Analysis Of Robert Kagan 's Article ' The Importance Of U.s. Military

In Paul Johnson’s “American Idealism and Realpolitik Critique” about American involvement in political battles in foreign countries, he brings forth the idea that the American government plays a vital role when it comes to mediating and facilitating conflict. Their importance can often be overshadowed by some opinions that the government, specifically the army, has over stepped its boundaries by intruding on countries and excessively becoming involved in hostility. Johnson notes that without American intervention, there would be cause for a considerable diminish in aid and possibly a rise in disputes. Johnson compares to America’s duties to Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan in which the lack of control over the discord between countries results in an anarchy that would leave the world’s population to “‘continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” (Johnson 387) Although he does put a stress on the significance of the American government, he does not ignore the obvious moral flaws that sometimes tarnish this reputation. When adding up the pros and cons of the United States authority, Johnson’s writing favours the positive aspects but also has hints of neutrality; this attitude is quite fitting considering America’s actions.

Schmidt and Williams use the elements of the neoconservative Bush Doctrine to show the direct contrast between realists and neoconservatives. The authors use the Bush Doctrine as an anchor to demonstrate realists’ anti-war views as the Bush Doctrine “provided the key rationale for the Iraq War.” This is the main theme of the paper and the authors express this throughout the paper in a fascinating, enthralling

Hanson’s 2012 premise, albeit over two years old today, is immediately discernible: America faces devastating self-inflicted wounds by implementing the current Administration’s defense spending budget. The dawn of 2014 finds this debate ongoing and the implementation of this budget well in progress, with even more drastic cuts taking effect than the ones analyzed by Hanson previously. While few historians of repute would argue against the reality that the siren song of defense reductions has lured the nation onto the shoals of unpreparedness for future conflict many times in the past, two shortcomings in Hanson’s piece beckon us to pause and reexamine.

Hard power and soft power are important factors when it comes to our nation and its role throughout the world. The differences between hard and soft power offer people a better insight when it comes to political power in our nation. Hard power deals with the aspect of changing the actions of others through things such as coercion; whereas, soft power deals with attraction and shaping what others want from a different perspective (Smith-Windsor, 52). These versions of power are crucial when it comes to the theory of international relations. A hypothesis that alliances are founded on calculations of national interest and do not withstand a conflict of those interests is christened “theory” in the current language of political science (Aron,

The United States is a militaristic country because of the military budget, the military’s expansion into civilian areas, and military culture. The large and increasing budget of the military is an example of U.S. militarism. According to National Priorities

In a 2015 article, “Is U.S. military becoming outdated?” written by Stuart Bradin, Keenan Yoho, and Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew, the authors argued that despite the U.S. military maintaining a position of global dominance “without peer” during conventional operations, it is not the ideal force against current and future threats. The authors claim that there are several negative factors arising due to the past sixteen years of war against several state and non-state elements, inferior cultural differences of government bureaucracy compared to commercial firms, and a misallocation of defense spending that leaves the US military waging war inefficiently while simultaneously losing technological dominance against current and future threats.

After unraveling of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, fears of war breaking out between the major powers of the United States and the Soviet Union were greatly reduced. Numerous commentaries, reports, and studies arose out of the question of what to do with the excess U.S. forces, and how to reshape them for a new era (Snider & Carlton-Carew, 1996). Since the birth of the United States, the military has been an important part of the United States. The US military has been a fundamental part of foreign policy, including fostering democracy, establishing rule of law, and assisting with economic development in territories allied with the U.S. (Ludema, 2007).

