The Weinberger Doctrine .It was the height of the Cold War and the U.S. needed to be able to provide a credible military response to the Soviet Union. The Reagan Administration was almost 4 years into its campaign to strengthen the U.S. Armed Forces. The Administration appeared eager to use combat force as the instrument of choice for influencing world events. Secretary of Defense Weinberger, on the other hand, believed that “military force is just one of many tools of national power, and certainly not the preferred tool in every situation.”(Weinberger 1985) Weinberger developed six criteria for deciding when to use the US combat forces abroad. This criterion became known as the Weinberger Doctrine, and outlined specific tests which should be met before deploying US combat forces. The strengths and weaknesses of this doctrine can best be discussed when the doctrine is stated as questions. (Hunter 1987) Is a vital national interest at stake? Will we commit enough forces to win? Do we have clearly defined political and military objectives? Will we reassess and adjust our forces as necessary? Will Congress and the American people support the action? Is the use of force our last resort? With the first test in the doctrine, “is a vital national interest at stake?”, the issue is determining what is vital to our national interest. The decision is easy when looking at extremes, i.e. a direct attack on the United States, but the decision becomes difficult when you’re looking between the extremes. The issue becomes how to outline with precision national interests. If we define national interest narrowly (only direct threats) our foreign policy will be characterized by isolationism. Define it in a broad look our foreign policy will be an internationalist approach. The bottom line is American interests are situational, and must be influenced by our best judgment and basic values. This flexibility of this test has both strengths and weakness. The strength being the ability to broaden or narrow our focus on world events giving us freedom of action. Freedom of action can make us unpredictable, which is clearly an advantage over our enemies. The weakness in this test is the same; ambiguity can cause political problems home and abroad. At home it is hard to get public support for a foreign policy that has shifting views of national interest, and abroad other countries will find it difficult to deal with an ally who cannot specify its rules of engagement.
During the cold war, the United States engaged in many aggressive policies both at home and abroad, in which to fight communism and the spread of communist ideas. Faced with a new challenge and new global responsibilities the U.S. needed to retain what it had fought so strongly for in World War II. It needed to contain the communist ideas pouring from the Soviet Union while preventing communist influence at home, without triggering World War III. With the policies of containment, McCarthyism, and brinkmanship, the United States hoped to effectively stop the spread of communism and their newest threat, the Soviet Union.
Reagan rose into power after years of turmoil and the American pride was dipping. About a decade before he became president, the war in Viet-Nam was winding down and the troops were returning home to negative demonstrations towards their duty. Then, during the Carter years, America transitioned into a détente policy, which meant that the United States would try to ease the tensions with the Soviet Union by not expanding the military, but not doing anything to acting ease the tension. The idea behind this became known as MAD, mutually assured destruction, (Hannaford) which meant that both the United States and Soviet Union would maintain and even number of nuclear weapons so that if one would fire, the other would be able to fire back equally. Reagan completely disagreed with this philosophy and created a whole new policy when he became president. The foreign policy he established was to create the Reagan Doctrine. According to a speech by Peter Hannaford, the Reagan Doctrine was that America would support democratic movements in any Communist country until that country could enjoy the fruits of freedom (Hannaford). This meant that the United States would help any country who wanted to leave the influence of the Soviet Union and create their own democracy. Also, to counter the Soviet Union and end the Cold War, a race between the United State and Soviet Union to create the best technology and become the world powerhouse, Reagan increased military spending. Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviet Union was unable to keep up the United States in military spending and still having enough funds to fund their own economy to keep it stable. Reagan used this knowledge to convince Congress to increase military budget to build up technology, causing the Soviets decide on what to do. The United States had the funds to continue, but the Soviet Union could not keep up. The breaking point
The Monroe Doctrine reflected the concerns and ambitions of a fledgling nation that was brave enough to declare its sovereignty on the world stage. The Doctrine, in stating that European powers ought not to intervene in America’s affairs, established the US as a world power, although one that had inadequate, hemispheric aspirations. However, these aspirations would extend, and in future years the Doctrine would substantiate its usefulness for interventionists, as well as protectionists. Being conceivably the most distinguishable and the most revered as regards principles of diplomacy, the doctrine’s influence on the popular imagination was so great that it described the limits of standard decisions on policy, in turn influencing the choice of preferences that US Presidents had for most of the last two centuries.
After a few years since the publication of the “X” article, ‘containment’, the term that was coined by Keenan, became a key word to describe the U.S. foreign policy in overcoming Soviet threats. Yet, Keenan criticized Truman’s containment policy as ‘too universalistic’ in that it placed the U.S. in an exhausting commitment to block every Soviet expansion to free countries (Keenan, 1967). In fact, the containment policy was influencing the U.S. involvement in different confrontation from Germany to Vietnam.
During the late 1940's and the 1950's, the Cold War became increasingly tense. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world (Walker 388). Each side believed its political and economic systems were better than the other's. Each strengthened its armed forces. Both sides viewed the Cold War as a dispute between right and wron...
