United States Security Policy

1
United States Security Policy
Dr. Ruth Ediger Associate Professor of Political
Science and Geography Seattle Pacific University

• 1945 Present

2
Why Focus on the US?

• We are in the US
• US is current remaining hegemon
• US is active in world community
• US has deemed global security essential to
  national security

www.lapostcard.com
3
Six broad changes in US security policy

• Containment and Flexible response
• Massive Retaliation
• Flexible Response Revisited
• Containment and Peaceful Coexistence
• Democratic Enlargement
• War on Terrorism/Preemptive Security

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._President
4
The Monroe Doctrine 1823

• President James Monroe (1817-1825)
• We should consider any attempt on Europes
  part to extend their system to any portion of
  this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and
  safety.

www.homeofheroes.com
5
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

• WWI
• League of Nations
• But isolationism ruled the day (sort of)

6
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)

• The New Deal
• WWII
• United Nations
• Post WWII Japan

isurvived.org
7
Post W.W.II

• New Economic, Military, and Political structures
• Bretton Woods
• GATT
• NATO
• United Nations

www.crwflags.com
8
Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)

• End of WWII
• Fall of the Iron Curtain
• Nuclear Monopoly
• Beginning of the Cold War

www.historicaldocuments.com
9
Nuclear Monopoly

• If the radiance of a thousand sunsWere to burst
  at once into the sky,That would be like the
  splendor of the Mighty One...I am become
  Death,The shatterer of Worlds.
• The Bhagavad-Gita

Over Nagasaki
www.robshouse.net/
10
The Truman Doctrine

• totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples,
  by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the
  foundations of international peace and thence the
  security of the United States.we must assist
  free peoples to work out their own destinies in
  their own way.

www.yale,edu
11
The Truman Doctrine

• Meet Soviets with an iron fist
• Respond to Communist aggression in Greece and
  Turkey
• Theoretical justification left to George Kennon
  (AKA Mr. X) who coined the world containment

Contain those Commies!!!
kpp.aksios.de
12
Shortcomings of Truman Doctrine

• Can not use nuclear superiority to check
  Communists at every turn
• Iron Curtain
• Expansion of Soviet control into Eastern Europe

US atomic deterrence does not equal national
security
Administrations reluctance to use nuclear
weapons made apparent in loss of China China
becomes Communist in 1949
First Soviet nuclear device exploded in 1949
13
Flexible Response

• NSC-68 (1950) made flexible response the official
  policy

• First use of flexible response was the Korean War
  1950-1953

207.234.171.161/atomic/ nuclear_missiles.htm

• Douglas MacArthur Roll-back the Communists?

NO!
www.virtuallymissouri.org
14
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)

• Articulated roll back but never implemented it
• New foreign policy defined to replace flexible
  response was

www.nps.gov
General Eisenhower addressing the 101st Airborne
in England before the Normandy Invasion, 1944
Eisenhower as President
www.ne.doe.gov
15
Massive Retaliation

• Eisenhower concerned for long term effects of
  competition with the USSR
• We could spend ourselves into oblivion and
  collapse internally
• Warned against the rising Military Industrial
  Complex
• Wanted to get the most bang for his defense
  buck Nuclear weapons are less expensive and
  more destructive than conventional weapons.

pages.britishlibrary.net
16
Massive Retaliation Did it work?

• Eisenhower negotiated an end to the Korean War
• 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary
• US does not intervene
• We promised to help but help never came

Quickly it become evident that massive
retaliation was reserved for W. Europe and the US
alone
europa.eu.int
17
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)

• Bay of Pigs
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Flexible Response Revisited

www.newprophecy.net
www.llgc.org.uk
www.cia.gov
18
Kennedy Administration

• Kennedy realized the paralysis created in
  national security policy by a choice between
  massive retaliation (Armageddon) or nothing
• Kennedy determined to increase US options. His
  plan?
• Build up the US military - Conventional and
  Nuclear forces

www.redstone.army.mil
www.thediscounttoystore.com
19
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)

• Peaceful Coexistence with the USSR
• Vietnam War
• Civil Rights movement
• Containment and flexible response

www.lbjlib.utexas.edu
20
Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)

• Recognized PRC
• Took the Vietnam war into Cambodia then ended it
• SALT I
• Resigned after Watergate Scandal

Mao Zedong meets Richard Nixon, 1972
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_(1962-1991)
www.medaloffreedom.com
21
Nixon Doctrine and Détente

• Nixon Doctrine
• Retain flexible response but added a twist
  Realistic Deterrence
• Détente easing of tensions between the
  superpowers
• Kissinger (National Security Advisor and later
  Sec. Of State) changed peaceful coexistence to
  détente

http//nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1973/kissing
er-bio.html
22
Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)

• Really a continuation of the Nixon
  administrations policies

www.chinafoundation1.org
23
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)

• Camp David Accords
• Iranian Hostage Crisis
• Human Rights focus
• Communists take advantage of Carters Human
  Rights focusand seem to gain ground all over
  (Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia)

www.historyplace.com
www.cia.gov
24
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

• Paid lip service to roll-back doctrine
• Granada, Nicaragua?
• USSR is Evil Empire

www.financialsense.com
Some thought that he caused the fall of the
Soviet Union
USSR collapsed 1991 and US has to reinvent
identity
25
George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)

• 1991 US is only superpower
• NIEO New International Economic Order
• Desert Shield/Desert Storm Gulf War 1991

www.cnn.com
www.cooperativeresearch.org
26
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
Democratic Enlargement Promote democracy
overseas via economics
Geoeconomics Its the Economy, Stupid!
Focus on non-strategic individualistic problems
Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia
Strengthen Interdependence WTO
www.ualr.edu
27
George W. Bush (2001- )

• 9/11 and Terrorist Attacks on US soil
• War on Terrorism (Post 9/11)
• Purpose and focus back!
• Global Coalition against Terrorism
• Pre-emptive Self Defense

• Campaigned on an America First platform
• Withdrew US from ABM and Kyoto

www.lib.utexas.edu
28
Cold War turns into Globalism?
So should the US think/act multilaterally?
Or should the US think/act unilaterally?
Next
www.lapostcard.com