US National Security Policy Term Paper Proposal

I propose to write on the motivations and justifications of intervention policy in the United States. Examples of American intervention (tentatively including Vietnam, the Balkans, the collective theaters of the so-called GWOT – Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, etc – and the nations involved in the Arab Spring), as well as instances of American non-intervention or hesitancy (e.g. Rwanda, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Burma, etc) collectively beg us to consider the role and question the place of pursuing a singular, blanket approach to American interventionist policy, especially one that allows for the veiling of pursuit of national interests in a rhetoric of human necessity and moral imperatives.

Throughout the 20th century (generally understood as the time during which the US entered and became a prominent actor on the world stage, and thus had to face for the first time the problems and competing interests that come with such a role), the balance of national interests and moral imperatives has weighed differently on the minds of American policymakers and the public in various situations. This case-by-case weighing of the situation, of course, is by itself not an issue, and in fact seems to be the only reasonable way to handle the variable nature of issues in the immensely complicated world of international relations.

However, it has often been the case that even when a decision to enter a conflict was based largely or solely on the national interest, languages of moral imperatives were used to justify the decision, demonstrating that pursuit of the national interest tends to be seen by Americans as ‘not enough’ to justify entering a conflict. On the other hand, though, a decision not to enter a conflict is often couched in the languages of national interest without much regard to moral imperatives.

Thus, we have a situation in which America is able to claim that it acts as an arbiter of justice and humanitarianism, but is perfectly willing to not do so when it is inconvenient, and it is this that makes possible American involvement in Vietnam or Iraq while avoiding the Rwanda or Sudan/Darfur of the time. I will argue that such a casual conflation of American intentions and responsibilities confuses the issue beyond repair, and causes an untenable requirement and/or expectation of intervention in all situations that would meet either the national interest or moral imperative requirement for action; such a degree of intervention is both untenable from a pragmatic (financial/matériel) standpoint and fraught with danger of overextension and misapplication of force.

Through a consideration of some of the major US intervention policy decisions of the 20th and into the 21st centuries, I will aim to draw out a general understanding of the national interest/moral imperative dichotomy, and illuminate some of the role that this dual strain in the American mindset has played, both in the particular decisions of a time and in our ever-evolving and ever-more-confused sense of what the past has taught us.

Such an effort can be a significant bolster to our understanding of why we have fought and have not fought, how we justify our decisions to ourselves and to others, and how to form from that understanding a better way forward – one that avoids useless and damaging wars without stifling the pursuit of moral imperatives and humanitarian intervention. I aim, in essence, for a moment of reflection, a look back at all the vagaries, the missteps and the good decisions, that have characterized the first century of the United States’ place on the world stage. In this last quarter of the ‘American Century,’ we have an opportunity and an obligation to reflect on those formative years, to admit our mistakes and celebrate our successes, and to continue forward with a renewed understanding of our responsibilities to ourselves and to others, and the possibilities of a humble America who does not presume to know what is best for the world, but has the fire and the conviction to stand up to injustices and crises.

The main question that faces us is not whether we should intervene in some circumstances – for as long as there are Rwandas and Sudans, there will be a need and a responsibility to do something about them – but rather how we can choose more wisely which situations require intervention and which would be harmed by it.

This is, of course, a large task for a term paper, and it will probably be pared down between now and November. But it's a good start, I think.

Thanks for reading! Sorry it's been so long.

Cheers,
Jeff

Plans and Promises for Autumn

I have fallen out of my routine. My only excuse for doing so is the business of moving to a new city, looking for a job, applying to grad school, being accepted at grad school, finding a wonderful paid internship opportunity that I am anxiously hoping to receive, and just generally trying to settle into a new routine that is both much more productive and much more busy than the one I had (seemingly inevitably) slipped into while at home in the heart of summer.

This is an apology. To anyone who might have enjoyed reading my thoughts on Sundays and has missed that part of their own routine; and to myself, for disrupting what was quickly becoming a favorite part of my weekly schedule.

This is also a promise. Of renewal of the old routine, and the beginning of a new one. Next week, I begin classes as part of the MPA program at Northeastern. This semester, I am registered for 'Congress and Policy' and 'U.S. National Security Policy,' both of which I am very much looking forward to—on their own merits and in combination. No doubt, I will have something to say about these classes, and the reading and writing I do for them.

Thus, I will be writing more. These posts will be less formally scheduled, occurring upon the realization that I want to write them rather than in adherence to a scheduled interval. They also may stray some from the original foreign policy focus of this whole affair, seeing as how fully half of what I'll be thinking about will be regarding the very domestic business of Congress and the American government in Washington. I do hope you'll bear with me through this, and hopefully even embrace the widening of perspective.