Politicians from both the United States and the Soviet Union are the key players of the Cold War. They are the ones who took actions. President Reagan was credited for his bravery and initiation of the Zero-Option strategic plan. However, some of Reagan’s pugnacious speeches and decision to increase the United States defense spending provoked tension and calamitous accidents like the Korean Aircraft incident. The public’s fear of a nuclear war is another factor that pressured Reagan to create better relations with the Soviet Union. Although Reagan’s improbable Strategic Defense Initiative, claiming to prevent a nuclear war, received numerous criticism, it is a factor that influenced the Soviet Union to make an agreement. Reagan’s realization of the obsolete nuclear war and his initiation of the arms control talks led to a realistic and
The doctrine is a particular policy which advocated as government, or basically it is an idea to solve or to deal with some kind of problems or issues. There were twelve Presidential foreign policy doctrines that have been issued throughout the United State’ history since 1823. The Bush Doctrine was the eleventh Presidential foreign policy doctrine which was issued in 2001 by the 43rd President of the United States, George Walker Bush. The Bush Doctrine basically argues that the United States will go after the terrorists all over the world wherever they go and the countries which try to protect them, in addition, the United States has a right to practice preemptive attack for “confront the worst threats before they emerge.” (History News Network) In this paper, after discussing the historical context and origins of the doctrine, I will analyze this Bush Doctrine from three different perspectives. First perspective is whether the Administration followed a policy of isolation or internationalism. The second perspective is whether the president and his doctrine implemented policies that were Unilateral, Bilateral, or Multilateral in nature and the third perspective is whether Administration and doctrine were transactional or transformational.
Containment seemed to be the strategy of choice for the United States. This strategy also gave America a reason t...
After Ronald Reagan won the election of 1980, he was dedicated to restore the American power as he mentioned in his speech, “More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose.”[ Ronald Reagan, “Acceptance Speech,” U.S. Political History (1973-2001): 2, accessed May 21, 2014, DOI:10.1093/acref/9780199794188.013.0191] By renewing the American spirit, he intended to strengthen American’s military power. The main purpose of him doing this was to contain the Soviet Union. In order to maintain his anti-communist policy through military forces, he needs to increase the military spending. This directly associated with the lives of U.S. Army. Since the military spending is raised, they could afford to use more expensive weapons, better clothing, and even better treatment in the military. In a way, Reagan’s dedication to press the Soviet Union...
The Cold War began in 1946, shortly after WWII, and ended more than four decades later in 1991. It began with the shifting struggle for power and prestige between the Western hemisphere and the Soviet Union. The U.S. and President Harry Truman fear of communist attack and the Soviet Union need for a secure western border led to America’s effort in providing economic stability and security to nations of the Western hemisphere. In addition, President Truman began his “Get Tough” policy that encouraged the development of nuclear weapons for America to be securely defensive and well armed. The document, “Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace Questions the “Get Tough” Policy” written by Secretary Wallace described America’s actions, “the effort to secure air base spread over half the globe from which the other half of the globe can be bombed,” which he felt America during the Cold War went “far beyond the requirements of defense.”Although, President Truman was determined to resist aggression, moreover, stop the spread of communism and Soviet power, the document was written to make the public and particularly President Truman realize that he himself used aggressive diplomacy that failed to notice the Soviet Union purpose and policy, which if he did understood, might have made better approaches in achieving his goals.
The fact that ther are numerous Defense policies and situations competing for a president’s attention means that it is worthwhile to organize political activity in order to affect his agenda. A president may be compelled to reconsider a problem even though he could not overtly be force to alter the prevailing policy. If presidents are convinced that the current policy is best, the likelihood of gaining sufficient force to compel a change is quiete small. The man who can build foreign policies will find presidents beating a path to his door.
The possible employment of nuclear weapons between the two superpowers during the Cold War was unprecedented. The power of this stalemate shattered the paradigm of warfare and demonstrated how significant this military revolution’s effects were even at the mere threat of nuclear weapons use. Regarding this standoff between t...
Influenced by the fear of communism by American society and containment beliefs of people like George Kennan, who advocated that the US should use diplomatic, economic, and military action to contain communism, Truman established the Truman Doctrine, which stated that the US would protect democracies throughout the world, pledging the US would fight it around the world. This doctrine was an extension to both the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary. In dealing with foreign policy, Truman did everything to protect nations of being consumed by communism, such as the Berlin Airlift, in which Truman decided to avoid the Soviet blockade of West Berlin and flew supplies directly over to the people in need. In Asia, Truman decided to use limited warfare, meaning the lack of atomic weapons, and was highly criticized by Douglas MacArthur, commander of the army, who he later dismissed for not following US policy.
In 1945 the United States saw the Soviet Union as its principal ally. By 1947, it saw the Soviet Union as its principal opponent. The United States misunderstood the Soviet regime. .Despite much pretence, national security had not been a major concern of US planners and elected officials. historical records reveal this clearly. Few serious analysts took issue with George Kennan's position that "it is not Russian military power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power" ; or with President Eisenhower's consistent view that the Russians intended no military conquest of Western Europe and that the major role of NATO was to "convey a feeling of confidence to exposed populations, which was suposed to make them sturdier, politically, in their opposition to Communist inroads."
In his influential work, The Air Campaign, John Warden argues that the use of strategic bombardment against the leadership of a government would lead to strategic paralysis. Furthermore, there would be no longer the need for direct attacks against an adversary’s forces. The purpose of the strategic employment of air power is to create strategic effect on the identified target set. This effect will be in support of the defined strategic aim, but may not be part of a theatre campaign. Warden developed a theoretical shift from economic warfare based on targeting the industrial web or directly against the population to informational targeting. The central theme of Warden´s Five Strategic Rings model is the focus on leadership. The other elements are organic essentials, infrastructure, population, and fielded forces. Warden stressed the importance of identifying the centers of gravity, which could vary depending on the adversary´s political, economic, military, and cultural characteristics. By circumstances, Warden´s Checkmate Division in the pentagon supported the development of the air option against Iraq in 1990. His model was applied to guide the development of the strategic air campaign and as Warden later contended “This was a case where the theory existed before the fact and the facts validated the theory.” There is little to say about the overwhelming success of operation