Political Action for Peace

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily Geismer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Route 128

This chapter demonstrates how the Vietnam War forced residents to grapple with the central role of defense spending in shaping the economy and labor market of the Route 128 area. The MIT scientists and Raytheon engineers who got involved in activities such as the McCarthy campaign and anti-ABM (antiballistic missiles) movement exposed their complex position about the dependency of their professions on defense spending. These attitudes challenge the assumption that residents of Cold War suburbs who worked in defense-related industries, regardless of partisan affiliation, were uniformly and reflexively supportive of national security issues. The decision of some of this contingency to voice their opposition to the war through electoral politics underscores their faith in the liberal ideal of working within the system to create change, which would have a reverberating impact on the direction of liberalism, the Democratic Party, and the antiwar cause.

National Security at What Price? the Economic Consequences of Military Spending

1993 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Lapidus
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
National Security ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Infrastructure Investment ◽  
Budget Deficits ◽  
Military Strength ◽  
The Cold War

The conclusion of the Cold War affords an opportunity to evaluate the consequences of America's defense policy of the last 45 years. Defense spending has a larger effect on the economy than the percent of GNP or number of Pentagon employees. Defense spending preempts scientific and engineering talent from other potentially productive endeavors, drains R&D funding, usurps money from infrastructure investment, and adds to budget deficits which in turn raise interest rates. In sum, defense spending diminishes productivity growth, and therefore slows America's economic standing relative to commercial rivals, such as Germany and Japan, which do not spend equivalent amounts on defense. It is quite probable that the rearrangement of our national priorities in pursuit of increased military strength has undermined the non-military dimensions of our national security in ways that outweigh military gains.

No First Use: The Next Step for U.S. Nuclear Policy

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Gerson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
The Core ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Policy

The release of the Barack Obama administration's much-anticipated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) concluded an intense, yearlong effort to revamp U.S. nuclear weapons policy to better address modern threats. Despite general agreement that the United States' nuclear policy and posture was in need of overhaul, there were strong disagreements over what kinds of changes should be made. At the core of these debates was the issue of U.S. declaratory policy—the stated role and purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons. Whereas some members of the administration advocated that the United States retain all of the flexibility and options afforded by the policy of calculated ambiguity, others contended that to fulfill President Obama's commitment to “put an end to Cold War thinking” and “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy,” the United States should adopt a more restrictive nuclear policy such as no first use (NFU), perhaps in the form of a declaration that the “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack. By not adopting NFU, the NPR missed an important opportunity to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy. The traditional case for NFU hinges on the argument that the threat of nuclear first use is unnecessary for deterrence. Yet the continued U.S. option to use nuclear weapons first is not only unnecessary but dangerous. Given the size and accuracy of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, and given the variation in the nuclear capabilities of current and potential adversaries, the first-use option risks creating instabilities in a severe crisis that increase the chances of accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate nuclear use. In a future crisis with a nuclear-armed state, the fear—whether real or imagined—that the United States might attempt a disarming nuclear first-strike increases the possibility of nuclear escalation.

Neue Westpolitik: The Clandestine Campaign to Westernize the SPD in Cold War Berlin, 1948–1958

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott H. Krause
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Postwar Germany ◽  
Political Clout ◽  
Willy Brandt ◽  
German American

AbstractThis article focuses on the joint campaign of “remigrés” and American authorities to “westernize” the local Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin during the early Cold War. The years 1948 to 1958 witnessed one of postwar Germany's most bitter intraparty struggles for leadership within the Berlin SPD, where a faction of remigrés led by Ernst Reuter and Willy Brandt wrestled for control with the so-calledKeulenriegearound Franz Neumann. Examining clandestine American support for the remigré faction, which included favorable media coverage and considerable financial contributions, this article focuses in particular on the political maneuvering of a German-American network around Shepard Stone, political advisor to U.S. Commissioner John McCloy. An investigation of the postwar power struggle within the Berlin SPD offers fresh perspectives on three related subjects: the role of remigrés in postwar Germany history; the political clout of informal German-American networks; and West Berlin as an alternative laboratory of German democratization.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Shift in Japanese Diplomacy at the Beginning of the Second Cold War, 1979: A New Look

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 311-338
Author(s):  
Yamaguchi Wataru
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
International Environment ◽  
Soviet Invasion

