely up-to-date as they are 2008 statements, and only the latter comes from an official source (Egypt discussion in that source is here). Prof. Bowen encourages students interested in this dimension of foreign policy to follow up with their own researches.
Background has been provided in earlier classes concerning events that would shape the U.S.-Israel relationship in the 1990's. These foci have included:
- The way in which the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 provided a focus for Arab states to gain greater support for the war on Israel they began in 1948.
- The 1973 Yom Kippur War, and its repercussions, including a new centrality to U.S. diplomacy as a route to peace
- the use of the "oil weapon" by many Arab states
- "land for peace": a formula for Israel-Egypt peace in 1978-79
- The Assassination of Pres. Anwar Sadat of Egypt (1981) and the rise of Islamist terrorism
- The 1982 Lebanon War and the U.S. role in bringing about the safe evacuation of Palestinian fighters from Lebanon, which had the unfortunate side effect of leaving Palestinian civilians in Lebanon without a militia to protect them as civil war continued in Lebanon after the PLO's withdrawal.
- Pres. Ronald Reagan's decision to leave Lebanon just months after a suicide truck bomber sent by Hezbollah terrorists on orders from Iran killed 241 U.S. servicemen, mainly Marines, in October 1983.
- The hostage-taking problem in Lebanon in the 1980's, and its connection to the "Iran-Contras" affair
- The impact of the 1991 U.S. victory over Iraq on the region: all roads now appeared to lead to Washington.
New material can be expected today to address the situation in the 1990s, in light of the increased perception of the power of the U.S. in light of its victory over Iraq in 1991. Topics may include issues extending into the new millennium:
- Madrid Peace Conference, 1991: using the enhanced U.S. reputation to attempt to forge a "final agreement" of the Arab-Israeli conflict; which led to ...
- The 1993 Israel - Palestinian peace agreement, negotiated under U.S. auspices between Israel and the PLO (These also sometimes are known as the 1993 Oslo "Peace" Agreements), and the failure of this agreement and subsequent agreements to bring actual, lasting peace. (see the film "Relentless" on this)
- Bill Clinton's vigorous involvement in a further "Peace Process" of summit negotiations, and rifts that develop between the U.S. and each side in the dispute.
Future class meetings may address these additional related issues. Be sure to study them in your assigned readings, too:
- The Second Intifada: Sept. 2000 -2005: what "provoked" it, how it was conducted by the Palestinians, and how it violated the terms of the 1993 Oslo Agreements. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave substantial financial aid to families of suicide bombers against Israel: $15,000 to $20,000 checks were delivered.
- Some Palestinians' reactions to 9/11, and the sharply negative impact these celebrations had on George W. Bush.
- Israel and the U.S. in the Global War on Terrorism in the early 2000s: intelligence cooperation, political disagreements over who is the central enemy: Israel: Iran, militant Islamism; U.S.: Al Qaeda, Iraq.
- George W. Bush abandons the role of neutral arbiter between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and in 2002 called for new leadership of the P.A., and on April 14, 2004 wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon affirming U.S. support for Israeli policy of keeping some lands beyond the pre-1967 borders.
- The 2006 war between Hezbollah (in Lebanon) and Israel, which involved Iranian-supplied missiles being shot by Hezbollah into civilian areas of Israel.
- The December 2008-January 2009 conflict between Israel and Hamas (in Gaza)
- Pres. Barack Obama's outreach to the Muslim world (2009), and his preferences about Middle Eastern peace, and their likely impact on the possibility of further steps toward peace.
- The prospects for further tension in the U.S. - Israel relationship in 2012 that stem from differing perceptions of the threat posed by Iran, and differing attitudes about the need for a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Follow this link to today's class notes that were projected onto the screen.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Film about key decisions in the first Iraq War (1990-91) also will be viewed today.
Summarizing. In class, materials are likely to be presented concerning the U.S. policy toward Iraq in the 1980s, matters that are discussed extensively in Bowen's online essay about Iraq (which is an optional reading). A series of different objectives shaped U.S. policy in the decade, as may be described in lecture: a desire to contain the influence of revolutionary Iran; the need to protect oil supplies to Europe, Japan, and North America that originated in the Persian Gulf states and which could be menaced by hostile states; the desire to promote U.S. commercial interests that sought to export U.S. agricultural and industrial goods to customers in the region including Iraq; the desire to insure that human rights of Iraqi citizens were not violated by Iraqi policies; and the desire to dissuade Iraq from supporting international terrorist groups, some of which were based in Iraq. America's goals toward Iraq could not always be kept separate from wider regional goals, for example, strains in the U.S. relationship with Israel were made evident when Israel attacked and destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, a choice made by Israel alone that clearly angered Iraq against both the Israelis and their perceived sponsors, the U.S. Thus, U.S. relations with Iraq after 1981 labored under a shadow not entirely of its own making, a shadow that appeared quite differently to later U.S. policy makers. Achieving all of the diverse U.S. goals in the area would have been difficult in any circumstances for the U.S., but in the particular circumstances of the 1980s, this proved nearly impossible.