I will also be posting my writing for the classes. I have no idea what form and frequency this will take – whether Northeastern classes tend towards having weekly writings like the response journals of Simon's Rock, or just a few substantial papers per semester – but whatever I hand in for class will be posted here shortly thereafter. I find myself tempted to put some sort of disclaimer here, along the lines of “as long as I'm proud of it,” but I think blanketing the statement can only have the effect of forcing me to hold myself to my own personal standards (and those of my friends from SRC) in my work at Northeastern. And that, I think, will be good all around.

Thank you. For sticking with me through the unintentional hiatus, and for continuing to read, think about what I have said, and add your own thoughts and words to the discussion. I look forward to beginning, in the coming months and alongside y'all, the fun of graduate school, professional life (knock on wood), and a very busy autumn—filled with wars, revolutions, presidential primaries, and all the other wonderful, awful, captivating, important, and regular business of the country and the world.

Cheers,
Jeff

Port Security, the Debt Ceiling Debate, and a Chance for American Renewal(?)

On the aforementioned sail in Boston (on my stepdad’s boat New Horizons), we happened to be coming back into the Harbor at the same time as a natural gas tanker started coming into port. Over the course of the half-hour trip into port, we witnessed a security spectacle of sea and air – Coast Guard, Environmental Police, Boston and State Police boats, a State Police helicopter, three Boston Harbor tugboats (Liberty, Freedom, and Justice – really)… all narrated by open band radio charter between the units. All told, there were probably 25 - 30 vessels deployed in support of this one tanker coming into port.

Tomorrow's Thoughts: a Preview and an Apology for Tardiness

It seems that the entirety of my summer has been condensed into a four-week stretch in July and August – with family reunions, sails in Boston Harbor, vacation rentals on the Cape, and an annual trip to Chautauqua coming weekend after weekend after weekend. Somehow, in that time, I’ve managed to catch the midnight release of the Harry Potter 7.5, see Captain America, and (shocking as it may be), am gleefully waiting for my chance to go see Cowboys and Aliens with my girlfriend. And this whole time, New York Times News Alerts about the partisan farce that is the debt ceiling “debate” have kept me irritated and frustrated with the state of American politics. Oh, and I applied to grad school, too.

With all of this swirling around, I’ve been itching to write this week’s post, but I have not had any chance to sit down and actually do it. The first hurdle, of course, is choosing what to write about. Thoughts include:

• Captain America and American memories of WWII
  
• Domestic fiscal and partisan politics and the implications for American foreign policy and international standing
  
• Port security, natural gas tankers, and the omnipresent ‘War on Terror’
  
• Richard Haas’ TIME article arguing for American ‘restoration’
  

Looking at it, I think the last two go well together, and tie in interestingly with the debt ceiling debate, so I’ll have to save Captain America for another time. I’ll have my thoughts on the subject up tomorrow (sorry for the lateness), when I’ve had a chance to sit down, give it some thought, and actually write.

Cheers,
Jeff

The Leviathan (Or) So We Don't Have To Fight Them Here

Warfare and Military Affairs in (and out of) the Nation-State

The frontpiece of The Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes, 1651.

I wish to begin this, which aims towards a particular (critical) imagination of the role (real and imagined) of the military within the politics and spaces of the nation-state, with a sort of disclaimer. I'm throwing this idea out there, not necessarily sure of what it means or convinced of its accuracy. It is crucial to understand that I am not, in describing this, necessarily endorsing or decrying the things that I am talking about, and I am most certainly not advocating some sort of totalitarian imagination of individual and gender roles to universally fit people into a sort of behavioral mold. In short, I'm wingin' it. So feel free to tear into the idea if you see flaws. With that out of the way:

The Leviathan. Nation-state expressed in physical form, the Leviathan is literally a body politic, with component parts that seethe and tangle in a mass of physical strength, locking limbs into one coherent form. The group’s imagination of the possibility of static unity is captured and given form in the cover of his book (above), but this imagination is not all-encompassing.

In reality, there is movement, struggle, disunity — in a word, individuality. And this grating, the tension of an imperfect lock, manifests itself in the highly visible, occasionally illegible, discontents and disparities of the people that make up (and do not make up) the citizen-subjects of the nation-state. The body politic is what sits center in our imaginations of the possibilities of communal cooperation, of national identity and politics; it is the form and expression of our ability to do, together.

Some Summer Reading

I'm sitting on a porch looking out over Lake Sunapee, in Newbury, NH -- here for a family reunion and to enjoy the absolutely incredible company, water, and weather. So, though I feel quite irresponsible (especially having missed last week's Sunday post as well due to the ever-ongoing and thus-far unfruitful job hunt in which I am engaged), I will not have much today, either. In lieu of an essay, I want to recommend a few blogs, Twitter accounts, Sunday op-ed pieces, and other reading material that I've really enjoyed and found worthwhile the past few months.

Dodge: Building America, and the Tools of the Frontier, since 1914

If you haven't seen this commercial by now, I believe it safe to assume that you, in some combination: a.) do not watch Super Bowl football, b.) do not watch TV, c.) do not love America. If that's the case, I'm glad, if a bit astonished, that I can bring it to you for the first time. Enlightening barbarian minds and all that.