Military Budget is ‘Foolish and Sustainable’”, Benjamin Friedman and Justin Logan, a researcher and a director, respectively at Cato Institute, discuss ways in which a minimization in military spending can have positive outcomes for both the U.S. and other countries. To summarize the essay, they state that the best approach is if for the U.S. to reduces its military presence in other countries. Effectively, this would prevent countries from relying on U.S. intervention and allow more countries to be dependent on themselves; additionally, it will also prevent “weaker” allied nations from gaining a false sense of emboldenment to take risks they otherwise would not against neighboring countries, which would inevitably force the U.S. to intervene. Friedman and Logan estimated that a disinclination to impose rule over these “weaker” nations will not only increase content among both nations, but it will save over $250 billion over a span of a decade and thousands of lives, and still leave a force capable of winning any ground war if needed (Friedman, B., et al., 2012, 177-191). Friedman and Logan have valid claims that agree with and support my position as to both how, and why, there should be cuts in military

In “Questing for Monsters to Destroy,” John Mueller, an American political scientist, says American policymakers put “a truly massive emphasis on exquisite theorizing and on defense expenditures,” because these policymakers, “became mesmerized by perceived threats that scarcely warranted the preoccupation and effort,” of actual military action (p 117). He argues that American decision makers constantly saw Russia’s actions as bigger threats than they really were and acted accordingly, which resulted in the U.S. spending money and troops to fight wars they should have never been involved in.

Steve Cohen, a former member of the Board of Directors of the United States Naval Institute at Annapolis, thinks that America is slowly becoming more vulnerable because of the lack of upkeep in the military. He does a good job of making the individual feel quite unsafe, somehow telling them that their lives could be in danger because we will only be able to fuel two naval vessels to the East Asian water by next year (Cohen). At first glance, it’s a dodgy connection, but his point is, if we cut spending in some areas, who is going to stop non-military politicians from cutting down more thoroughly and leaving us open to invasion or attacks from outside powers? H h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h

The balance of power theory is viewed as critical policy in the handling of international relations. To fully comprehend how the balance

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the unquestioned hegemon of the western world acting in a unipolar world. However, recently the United States has fallen into a series of deprival causing its reputation to fall as a state. Despite this, under the Bush Doctrine, the United States currently has a preemptive hegemonic imperative policy. Under this policy, the United States takes into account that the world is a perilous environment in need of a leader to guide and to control the various rebel states unipolarly. Under this policy though, the United States acts alone with no assistance from other states or institutions. Global intuitions that would assist under other types of policies are flagrantly disregarded in this policy in spite of its emphasis on the international level. As well as not participating in international institutions, this policy states that the United States should act entirely in its own wisdom. The UN (the United Nations), GATT (General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade), along with other institutions advice is not heeded within this self-made policy. Though the United States currently acknowledges these global organizations, it no longer takes them into account with severity. Instead of acting under the international system, the United States currently acts through its military, and large economy to instill fear within the various actors in the intercontinental system. According to this philosophy the

The first paradigm of international relations is the theory of Realism. Realism is focused on ideas of self-interest and the balance of power. Realism is also divided into two categories, classical realism and neo-realism. Famous political theorist, Hans Morgenthau was a classical realist who believed that national interest was based on three elements, balance of power, military force, and self interest (Kleinberg 2010, 32). He uses four levels of analysis to evaluate the power of a state. The first is that power and influence are not always the same thing. Influence means the ability to affect the decision of those who have the power to control outcomes and power is the ability to determine outcomes. An example of influence and power

In the early 1990s, Joseph Nye’s book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature Of American Power ignited a huge discussion among society of the need to transition from America’s traditional use of hard power to something more benign which he termed soft power. Before looking at the two branches of power, we first define power as the ability to do something or act in a certain way. As Nye had pointed out, nations can wield power in two forms, soft and hard power. Soft power, as coined by Nye (1990) is defined as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion.” In contrast, hard power is seen as the use of military might or economic sanctions to coerce others into

Balance of power is a key concept in international relations. There are many different arguments about this concept that disagree on whether or not it causes or disrupts peace in the world. Two main arguments include those made by realists and liberals. While realist theory holds that a balance between the major powers will create peace, liberals point to many examples in which this isn’t true. There have been many shifts in world power since the first world war that can serve as examples of peace compared to types of power in the international system. While no theory may be completely right, examples from the past century or so seem to prove that liberalism has the most accurate explanation of balance of power and how it relates to peace in the world through democracy, norms, and institutions. Because of this, states should not follow the advice to balance against power, but instead seek peace in different ways such as democratization to maintain democratic peace.