Iraq in 1980 had launched a war to gain territory from what it perceived as a weakened neighbor, revolutionary Iran, and that war went badly for Iraq. Reliant on Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian generosity for the financial means to wage a long war against Iran, Iraq was strained to its limits, and chose to use banned chemical weapons to stem Iranian advances. Iraq also used chemical weapons against its own citizens, the Kurds of the town of Halabja, in March 1988, and against Kurds in other areas; this widely confirmed event was the subject of a 2006 trial of Saddam Hussein that had not reached conclusion when he was executed for other crimes. The U.S. did not approve of these breaches of longstanding international conventions barring the use of chemical weapons, but the U.S. also did not act vigorously against these uses of banned weapons. Geopolitics seems the best explanation why we did not: to prevent Iraq's defeat by Iran, a strategic decision was made in the Reagan Administration to assist Iraq. Revolutionary Iran simply was perceived to be the larger threat to U.S. interests. While most aid to Iraq in the 1980s was indirectly delivered (e.g., arms exports to Saudi Arabia were then re-exported to Iraq, in violation of the technical terms of U.S. arms exports laws), some non-military aid was given directly. Iraq's finances were improved by use of U.S. export guarantees to underwrite food and industrial product exports to Iraq in the 1980s, a pattern that continued after the 1988 end of Iraq's war with Iran. Some of these subsidized industrial exports were "dual use" items, i.e.: items primarily thought to be innocent industrial equipment but which are capable of being used to enhance military capabilities. U.S. allies were more directly helpful to Iraq's military projects, especially France, who sold major weapons systems to Iraq, e.g. Exocet missiles. Additionally, U.S. intelligence information about Iranian troop movements apparently was shared with Iraq. Finally, and most obviously, the U.S. re-flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers , allowed them to fly the U.S. flag, and protected these apparently U.S. vessels with the U.S. Navy. These tankers were exporting oil that returned profits to Kuwait; the Kuwait government then loaned significant monies to Iraq. These loans helped finance Iraq's war against Iran. On several occasions, the U.S. Navy fought brief battles against Iranian Naval and Air forces over the Persian Gulf, especially in 1987-88. The incidents are detailed in a separate timeline at this website.
The secret U.S. sale of weapons to Iran (i.e., the "Iran-Contras" scandal) greatly complicated this delicate U.S.-Iraqi relationship in the 1980s, and contributed to at least one incident in which the Iraqis appear to have retaliated against the U.S.: the air raid on the U.S.S. Stark, in 1987. Nonetheless, the Reagan Administration (and its successor), steadily attempted to favor Iraq over Iran, even in the face of such incidents. (The sale of missiles to Iran, done secretly in order to raise money for other projects, and to attempt to gain Iranian help in securing the release of American hostages in Iran, forms a counter example here, and led to the Iran-Contras scandal within the U.S. in 1984-87).
The policy of warming or "tilting" toward Iraq continued after the 1988 end of the Iran-Iraq war, setting off intense bureaucratic battles within the U.S. administration about the wisdom of this choice. Nonetheless, Pres. G. H. W. Bush ordered that the goal of improved relations with Iraq continue to guide policy, especially in a November 1989 Presidential directive known as National Security Decision Directive No. 26.
Thus, when Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, American policy broke suddenly in a new, confrontational direction. This collision of U.S. and Iraq led to an embargo of trade with Iraq (1990-2003), and substantial human suffering as a result, as the Saddam regime transferred most of the costs of the embargo onto the poorest of his people. Obviously, the enmity between the U.S. and the Saddam regime most was in evidence in the two wars fought between our nations, the 1990-91 conflict, and the present conflict that began in March 2003. But the entire decade separating the two wars also was filled with close misses with war, routine U.S. aerial bombardment of Iraq's military defenses, missile attacks by the U.S. on Iraqi intelligence headquarters, and a U.S. policy of occupying a significant portion of northern Iraq in order to protect the Kurdish minority there. U.N. officials also mounted intrusive inspections to insure that weapons of mass destruction Iraq was obliged to destroy under the terms of the 1991 cease fire had in fact been destroyed. All of these factors have colored the attitudes Iraqis hold toward Americans, though it also is true that our occupation of Iraq after March 2003 most has shaped contemporary Iraqis' behavior toward Americans.
The instructor's perspective on all of these matters about the U.S. and Iraq also is available in more extensive form:
- An additional, optional reading: Bowen website essay "U.S. and Iraq"
- In that essay, among the points made are:
- how U.S. Iraq policy was made in 1990,
- key U.S. policy decisions made in early August 1990 and in mid-November 1990
- The U.S. threat about U.S. retaliation should Iraq use its weapons of mass destruction which was delivered in Geneva, January 9, 1991.
- The role played by the U.S. Congress
- The Persian Gulf War: air war, ground war.
- Charts on rising popularity of Pres. George H. W. Bush during the crisis and war
- Prof. Bowen's editorial on U.S.-Iraq relations from 1991 captures that moment in time, and may prove helpful; it can be found here.
- Terms that Ended the Gulf War of 1991
- Prof. Bowen's editorials on U.S.-Iraq relations also may prove helpful, and can be found among the 50+ editorials he has published since 9.11.01; they are linked here.
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Announcements:
- Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. These include the published essay by Prof. Bowen, "Foreign Policy of the United States," from the 2009 book The Nineties in America.
Additional optional readings include:
- Prof. Bowen's essay about U.S. relations with Iraq
- web timeline about U.S. involvement in Somalia
- web timeline about the genocide in Rwanda
- web timelines about the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars in
- Croatia
- Bosnia
- Kosovo overview
- Kosovo War of 1999
- Bowen essay on Yugoslavia's wars and the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal
- Prof. Bowen's 1999 position taken in public debate at MBC on the war in Kosovo
Matters concerning U.S. involvement in Africa, the question of whether the U.S. (or perhaps the U.N.) has an obligation to stop genocide (e.g., in Rwanda in 1994), and the legacy of the Clinton approach in Africa also may be addressed.
Class notes projected on the screen today now are available: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. Required readings before class today include: Bernard Lewis on Bin Laden, which demonstrates (among other things) that some U.S. scholars knew quite a lot about what was coming at the United States as early as 1998. Additional optional readings include:
- Prof. Bowen's 2011 article "Has Outreach to the Muslim World by the Obama Administration had an impact on Muslims' attitudes toward terrorists and terrorism?," Middle East Review of International Affairs (August 2011).