Perspectives and Predispositions

If we see knowing not as having an essence, to be described by scientists or philosophers, but rather as a right, by current standards, to believe, then we are well on the way to seeing conversation as the ultimate context within which knowledge is to be understood. Our focus shifts from the relation between human beings and the objects of their inquiry to the relation between alternative standards of justification, and from there to the actual changes in those standards which make up intellectual history.

- Richard Rorty

Conflicts such as the ‘War on Terror’ (and the long prelude to them in histories of capitalism, colonialism, empire, and globalization) are not simply veiled productions of greed and selfishness played out on the imagined stage of global American empire – they are deep-seated, existential, and vital to understand. We cannot address them without thinking about our place in the world, our understanding of what it means to give consent to a community and to belong inside of it, and what it is to declare or be declared as an enemy of that community.

El Dorado and the Botanical Garden, Part III

Manifest Domesticity and the Home in the Frontier

In which I discuss the place of the home and the domestic within the simultaneously foreign and domestic space of the frontier, make a case for the relevance of Eden and ancient religious narratives in 19^th and 21^st century America, and publish a post while omitting the source-notes because I spent today with my father and worrying about the GRE.

El Dorado and the Botanical Garden, Part II

‘The Tool Precedes the Garden’

In which I discuss the role of technology and tools -- as physical manifestations and expansions of man's ability to act on, in, and upon the world -- on the frontier and the frontiersman mindset; incorporate David Nye's discussion of technology in the discursive framework of America as an attempt at a human instantiation of Eden on Earth -- as the second act of Creation, following God's original creation; drag Frederick Jackson Turner back into the affair to talk about the corruption of that which has gone into the wild, whether to tame it or not; and discover the existence of the 'blockquote' tag in HTML.

Taming the Suburban Wilderness

Okay, so. If you've read last Sunday's post, it should make perfect sense to you why I think this commercial is worth sharing. If you haven't, I should hope you'll still appreciate it.

Allow me to walk you through the action.

El Dorado and the Botanical Garden, Part I

Water Lilies, Wilderness, and the Pursuit of Eden in America

In the spring of 1849, England was abuzz with excitement. After a decade of attempts, a seed had survived the journey across the Atlantic, and was successfully germinated, growing into its own in a startlingly rapid seventy-nine days. This flower, already legendary before its arrival, would become an icon of the wonders and potential of European discovery in the New World, a portrait of the beauty of Nature and the splendor of God’s works, and an exemplar of man's ability to mold and wield them to his will. This flower, classified as Victoria regia, in honor of the Queen, stands as an emblem of a grand and important tradition in the Western world.

The British, for a long time, searched in the New World for an El Dorado¹, for a specific place, Eden-like, that could be found and colonized. Eventually, they abandoned the search for a physical, preexisting Garden — for there was, in fact, no such place. This transition, though, was by no means instant. It was, rather, a process of realization, stretching even into the 18^th and 19^th centuries, wherein the idea slowly came to people that there would be no discovery of Eden, no El Dorado. It would become the task of man to instantiate this Paradise, to create it on the earthly plane as it had existed before the expulsion, and perhaps, even, to improve upon it. Until that realization had fully dawned, though, Europeans — the British, especially — continued their quest, adding into it early impulses towards creation and simulation as opposed to discovery.

The Frontier in the 19th Century, An Incomplete Review

The role of the frontier in American history has been explored in great depth, and from many different perspectives. I cannot here undertake a comprehensive genealogy of the field, so I have selected certain key figures and scholars who I take to be, in their own ways, vital acquaintances for one attempting to understand the history of the frontier in the American imagination. To that end, the 'original' frontier scholar, if such a thing can be said to exist, would undoubtedly be Frederick Jackson Turner; it is with him that I shall begin my review.

Introductions and Commencements

Welcome!

Since I’ve never done this before, I’m going to set myself what I think is a reasonable starting pace: once a week, I’ll post an essay, or something less formally structured, on a topic that has caught my attention. Hopefully, these will spark some discussion among readers (which, obviously, presumes that there will be readers… so I’m clearly hoping for the best), as well as being informative – or at least well-informed.

In order to give some coherent narrative form to this whole affair, the first series of writings will be related to my senior thesis at Simon’s Rock, which was a study of the contemporary military and American foreign policy through the lens of the frontier imagination in the United States. A few posts from now, the reader should be much better acquainted with what I mean by this, and I’m hoping that it will provide a good foundation from which to proceed.¹

An opening to be entitled

A blog relating to foreign policy and international relations; engendering a discussion of foreign policy informed by reality and political belief – by what the world is and what the world should be – in concert; establishing for the author a forum of expression for his geekiness as it relates to the culture of war in the United States and its artifacts; providing for the amendment and revision of the format and content of said blog, upon the inevitable realization that the original is in need of update.

Be It Enacted by the Author: