Unit 68 Assignment

Date of Submission:

The United States has undergone a tremendous change involving drastic and sometimes significant evolvement since the 1st World War until the year we are today 2017. If there is one thing that the United States has never compromised is the matter of National Security, Terrorism and the safety of the Americans. U.S always values peace and prosperity through diplomatic negotiations between its rival nations. After the 2nd World War, the era of the 2nd Cold War was at an alarming state in the U.S. The USSR has a lot of power over the U.S in terms of military deployment in case of war, more power in terms of the weapons they had. The U.S military was not well equipped with the needed resources for combat in case of war eruption.

This is the reason why the National Security Council together with the Congress Men drafted and presented the NSC-68 report to President Truman. In 2001, the U.S underwent a moment of torment when the terrorists hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, killing 2700 people, injuring more than 7000 and destroying property worth $ 1trillion. By that time, the U.S military and other investigative Agencies including the CIA were not able to protect the Americans against terrorism since the law did not provide a platform to do so. This is the reason the Patriotic Act was passed after the attack on September 2001. Therefore the main threat the U.S usually faces is the matter of National Security and Terrorism as we can see being stressed by the two documents presented in the years 1950 and 2001.
The NSC Report 68 was drafted in April 14th, 1950 by the National Security Council under President Truman.

The report drafted alongside recommendations for the military strategy was to be issued to President Truman following the socialists (communists) over the nationalists' movement triumph in China and the Soviet atomic bomb detonation. The U.S did not want communism to be spread into the western region since the USSR was there enemy and people could be turned against themselves if they took over. The NSC-68 as it is commonly known, after it being disseminated all over the U.S, it became a foreign policy and all the country’s economic and diplomatic containment strategies were all converted to one involving the military. With the growth of the Soviet Union at the time, Cold War had made the Americans believe that the USSR had outsmarted the U.S. And with the tension growing and the communists infiltrating the U.S government slowly, if the USSR had attacked the U.S, they would have won and Communism will have ruled the U.S. The diplomatic and economic strategies that the U.S was using in order to make peace with the Soviet Union could not have borne any fruits. This is the reason why the National Security Council (NSC) Report 68 helped in turning all these strategies into military involvement and making the report a blueprint for the U.S's foreign policy. The NSC-68 proved to be of great importance and after militarizing all the strategies, the Cold War eased and ended by 1950’s when the USSR and U.S joined forces. It was also the NSC-68 Report the ended McCarthyism in the U.S brought along with the Cold

War.
The U.S.A Patriot Act, on the other hand, has been of great importance initiative after it being passed and signed into law by President Bush in the year 2001 October a month after the devastating attack on the World Trade Centre. It has helped a lot in polarizing the national security. The act has helped a lot in strengthening and uniting America through the provision of appropriate tools that are required in intercepting and obstructing terrorism. This act has chiefly lowered the cause for obtaining any intelligence warrant against any suspected terrorist, spies plus other enemies of the U.S. the act has led to peace without any devastating terror attack since the year 2001 after the signing of the bill and passing it into law. It has been of great importance to the country at large. President Trump talks about “Making America Great Again” which is simply exercising the NSC-68 and changing any diplomatic strategy into military involvement which is great according to me.
The major ideological difference between the U.S and the Soviet Union was that the US was a Capitalist while the Soviet Union was a Communist. Being a capitalist meant that people were given freedoms in the U.S. These freedoms were; free elections, freedom of the press and the freedom of speech or protests. Also, in the U.S, anything the citizens produced belonged to them. The Soviet Union being a Communist, on the other hand, meant that their people were never at all given any freedom. All the Protestants were taken away quietly by the Soviet Union. The government was the one in control deciding what should appear in the newspapers and what is said by the press. When the elections came, the government decided who would vie and all of them would be communists leaving the citizens stuck there in communism. Anything made also belonged to the government.
The same case as explained above would apply to the political and economic states of the U.S and the Soviet Union, but now politically and economically respectively. Through exercising of Capitalist in the U.S by the government, it ensured that the citizens are offered an advantage in making sure that the country’s economy, politics and also socio-cultural activities are well secured.
Soviet espionage which lasted since the early 1940s to late 1950s has grown a lot of terror and hysteria among the American people. Upon the arrests of various communists in the government at that time, it had divided the nation into two. To bring unity into the nation again, the NSC drafted Report 68 which later led to the growth of internal security and other loyal programs under President Truman’s reign. The relationship here is that if it were not for the Cold War in the U.S created by the Soviet Union, these programs would not have emerged. The major similarity between the NSC-68 and the Patriotic Act is that they were both made in accordance with the U.S Constitution to take care of the national security. The difference is that the NSC-68 was a report to the president while the Patriot Act was a bill passed and signed by the president as a law. The other difference also is that the NSC-68 was drafted in the era of Soviet Union reign in order to change the economic and diplomatic strategies of bringing peace into military involvement while the Patriotic Act was passed after the 2001 terror attack to polarize national security against any act of terrorism.
In order for the government to protect the national security, it always has to infringe on the civil liberties. To my point of view, it is constitutionally sound. This is because the same constitution that protects the citizens from the anti-terror activities through military and investigative agencies empowerment is the same constitution that supports civil liberty of the citizens including all their freedoms. Therefore, to protect the citizens against national security, civil liberties have to be infringed.
In a nutshell, I would say that both the NSC-68 and the Patriotic Act has brought a significant change to the U.S and another era of peace has been born. The goal and objective of thwarting any exploit on financial systems of America by suspected parties of terrorism, terrorists finance, and money laundry plus drug traffickers by terrorist groups has been achieved over the last 50 years.