Political Science 120A Midterm Study Questions 1. How does public opinion affect foreign policy? Is public opinion permissive or constraining? Does the U.S. public support the use of force? Under what conditions? -The public holds the president accountable because he needs approval ratings and support, especially during elections. Public can constrain freedom of action (if the public hates something, the president isn’t going to do it), and the public generally supports war when it is a security issue. It opposes casualties though, and in the case of the Vietnam War, the public urged the U.S. to back down. If the public does not like something: * permissive (could allow president to do something risky) - tends to rally …show more content…
straw man tactics - agree on a particular alternative, then surround it by two extreme ones → the “normal” issue is picked; ensures president doesn’t get all the options Missed opportunities to move forward. 4. What factors contributed to the U.S. intelligence failure over WMD in Iraq? If Saddam didn’t have WMD, why wasn’t he more cooperative with international inspections? (Check out the Fisher article) President Bush made many claims about Iraq possessing WMDs, and these claims were able to strike fear into the American public. Because the people relied on his information, even though it wasn’t credible, he was able to get enough popular support to send military forces into Iraq, without the full approval of Congress (check this fact?) he used an old resolution that allowed him to go to war. (Pollack article). Also, there was lack of information sharing between the CIA and FBI because competitors don’t like to share info. The CIA also contributed to intelligence failure because it distorted info and chose specific reports to support their decision and didn’t actually give congress the correct info. The UN also went in and made reports but gave unreliable info based on fabrications and outdated info. The administration tainted intelligence by cherry picking through the information that they wanted. They would intentionally choose channels that would give them the information they wanted, most notably the
The War of 1812 was a war between Britain and the United States fought primarily in Upper Canada. It had many causes, few which involved British North America. The results of the war include the fact that there was no clear winner or loser among them. The only real losers in the situation were the Natives in the region. They were driven out of their lands and customs. None of the borders was changed by the war, though many attempts were made. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, did nothing to advance the state of the countries. It went so far as to end the war and put things back the way that they were, but the main causes of the conflict were not addressed or dealt with. In order to evaluate the
World War II World War II was a pivotal event of the 20th century and a defining
The study of George Tenet’s actions leading up to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan leaves little doubt about the dysfunction within our government from the appointment of officials to the decision making process itself. Tenet was appointed by President Clinton as Director of the Intelligence (DCI) in 1997, just 19 months after becoming deputy to DCI. It was noted that Tenet had never managed a large organization, worked as an intelligence officer or serviced in the military, all of which would have provided the experience and expertise needed
There were many underlying causes of the Great War, one of the primary reasons was the creation of alliances between countries. Another reason, which was helped by the alliances, was the fact that Serbia killed the Austria-Hungary archduke, causing the two of them to go to war. Altogether many people in the world were excited to go to war, wanting to prove how strong their country is and thinking it would be a quick war.
In the early 20th century, the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian, catapulted European powers into a string of events that led them to a World War. This war, known as the Great War, was caused by allied countries being sucked in one by one, and eventually, the United States had to make a decision: to join the war or to remain nuetral. Due to specific circumstances, such as the Zimmerman note and the sinking of US merchant ships, the United States government decided to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente. This, however, stirred up controversy among the people of the United States, as some were pro-war and some were anti-war. The government, urging for the war, made arguments towards it through glorifying its political
The better the reputation of the president, the easier it will be to negotiate. There are people in agencies and departments that have a huge amount of power and can have a huge force on the president. There is an example that Neustadt illustrates to show a president's reputation being questioned Neustadt stated “ Eisenhower's secretary of treasury George Humphrey publicly questioned the integrity of some of Eisenhower's changes to the budget for that year of 1957. The very public scrutiny by Humphrey, caused a national questioning of the budget and coarsely the reputation of Eisenhower”. Although Humphrey's words may not have been justified, Eisenhower's reputation was scarred nonetheless”. The president must always act and keeping in mind that there are those powerful enough to publicly embarrass him. The last and important thing of presidential power that Neustadt explains is public prestige. Public prestige is related to the president’s reputation. Public prestige is basically how the public views the president. Even though the public has no direct link with the president, the public's view of the president affects how congress will act
George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq on faulty intelligence. Even if Iraq had nuclear
On December 7, 1941, with Japanese attack on Perl Harbor, all debate over avoiding war and the policy of American isolationism was gone. It was the beginning of a great war that brought death, devastation and finally the victory and power to United States. At the time of Roosevelt’s appointment in 1933, historically crucial events were taking place in Japan, Italy and Germany which had to shape the future and the fate of United States. This paper studies and analyses the major factors which contributed to American success both at home and abroad during WWII in addition to world’s view about American participation in war and bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.
The leading question on our mind is “Should the United States have gone to war with Iraq”? A majority of individuals believe that President George W. Bush was not being the person everyone was reliant on in 2001 when he confirmed war on Iraq. After war was declared, the world transformed immensely, even more than what people thought it would. It is clear that going to war with Iraq was a bad choice and only made the situation worse.
In today’s digital age, development of new technology and weapons are at an alarming rate, hence arises the need to stay ahead of advancements in order to properly defend the nation, as well as coalition forces and allies. In this period of warfare, the number one threat comes in the form of air breathing and ballistic missiles. During World War II, this threat was present, but was not thought to be prevalent.
Detractors of the war argued that the US intelligence services provided misleading and inaccurate information about WMD. US intelligence services had miscalculated Iraqi WMD development in the 1980s and it was widely argued that they over compensated in the other direction in the 21st century. One potential explanation for such a mistake was that the CIA tended to rely on technological information rather than gather human intelligence - 'humint' - from 'assets' situated in Iraq and the Middle East. Regardless of this
Throughout history there has been competition for resources and domination. This competition has led to conflicts that have caused destruction, social disruptions and death. World War I was no exception to this competition. World War I was known as the war to end all wars and was caused by a combination of factors. Some causes of World War I was nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and the main cause which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip of Serbia. While the United States attempted to remain neutral and stay out of the war, Germany choose actions that gave the U.S. no choice but to enter and help their Allies defeat the other powers.
One of the most important wars ever fought was World War II. In the midst, the Nazis
War has been a part of human culture since it's birth. It has led to a great many massacres and has shown us the evil that exists within the souls of humanity. Some have even gone as far as saying that war is human nature. To better understand the reasons behind war and how it affects others, I've examined several different societies and cultures so as to better understand the necessity of war and see the cause of their external war attitude. To do so, different variables from two topics (military institutions and external war attitude) were matched up and crossed so as to look into the answers to these questions. The variables were then calculated and through these graphs, I was able to find different societies in which