Previous studies have proposed two different views as to how the beginning of the Second Cold War shaped Japanese diplomacy. This study demonstrates and reinterprets transformations in Japanese diplomacy experienced at that time, examining in particular the perceptions and behaviors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, based on primary source materials of both Japan and the United States. Japanese diplomacy was slowly transformed as the international environment became harsher. Indeed, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made the ministry aware of the Soviet threat, and Japan consequently started to increase its defense spending and make use of strategic foreign aid: these transformations might not have been radical, but were enough to cause the United States to perceive Japan more positively on security issues. However, the ministry’s attitude had been changing even before the beginning of the Second Cold War, inspired by jurisdictional disputes in the context of the diversification of security and the public approval of defense policies. The changes enabled the U.S.-Japan alliance to evolve into a much more complex partnership in the 1980s.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 207-212
Author(s):  
Ingo Trauschweizer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Military Planning ◽  
The Us ◽  
Operational Art ◽  
National Security State ◽  
The Cold War

Maxwell Taylor’s experience in the Cold War highlights four interrelated themes that have defined the US national security state and also shed light on the nature of strategy. First, the warfare state will guide decision-makers to seek military solutions to political problems. Sometimes that is appropriate, but at other times, as in Vietnam, it can drown out other approaches. Second, strategy and bureaucracy often work at cross-purposes. Again, decisions leading to the Vietnam War offer an illustration: instead of aligning means, ends, and political objectives, US strategy suffered from the collision of politics and policy with operational art and military planning. The various bureaucracies, though linked in the National Security Council, sought separate solutions. Third, strategy in general has increasingly become the fault line between operational art and politics and policy. It should be the connective tissue. Fourth, powerful and influential individuals served as contingent actors in the historical drama, but their options were limited by Cold War structures, ranging from bureaucracies that channeled possible actions to mind-sets that made it difficult not to view the problem at hand through the lens of the wider conflict and recent experiences. As they say in military and policy circles, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But what if you had several different hammers all trying to strike the nail at once?...

Economics and politics in 2019–2020: Global challenges and national answers

2020 ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir A. Mau
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Global Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economics And Politics

The paper deals with the key challenges of global economy and their application to current Russian development. The main topics are the following: emerging etatism and populism, social and economic polarization, increasing role of national agendas versus the global one, domination of national security issues over economic policy, and the social and political consequences of technological shift towards digitalization. Prospects, character, and sources of future economic crisis are also under consideration. Global trends form the basis for the analysis of Russian economic policy.

Eugene Rabinowitch, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the Nature of Scientific Internationalism in the Early Cold War

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick David Slaney
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Eugene Rabinowitch ◽  
International Contact ◽  
A Site ◽  
Scientific Life

Eugene Rabinowitch intended the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to be an institution of scientific internationalism in the early cold war. He hoped that the Bulletin might serve, faute de mieux, as a site of international contact that would allow his vision of the scientific life to contribute to peace and stability in the shadow of the atomic bomb. Domestic anticommunists, however, envisioned the relation of science to national security and the role of the scientist quite differently. Protecting a sense of oneself as a scientist was consequently a feat of endurance, as Rabinowitch’s experience with the Bulletin shows.

The Legislative Record: The Japan National Diet in 2003

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-363
Author(s):  
JUNKO HIROSE
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Passage Rate ◽  
High Passage ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
The Government ◽  
Japanese Diet

The performance of the Japanese Diet in 2003 indicates that a new political era may have begun. The rate at which government sponsored bills were passed in 2003 was 11 per cent higher than in 2002. The unity of government parties, especially the unified support of the Komei Party, the high approval rates of Koizumi Cabinet, and changes in the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the largest opposition party, all contributed to this high passage rate. Most notable was a change in the treatment of national security issues. The confrontational style of the 1955 regime gave way to a new political era of discussion and compromise through the Diet deliberation. The Koizumi cabinet demonstrated strong leadership over the government parties, and the cabinet made many substantial policy decisions.

The Czechoslovak Factor in Western Alliance Building, 1945–1948

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-160
Author(s):  
Peter Svik
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The North ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Alliance Building ◽  
The Impact

This article assesses the role of the Czechoslovak coup d’état in February 1948 in the establishment of the Brussels Pact a month later and formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April 1949. The article places these developments in the larger context of post-1945 national security policymaking in several countries, weighing the impact of the Czechoslovak coup on relations among seven countries on national security issues at the outset of the Cold War: Czechoslovakia, France, the United Kingdom, the three Benelux countries, and the United States. The article shows that the only proper way to evaluate the effect of the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia on the formation of the Western alliance is by looking at the considerations present in each country and seeing how they interacted with one another. The Czechoslovak factor varied in its magnitude from country to country.

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