Updates:
OBL: The assigned 1998 study by Lewis in which he quoted Osama bin Laden's threat to kill Americans, civilian or military, anywhere in the world is not "dated" information. Since then the threat has been repeated frequently, as in a March 2010 tape, where (the late) bin Laden again threatened to kill Americans. Follow this link to read both the original Al Jazeera news account and the Associated Press news story that circulated about it. Moreover, it has not been just bin Laden. The leading ideologist of the emergingly dangerous Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S.-born cleric (the late) Anwar al-Awlaki, in Fall 2010 issued a fatwa (i.e., religious ruling) stating that no further religious authority is needed for any believer to commence killing those Americans they may be able to attack; see this video of his statement and reflect on what it means: http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2671.htm Please also feel free to browse the various statements by Al Qaeda assembled by Prof. Bowen.
KSM: As we gear up for a 9/11 show trial sometime in 2012, students might wish to read what your professor had to say years ago: Prof. Bowen published an editorial March 17, 2007 on the matter of the "apology" issued to Americans by Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (also known as "KSM"). Read it here. Also of interest:
- A March 10, 2007 statement by KSM, the chief planner of the 9.11.01 attacks on the U.S. that was released March 14, 2007 by the Department of Defense.
Prof. Bowen reminds students of the study linked on page one of our course syllabus, the one that lists and briefly describes all U.S. military engagements, 1798-2008. It is worth skimming, as it includes 65 events during the Clinton Administration and 29 in the George W. Bush Administration.
The U.S. is at war: this unit concerns the contemporary conflict (2001-12). Organized around the conceptual framework of a "Pyramid of Terrorism" (link to this graphically expressed), course content in the next week will attempt to provide comprehensive background on the enemy, its leaders, the structure of the movement that supports it, information on who the 9.11.01 attackers were, how they conducted the 9.11.01 attacks, how the U.S. responded to Al Qaeda and its allies prior to 9.11.01, and most importantly, how much support the enemy enjoys as measured by public opinion polls in key countries. To insure students have access to this important material, Prof. Bowen is providing it in several forms.
- First, there will be presentations in class, on which students should attend and take notes.
- Second, Dr. Bowen's interpretations are available in documented form as published academic articles, available for students to read (optional) in various forms:
- Most recently: "Has Outreach to the Muslim World by the Obama Administration had an impact on Muslims' attitudes toward terrorists and terrorism?," Middle East Review of International Affairs (August 2011).
- (Earlier published articles from 2005 and 2006 also address this topic, a shorter and a longer version).
- That 2011 chapter revisits themes Prof. Bowen argued in a 2009 book edited by Adam Lowther and Beverly Lindsay for Praeger Security International, Terrorism's Unanswered Questions. Prof Bowen's chapter is entitled "Measuring the Enemy: Social Support for Islamist Terrorism," and appears on pages 32-59.
- Third, a chart illustrating the evolution of Al Qaeda operations in terms of their financing and lethality is linked here.
Recommended additional background resources also are available (optional):
- A Bowen web page: "What is Al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda and U.S. Foreign Policy."
- Historical document: Presidential Daily Briefing, August 6, 2001 "Bin Laden Determined to strike U.S." (a now declassified, but once Secret document).
- The highly motivated student might also wish to follow the leads to academic sources on this subject here. Prof. Bowen's course PolS 311: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism fully studies this subject, and is scheduled to be offered at MBC in Spring Semester 2013.
- Continuing links to developments related to the war on terrorism.
- The official U.S. Government report on the 9.11.01 attacks is linked here. Anyone wanting a clear account of who did what, and why, should obtain their free copy of that study, read it, and digest it.
Questions for discussion might include:
What are the goals of Al Qaeda?
What was the impact of 9.11 on Pres. Bush and his administration?
What sort of decision making processes were followed? Did they adhere to the assumptions of the Concentric Circles model?
What impact did 9.11 have on U.S. relations with allies and others?
What impact has the subsequent Global War on Terrorism had on U.S. relations with other states?
In what ways has the Global War on Terrorism as conducted advanced U.S. national interests? Have any of the means used retarded achievement of the protection of these interests? Discuss.
Among issues likely to be treated in subsequent class meetings is that of Presidential Popularity and foreign policy: The Rally Round the Flag phenomena in public opinion. (Updating the latter of these files would certainly be an excellent term paper project . Prof. Bowen has the data files for an interested student to use) :
Agenda of today's class meeting is available: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus.
Today's class will build on analysis begun on March 15. All sources referred to in support of that day's class remain pertinent. Prof. Bowen calls particular attention to the work of the 9/11 Commission:
- Thomas Kean, et. al. The 9/11 Report (2004). Available for free at: http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf .
March 22, 2012: The George W. Bush strategy of pre-emption: the U.S. in Afghanistan
Agenda of today's class meeting is available: follow this link.
Prof. Bowen published an editorial this morning. It concerns the slide toward an extremist anti-American government in Egypt, and its implications for our understanding of the sources of peace in that troubled region. It is online both at its original source and permanently here on his website.
As this part of our course is about your generation: In the spirit of understanding the meaning of our struggle against terrorism, I call attention of my students to this brief video that commemorates the life of Daniel Wultz, an American 16 year old who died six years ago this Spring, a victim of jihadist suicide terrorism.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. Especially, read:
U.S. Senator John Kerry, "Tora Bora Revisited" (2009); and David Kilcullen on "The Accidental Guerrilla."
Additionally, consider these supplemental (optional) readings:
- Tom Hayden's critique of "Kilcullen's Long War." Hayden, who once was a defendant in the famous "Chicago Seven" trial and who later became a California State Senator, once was married to actress Jane Fonda.
