2001 Dbq Analysis

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Since the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940’s, the United States has embraced a policy of global involvement to protect its national security interests. Initially, these security interests involved preventing the spread of communism abroad and protecting the United States against communist subversion at home. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, the greatest threat to U.S national security to emerge was global terrorism. The United States suffered attacks in 1993 with the World Trade Center bombing and attacks overseas in Africa and in Yemen when the USS Cole was bombed in 2000. The most significant attack was on September 11th, 2001 when the attacks on the World Trades Center and the Pentagon resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Americans. …show more content…

When the World Trade Center was attacked in 1993, the Clinton administration treated it largely as a law enforcement issue and the perpetrators were eventually apprehended by the FBI, put on trial, and convicted. Later when the USS Cole was attacked in 2000, Bill Clinton focused exclusively on the perpetrators on that attack and said that they would be found and brought to justice(Doc 6). Ultimately, the U.S responded by sending missiles at Al-Qaeda training camps. After 9/11, Bush argued that the United States needed to respond to all terrorism and called for a global war against terror (Doc 5). The first battlegrounds in this war was in Afghanistan when the United States began launching airstrikes(Doc 1). Not all Americans have supported this policy, even the parent of a 9/11 victim 5 days after the terrorist attack called for restraint and peace(Doc 4. )By 2002, the Bush administration was arguing for action to be taken against Iraq. The administration an additional policy known as the doctrine of preemption. According to this doctrine, the U.S would take aggressive action, not only in response to an attack, but also if it believed an attack was going to occur. Bush argued that because Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction that could …show more content…

Going back to 1947, communism was perceived as a threat and actions from economic aid to military intervention were taken to protect what the United States believed were its national security interests. This was the case with the Truman Doctrine and later our wars in Korea and Vietnam. Defense spending during the time period 1945 to the early 2000’s indicates this commitment to interventionism (Doc 8). Domestically for a brief period during the 1950’s, the Cold War also led to limits on civil liberties. However the foreign policy with its doctrine of preemption, the willingness to act unilaterally and the attacks on both organizations and nation states has been more expansive and

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