Reflection 9

The work we did in the groups was really insightful and useful for application to the documents we had read on American national security. One of the largest problems that we faced in the 1950’s was the concept of the “rising tide”, or an uncontrollable communist rage that would eventually overtake the heroic democratic society. Francis Fukuyama wrote about “The End of History”, which follows the question and concept of liberal triumph and it was common for nations who had been successful to think that they have the greatest ability. Power, in essence, entails a subordination of others that is not self-critical or openly reflective. Russia was the source of the Cold War, so when FDR died and Truman entered, Russia could then have spheres of influence and create : a demand for friendships/trade, foreign policy support, no alliances with enemies. NSC invokes the concept of George Kennan’s “containment” and a very realist application of the containment doctrine (which differed from the Truman doctrine- talked about the need to scare US people and not wanting to spend money on foreign affairs).

The difference between the Truman and containment doctrine comes with the question of how humanitarian it was...but that’s a whole other discussion. When the document that is surrounded by such a large controversy is held up in comparison to the Obama document, there are issues raised in the latter (education, green technology) that aren’t mentioned in the first. One of the group discussion questions asked about the concept of “others”. Essentially, the “others” changed to any nation anti-war, anti-American. The War on Terror was far too broad of a topic to create any specific other, but the enemy definitely changed. The comparison of these documents was something that I needed to ground me in the middle of the furor raised by the midterm elections and all the different historical comparisons that happen during campaigns. It was important for me to remember the hysteria raised and remember that it was bred out of hysteria, and apply this knowledge to my voting in the upcoming elections.