Assignment: National Security Questions
1. How do domestic considerations make foreign and security policies different than they would be on the basis of international and strategic considerations alone?
2. How have technological innovations affected the evolution of U.S. security policy since the end of World War II? To what extent can it be said that technology determines strategy?
3. In your view, why did President Eisenhower adopt first a policy of massive retaliation and later Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)? What were his reasons, was he justified, and how has history judged him?
4. Which model (from Essence of Decision) best explains the US response to the Soviets placing missiles in Cuba? Justify your selection.
5. What is more important in determining presidential success in foreign policy, the way the NSC is organized or presidential management style?
6. How have the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil affected presidential power in national security affairs - and is this a positive or negative development and why?
7. Is it possible to move some of the growing interagency coordination burden outside of the presidency? How? What would the president gain or lose as a result?
8. Who were the key interagency players in President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003? What other players should have had greater input and why were they marginalized?
9. In your view, what defines (list three characteristics) the U.S. Strategic Culture and how has it influence/shaped recent U.S. Foreign or National Security Policies? Provide at least one example in your response.
10. How does the "Surge" of U.S. forces in Afghanistan support the US Strategy for that country and the region? In your view is it working or do the Ends-Ways-Means and risk need to be reassessed - if so how, if not why not?
11. When the U.S. decides to use military force, how important are national and international perceptions of U.S. legitimacy and moral authority?
12. What is counter-proliferation? What is nonproliferation? What are the similarities and the differences between the two policies?
13. What are the three primary threats that the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for? Rank order the threats in terms of importance and list which of DHS's subordinate agencies has the lead and which other agencies are in principle support? In your response justify your ranking of the threats and if you feel another agency should have the lead state which one and why.
14. Name three things you feel the Department of Homeland Security could have done to mitigate the disruption and suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina.
15. Why can it be argued that modern industrial warfare (Interstate or State Centric warfare) may have ended with the Cold War? Do you agree or disagree with this position and if true what implications does it have for national security policy?
16. What are important international and domestic constraints on the use of force in the current era? Under what conditions would you expect these constraints to be more or less powerful?