- To understand the human rights implications of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, it is highly recommended (but not required) that you read and digest this OpEd on Afghanistan by Kristen Rouse, "The Children of Asadabad," New York Times (March 16, 2009).
- As Woodward argued in the book Obama's Wars, Pakistan is the key to winning in Afghanistan. President Obama's attempts to improve relations with Pakistan have foundered in 2009-12. Full cooperation has proved impossible, and not just due to highly publicized incidents such as the Raymond Davis affair (Jan.-March 2011), the raid on Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden (May 1, 2011), or the apparently accidental U.S. air raid on Pakistani Armed Forces that killed 26 in late November 2011. To understand background on why state leaders in Pakistan long have appeared to choose to defer to those locals who hold anti-American opinions, and to support U.S. anti-terror policies unenthusiastically, or inconsistently, a student could read:
- This 2007 article on the difficult conditions that long have existed on the Afghan-Pakistan border, a problem that gives opportunity for the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in an area Time Magazine (March 22, 2007) referred to as "Talibanistan." Pakistani control over the border region has always been weak, and has deteriorated in the recent years, years in which many policies have been tried by the Pakistan Governments, e.g.: a "truce" with tribes in the region was reached in Sept. 2006 between the Pakistan Government and local tribes in Waziristan, and a similar 2008 agreement with the Pakistani Taliban in the province of Swat, all of which ultimately broke down.
- Go here for a map of the ethnicities in Pakistan, and in neighboring Afghanistan
- When the Pakistani Army pulled out from these and other areas, the Taliban and foreign Al Qaeda fighters re-emerged to threaten U.S. interests in the region (e.g., safe transit of war materiale across Pakistan to Afghanistan) and also threatened the viability of the Pakistani state. In this difficult atmosphere, the U.S. has conducted growing numbers of air raids inside Pakistan during the Obama Administration, targeting al Qaeda and its allies, chiefly those associated with the Taliban, both the Afghani and Pakistani branches. Go here for charts on the frequency of these attacks.
- Ironically, the somewhat greater level of Pakistani official support for the U.S. anti-Taliban, anti-Al Qaeda campaigns in 2009-May 2011 tookn a toll: public support for the Musharraf Government (to Sept. 2008) and for the current democratically elected Pakistani Government led by Asif Ali Zardari declined, further weakening the already weak domestic base that supports pro-U.S. policies. Substantially, this is because the legal political system in Pakistan includes political parties strongly sympathetic with the Taliban, and because Pakistani society includes a persistent element, 15-30%, who sympathize with these Muslim extremists. Caught in the middle, Musharraf seemed at times to be hard pressed to fully support U.S. counter-terrorism goals with Pakistani military action in Waziristan, and the Zardari Administration initially engaged in ritualistic denunciations of most U.S. air raids conducted under Pres. Bush, and which increased in frequency and intensity under Pres. Obama (Go here for charts that demonstrate Obama to have increased the frequency and intensity of these attacks.) . Yet, the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan continues to rely on Pakistan's support: attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan and on U.S. Special Operations personnel present in Pakistan have increased dramatically in 2009-2012, especially after the incursion into Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Navy Seal Team 6 on May 1, 2011, a raid that killed Osama bin Laden without any approval from the Pakistan Government. As have attacks targeting U.S. petroleum and other supplies in transit across Pakistan have increased, relations have become more strained. Three U.S. Special Forces personnel were acknowledged to have been killed in Pakistan on Feb. 3, 2010 (go here for details).
- All is not uncooperative, however: arrests were made of key Taliban leaders in Pakistan in early 2010. But the Pakistani Government, and especially in its key security institution, the ISI, need more fully to cooperate with the U.S. if the U.S. is to succeed in Afghanistan, and this remains a strategic choice that carries with it substantial risks to Pakistani officials. In 2011-12, several political assassinations of moderate elected officials and journalists opposed by hard-line Islamist factions have chilled the atmosphere in which reasoned discussion of Pakistan's true national interests could take place: fear surrounds those inclined even privately to cooperate with the U.S.
- This study details the size of various insurgent groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan in 2009: To learn about the sizable enemy we confront in Afghanistan/Pakistan, read a (leaked) official U.S. military assessment of the extent of the enemy forces in this war theater: TRADOC Intelligence Support Activity (TRISA), HB 9 Paramilitary Terrorist Insurgent Groups (March 1, 2009). You may obtain a copy by following this link.
- The Long War Journal details the frequency of U.S. airstrikes inside Pakistan. Their charts show Pres. Obama to have used this tactic more frequently than did Pres. Bush. These are frequently updated.
- One additional reason the U.S. must precede with caution in this region is that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Students interested in reading more about how Pakistan got the atomic bomb, see: Seymour Hersh on Pakistan's nuclear program and its security, in the November 5, 2001 New Yorker, and his January 20, 2003 article in that same magazine regarding the relationship between Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program.
Additional optional materials on this website include:
- Map of N.A.T.O. deployments in the Afghanistan War, c.2008
- timeline on Afghanistan
- timeline of al Qaeda attacks since Sept. 11, 2001
- Map of Pakistan's ethnic groups
Discussion questions:
What are the goals of Al Qaeda? Do they truly differ from those of the Taliban? Is the "Pakistani Taliban" best understood as a fully different organization from Al Qaeda and/or the Afghani Taliban?
Who are the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan? Are they truly an Afghani "resistance"? Do suggestions by the Obama Administration that the U.S. negotiate with some of the Taliban make sense to you in light of how you understand U.S. values and interests? (e.g., see Rouse).
What was the impact of 9.11 on U.S. relations with Pakistan?
What sort of decision making processes were followed by Pres. Bush and his team? Did they adhere to the assumptions of the Concentric Circles model?
How did 9/11 affect U.S. relations with allies and others?
How has the War on Terrorism affected U.S. relations with other states? E.g., U.S. relations with Pakistan?
Questions on today's required readings:
Re: Kerry, "Tora Bora Revisited" (2009):
- How did Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001?
- Would deployment of greater amounts of U.S. military power have prevented this outcome?
- Why did the U.S. rely on Afghans to the extent it did in the battle of Tora Bora?
Re: Kilcullen, "The Accidental Guerrilla" (2009):
- Who is Kilcullen? How does his background influence his reading of the state of contemporary land warfare?
- Around the turn of the millennium, many experts argued that land warfare would cease in the 21st century. These attitudes stemmed, in part, for the preponderant position of the U.S. in terms of its relative strength militarily compared to other states (see 430). What does Kilcullen think of this reasoning, and what does he see as the actual status of land wars involving the U.S.?
- What did Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, authors of the obscure but important 1990s book Unrestricted Warfare, argue? Does Kilcullen essentially agree, or refute, their contention that U.S. strengths can be turned into weaknesses by a determined enemy? Why?
- Kilcullen presents several alternative ways to think about the present world and the conflicts within it. Summarize what are the central elements in each of these models he presents, then assess its fit to the current situation:
- The "globalization backlash" model
- The "globalized insurgency" model
- The "Islamic civil war" model
- The "Asymmetric Warfare" model
- What policies make sense if, rather than choosing one of these models, we look through all four separate lenses at the problem before us?
- In places, Kilcullen seems to embrace a strategy of counter-insurgency. This is unsurprising: Kilcullen's expertise is as a student of insurgencies and how to defeat them. That's why he was brought in to the Bush Administration's advisory team even though he is not an American (he's Australian).
- How successful does he believe U.S. efforts to counter global insurgency have been?
- Do Al Qaeda's tactics suggest that they have embraced what Kilcullen calls the concepts of "protraction" and "exhaustion"? In terms of U.S. the publics' attitudes, are these Al Qaeda choices successful?
- Have the events of the last year or so known as the "Arab Spring" spelled an end to, or embodied the growth of, Al Qaeda and the broader takfiri insurgency movement (of which it is a central part)?
- Does the Syrian uprising, 2011-to the present represent clear evidence that the "Islamic civil war" model is the proper way to conceive the present security challenge to the U.S.? Why or why not? Does the "rise of Iran" of which Kilcullen speaks (427-429) support or undermine this model?
- In Spring 2012, calls for U.S. intervention in Syria have grown more intense almost daily. If one is mindful of Kilcullen's central point, which is that the U.S. needs to be careful not to create "accidental guerrillas" by our very methods of opposing threats from terrorism, how should we evaluate the case for intervening in Syria?
Re: Hayden, "Kilcullen's Long War " (2009):
- Hayden, who once was married to and closely identified with the public anti-war preferences of actress Jane Fonda, suggests that Kilcullen's overall plan is one that will produce the very "exhaustion" that Kilcullen suggested was Al Qaeda's intent. What reasoning leads Hayden to this assessment of the costs involved in the policies that, Hayden asserts, Pres. Obama has adopted?
- Hayden suggests that it is bogus to claim that much of the enemy the U.S. currently contronts are "accidental" opponents. How differently does he explain the ease with which Al Qaeda and the Taliban have operated in the Af/Pak region?
- According to figures Hayden presented, what has been the impact of U.S. policies on the attitudes of the Pakistani public in general? From what you know, have these trends improved, or worsened? (E.g., see Dr. Bowen's 2011 article for information on Pakistanis' views)
- Hayden writes critically of features of the successful Iraq "surge" in 2007-09, pointing to "extrajudicial executions" done then as a dark side that resembled the CIA's "Phoenix Program" in the Vietnam War. Do any components of the Obama Administration policy suggest that these sorts of targeted killings continue to be a key feature in U.S. wars? (Go here for a primer on the history of U.S. activities of this kind).
- Hayden advocates that Pres. Obama adopt policies of "strategic retreat" "like John F. Kennedy in Laos, Ronald Reagan in Lebanon, or Bill Clinton in Mogadishu." Evaluate his statement: would such a course best advance U.S. national interests?
The George W. Bush strategy of pre-emption: Iraq
Class notes projected onto the screen today now are available: Follow this link.
Re: Iraq: Charts showing U.S. Combat Deaths in Iraq, 2003-2008, and how they died, are now linked here.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. These include Goldberg (2005) on dissent within the Bush team, and Sky on the "Surge" and the final stages of the U.S. role in Iraq.
Updates:
- Al Qaeda and Iraq ties doubted. On April 5, 2007, the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense released a declassified version of its investigation into this topic. Those who have read the full report have explained fully what this means. The Inspector General in a summary released in February 2007 concluded that earlier allegations of Al Qaeda - Iraq ties were not consistent with the best available information and analysis at the time the allegations were made (i.e., prior to the war of 2003), and that it was inconsistent with the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community that some in the government once had conveyed to the press that a "mature symbiotic relationship" existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the initiation of the War in Iraq in March 2003. (Unfortunately, links to that study and to that summary both have gone dead, and your professor has been unable to find their new location, if any, at the Department of Defense website. The Al Qaeda-Iraq allegations, and the official sources that now refute them, are chronicled on this linked page on this website. Students are encouraged to inform themselves about these matters by reading the best information available. It is in this spirit that Prof. Bowen calls attention to the disclaimer at the top of that linked page, and in this same spirit he urges motivated students to search for a live link to the full text version of the 2007 Inspector General's report.
Additional optional materials on today's topic include:
- An interesting article contrasting the conflict in Iraq with the Vietnam War appeared in 2006 in Foreign Affairs: Stephen Biddle, "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006).
- Prof. Bowen's Nov. 11, 2011 retrospective editorial on the meaning of the Iraq War.
- Bowen essay on Iraq
- timeline enumerating allegations of Al Qaeda's contacts with Iraq's Saddam Hussein regime, and speculations about its subsequent role in Iraq
- Webpage on Britain and the War: Go here to view charts breaking down the Parliamentary war vote in the House of Commons by party
- Webpage on U.S. Congressional partisanship over wars with Iraq comparing 1990-91 versus 2002-03
The events leading to the onset of war are addressed in readings and should be studied. The military conflict March 19, 2003 - Sept. 1, 2010 also will receive attention as it more greatly has affected U.S. foreign policy. (Final U.S. withdrawal of military forces no longer on a combat mission took place on Dec. 31, 2011).
Discussion questions:
We now know that sanctions and inspections had disarmed Iraq of its WMD. Why was it that this was not able to be demonstrated by Iraq prior to the war of 2003?
The process of deciding to go to war:
- Describe who the actors were in this decision.
- Assess the Congressional role: did it live up to Constitutional expectations?
- Assess the impact of going to the U.N. on the U.S. politics of going to war.
Why war?
- Would containment have achieved U.S. objectives?
- Did pre-war containment work? What evidence supports this point? Are there limits to this analysis?
- Explain and assess the U.S. doctrine of pre-emption. Is this new? Unprecedented?
Questions on the overall impact of Iraq on foreign policy and U.S. politics:
- Realists argue that all states’ national interests are, in the end, to act in ways that accumulate power for them. By this measure has the war in Iraq served U.S. interests? Assess the pluses and minuses.
- Liberal internationalists argue that the U.S. national interest lies in extending the zone of democracy in the world, or in strengthening international institutions like the U.N. By these measures has the war in Iraq served U.S. interests? Assess the pluses and minuses.
- The war in Iraq was launched largely to have impact on the spread of WMD from “rogue states” to terrorists. Assess the impact of the Iraq War on both the spread of WMD and on the growth of militant Islamists' terrorism.
- Evaluate: did the war in Iraq advance the central goals of the foreign policy of the Bush Administration? Did it advance U.S. national interests?
Class notes projected onto the screen today will be available after class: Follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. This includes a recent analysis of public opinion among Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere by Prof. Bowen that was published in summer 2011:
- Gordon Bowen, “Has Outreach to the Muslim World by the Obama Administration had an impact on Muslims’ attitudes toward Terrorists and Terrorism?” Middle East Review of International Affairs (August 2011): http://www.gloria-center.org/2011/08/has-outreach-to-the-muslim-world-by-the-obama-adminstration-had-an-impact-on-muslim-attitudes-toward-terrorists-and-terrorism-2/
- Additionally, to gain an overview of how a key policymaker in the defense/intelligence community recently perceived the situation, read (optional) the Testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee given by Gen. David Petraeus on March 16, 2010. Petraeus was the architect of the "surge" strategy in Iraq, 2007-2009, then served as head of the U.S. Central Command (i.e., the part of U.S. Armed Forces assigned to conduct our wars in the greater Middle East region, including Iraq and Afghanistan), and currently serves as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Measuring the impact of the Iraq War: Prof. Bowen is likely to present in class today information analyzing Middle Eastern publics' attitudes toward the U.S., the ongoing wars, President Obama, (the late) Osama bin Laden, and the War on Terrorism. Much of his thinking is to be found in his 2011 article, "Has Outreach to the Muslim World by the Obama Administration had an impact on Muslims' Attitudes toward Terrorists and Terrorism?"
There is much more in the original studies that informed his article and talk, and you are encouraged to read and reflect on their findings:
February 4, 2010: "Mixed Views of Hamas and Hezbollah in Largely Muslim Nations: Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders" (Pew Center for Research).
April 18, 2010: Attitudes toward the United States improve, except in Turkey and Pakistan (World Public Opinion / BBC Poll).
December 2, 2010: Muslim Publics Divided on Hamas and Hezbollah (Pew Research Center). Full study can be downloaded from that address.
2009 poll of Muslims' attitudes toward Al Qaeda and other issues
- 2008 poll on various publics' attitudes toward human rights, including Muslim nations
- 2008 poll on Europeans' (and others') attitudes toward Muslims and Jews
- 2008 poll on who was responsible for 9/11
- 2007 poll of British Muslims' attitudes by the Policy Exchange
- June 2006 Pew Poll
- July 2005 Pew Poll
- June 2005 Pew Poll
- 2004 Saudi Arabian poll. This is the poll that establishes the factual basis from which Prof. Bowen frequently has made the statement that "Osama bin Laden was more popular in Saudi Arabia than the U.S. was in 2004."
- March 2004 Pew Poll
- June 2003 Pew Poll
- (prewar) December 2002 Pew Poll
Class agenda:
Course notes outline projected onto the screen today now is available: follow this link.
Please complete the readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. This includes:
- John Arquilla's 2010 Foreign Affairs article "The New Rules of War" and
- Marc Sageman, “The Next Generation of Terror,” Foreign Policy, March/April 2008: http://www.mbc.edu/faculty/gbowen/documents/Sageman.NextGenerationOfTerror.pdf
Additional optional readings on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan / Pakistan:
Please refer to the numerous sources listed as optional readings for this course for March 22. Additionally:
ISAF, "State of the Taliban, 2012": a secret study based on interviews with hundreds of captured Taliban fighters in Afghanistan that was leaked to the New York Times in early 2012.
Anne E. Kornblut, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung, "Obama pressed for faster surge," Washington Post (December 6, 2009): 1, 18-19. Excellent overview of the decision making process followed by the Obama Administration, Sept.-Dec. 2009, in making the decisions guiding current war policy.
Greg Jaffe and Anne E. Korblut, "Narrowing of Mission Reflects Biden's Goal," Washington Post (December 3, 2009). Brief introduction to the players involved in the decision making process that led the U.S. to new war policy objectives.
Recommended resource: Long War Journal timeline chronicles U.S. drone airstrikes on terrorist groups and Islamist factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Recommended reading: the Testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee given by Gen. David Petraeus on March 16, 2010. Petraeus was the architect of the "surge" strategy in Iraq, 2007-2009, and served as head of the U.S. Central Command (i.e., the part of U.S. Armed Forces assigned to conduct our wars in the greater Middle East region, including Iraq and Afghanistan) at the time of this testimony.
and (to the extent Iran also warrants attention) these optional readings on U.S. Policy toward Iran:
- Highly recommended (optional): to understand why we consistently misunderstand Iran, Prof. Bowen especially recommends an article by Reuel Marc Gerecht, "Mirror-Imaging the Mullahs" World Affairs Journal (Winter 2008).
- Prof. Bowen's Timeline on U.S. - Iran relations
- In reply to President Obama's outreach to Iran, please see recent (2009) speeches in reply given by Iran's Supreme Leader (i.e., top religious and political authority) Ali Khameni and elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Additional remarks by each about U.S. Middle East policy and support for Israel are linked here.
- Prof. Bowen in 2006 published his thoughts on this topic as an editorial. It can be read here. Other Bowen editorials on Iran (2003) and again on Iran (2005) are linked, too. All of Prof. Bowen's editorials on matters related to the course are linked here.
- On April 9, 2006, the Washington Post lead article on page one concerned planning contingencies about a military attack on Iran, which did not come to fruition. This same theme is the subject of a much discussed article by award winning author Seymour Hersh, in the New Yorker. Hersh has been beating this drum for some time, e.g. see: Seymour Hersh, "The Coming Wars," New Yorker (Jan. 25, 2005); "The Iran Plans" (April 17, 2006); "Last Stand" (July 10, 2006); "The Next Act" (November 27, 2006); and "The Redirection" (March 5, 2007).
- After this 2006 flare up in U.S. -Iran relations, official denials of any plan for an imminent attack on Iran were issued by the White House, both by its press spokesman and by the President. Things then briefly calmed down, only to heat up again when Iran made progress on its uranium enrichment project later in 2006.
- Iran's ties to international terrorism are established based on statements made in 2003 by senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards official Hamid Reza Zakiri. That interview can be read by following this link.
- Jahangir Amuzegar, “Iran’s Crumbling Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003.
- Kenneth M. Pollack, “Securing the Gulf,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003.
- Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran (NY: Random House, 2003). An excellent glimpse into the gender-based aspects of tyranny in Iran.
- For those inclined toward realist approaches to such problems as are posed by Iran, see: Henry Kissinger, "Iran: A Nuclear Test Case," Washington Post (March 8, 2005): A15. Dr. Kissinger does not permit the Post to host online versions of his editorials, so if any student can find a copy online of this, please send in the link. Otherwise, look it up via Lexis-Nexis, or pay to read it using the archives of the Washington Post.
Questions on Sageman on the "Next Generation of Terror" (2008)
According to Sageman, how has the terrorist threat to the U.S. changed since 9/11?
According to Sageman, what brings young people to become terrorists?
- Is it primarily on behalf of their religious identity that this is done?
- What other factors sustain terrorists' involvement in these organizations?
Questions on Arquilla on "The new rules of war" (2010)
What connection is there between Arquilla's ideas of about terrorists' uses of "networked war" and "swarming" on the one hand, and the ways that the U.S. responds? How differently does Arquilla believe the U.S. ought to respond?
What forces within the U.S. impede adoption of Arquilla's concepts to fight the enemy?
April 5, 2011: "Smart Power," the Obama Approach to Libya: is it a sufficient strategy?
Class notes projected onto the screen today now are available: Follow this link.
Please complete the readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. This includes:
- Massimo Calabresi, “Hillary Clinton and the rise of smart power,” Time (Nov. 7, 2011): http://www.mbc.edu/faculty/gbowen/documents/SmartPowerClinton.pdf
Background: the Impact of the Iraq War of 2003 on U.S.-Libyan relations:
In March-May 2003, Iraq was transformed and whatever threat was posed by arms that regime did or did not have, and whatever threat was (or was not) posed by its relations with terrorist groups, ended. In December 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces. That same month, another proven state sponsor of terrorism, Libya, declared an end to its WMD programs. Prof. Bowen believes this to be one of the clear dividends of having overthrown the Saddam regime. Subsequently, in 2004, the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) and western governments entered Libya and with Libyan cooperation took custody of the facilities producing the banned weapons, and began the process of destroying them. This did not mean, however, that the Libyan "leopard had changed its spots." It merely had abandoned WMD, but it continued involvement with terrorism.
Prof. Bowen frequently has stated that Libya has continued to support international terrorism even if it long pursued a "charm offensive" to get international sanctions against it eased. Here are two examples:
- A leader of the Muslim community in the U.S., Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi, served as a Libyan agent in a plot to assassinate the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, an act for which he was convicted in October 2004. Alamoudi was caught in London, U.K. with $360,000 cash trying to board an airplane bound for the Middle East as a facilitator of this plot. For this, Alamoudi was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA to a sentence of 23 years. He remains in federal prison. Here is a link to further documentation and discussion of that case including the 1990s photograph of Alamoudi with Vice President Al Gore and U.S. President Bill Clinton that was shown in class.
- Libya has paid billions of dollars to the families of the victims of the 1988 bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, even though the Gaddafi government never acknowledged its direct responsibility in that act of terrorism. But the August 2009 hero's welcome given in Tripoli to Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Meghrahi, the convicted Libyan bomber in that case, upon his grotesque release from prison in Scotland in 2009 further demonstrated the pride that Libya's Gaddafi and his government took in their involvement in horrendous acts of international terrorism. See Prof. Bowen's August 2009 editorial on this. Gaddafi is dead and gone: where is al-Meghrahi today?
Discussion questions:
What is "smart power"? How was it employed in Libya, 2011? Is it portable? Can it work against non-state threats?
April 10, 2012: American challenges in East Asia
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Please complete the readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. Readings for today include readings in Hook and Spanier, 346-364, and these articles:
- Jacques E. C. Hymans, “North Korea’s Nuclear Neurosis,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2007: http://www.mbc.edu/faculty/gbowen/documents/Hymans.NorthKoreasNuclearNeurosis.pdf
- Christopher Layne, “China’s Challenge to U.S. Hegemony,” Current History, January 2008: http://www.mbc.edu/faculty/gbowen/documents/Layne.ChinasChallengeToUSHegemony.pdf
Additional optional readings / resources include:
- BBC news report (April 9, 2012) that their reporter is a witness to preparations being made for a long range missile test firing being prepared by North Korea.
- Supplemental (optional) Sen. John McCain on North Korea
- Supplemental (optional): Glen Kessler, "U.S. has a shifting script on North Korea," Washington Post (December 7, 2003): 25.
- Other materials on North Korea assembled on this website by Prof. Bowen: map of nuclear facilities; timeline; bibliography.
- Other maps of North Korea (accessed courtesy of links at University of Texas map collection): approximate range of North Korean missiles; nuclear enrichment sites in North Korea; satellite images of North Korean nuclear facilities
- The 1994 "Agreed Framework" understanding, its breakdown in October 2002, North Korea's explosion of a nuclear device in 2006, the current diplomatic situation, and will analyze policy options.
Serial Liars: Discussion will take place about assigned readings and current events concerning U.S. interests and policies in regard to China and North Korea. These two states are likely to be our chief foci, and the threat posed by North Korean nuclear weapons sharpens this focus. In the past, only China has seemed able to persuade North Korea to cooperate. Nuclear issues would not be a problem if North Korea kept its word. But it doesn't: it both signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in which it abandoned the quest for such weapons, then signed an additional agreement on these matters with the U.S. and international community, the "Framework" agreement of 1994. Each promised that North Korea would not build nuclear weapons. Our discussion is informed by the plain fact that North Korea conducted a test of a nuclear weapon during Fall 2006, then once again agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program in a February 2007 agreement signed in Beijing in which North Korea committed itself to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs, only to later renege on that deal, threaten its neighbors, and then agreed again in 2008 to give up its nuclear weapons program, a position it has refused for the last several years to allow to be confirmed. On May 25, 2009, another North Korean nuclear bomb test was detected. (See timeline). Moreover, the 2010 sinking of a South Korean navy vessel near the North Korean coast and subsequent North Korean artillery attacks on South Korean civilians, accent the belligerent essence of the North Korean state. These dangers on the Korean peninsula menace the security of two important U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan, and North Korean ballistic missiles have sufficient range to menace the west coast of the U.S. Early in 2012, North Korea again announced it intended to test one of these missiles, much to the dismay of nations from Taiwan and South Korea to Japan. Accordingly, enlisting China to decisively influence North Korea to abandon its reckless and provocative behavior is a good measure of the true nature of the U.S. - China relationship.
Agenda of today's class meeting will be accessible after class meets: follow this link.
Before class please complete all readings for this date as described on the course syllabus. Be sure to read Mead. Class discussions today may focus on that reading.
- I call students' attention to an editorial published April 14, 2010 by Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City (1978-1989), who perceived that flaws existed in the Obama Administration's Middle East policy.
The central questions:
The Bush years: Have any events in the Middle Eastern region and in the Global War on Terrorism tended to vindicate Pres. Bush's approach? Why or why not?
The Obama Administration: A great change has taken place in the tone of American foreign policy in the conflict with Muslim extremists, and in the discourse between the U.S. and the states of the Muslim world. Have the actual policies changed? Have there been dividends gained through the Obama approach? Why or why not?
Applied questions:
Re: Mead, "America's Sticky Power," Foreign Policy, March/April 2004
What are sharp power, soft power, and sticky power?
Do these concepts help in understanding the means through which U.S. influence is advanced?
Should one be preferred over the others? Why or why not?
Has sticky power ever proved to decisively impact the outcome of an international conflict? When and how?
What were the key tools used by the U.S. in the realm of sticky power in the era after World War II?
How has the international monetary system evolved?
What role has trade policy played?
How can Mead argue that great U.S. "debt becomes a source of strength, not a weakness" (156).
Questions related to the Final Exam also may be answered. Please email them to the instructor prior to class if you are reluctant to ask them during our review session: Students are required to use Blue Book / Green Book test taking booklets when writing essay portions of their final exam in this course; and to take the final at any scheduled exam period between the dates of Monday April 16 and Friday April 20, only: do not take the test on Monday April 23. Please buy a Blue Book for use on the final.
A Final Lecture may review the whole of the course.
- A blast from the past: when "wrapping up," Prof. Bowen's closing remarks to PolS 128 from Fall 2001 sum up much of what this course intends to convey. Sure, a lot has changed. But a lot hasn't. Since these remarks later were published. Go here for an edited version of that talk.
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This page last was update on April 12 , 2012
