scholarly journals The American State and the Obama Presidency: A Preliminary Discussion

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-282
Author(s):  
Desmond King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
State Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Preliminary Discussion ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military ◽  
American State

I characterize American State power as the expression of a “shock and awe” strategy, that is, the style of making dramatic policy pronouncements which centralise efforts and concentrate bureaucratic resources. Shock and awe,’ refers to the capacity of American state leaders to employ its sovereign power and ample resources determinedly to a particular end. This capacity rebuffs the notion of the United States as a weak state. It describes how powerful the centralized exercise of (civilian and military) bureaucratic authority bent on a single purpose has become in the US state. The state is the executive – the bureaucratic departments and agencies including the military controlled under presidential authority. Shock and awe is a strategy which presidents seek to employ definitively to address a crisis at home or abroad. It is distinctly American because of the constraints – including constitutional, political and electoral – under which the executive pursues policy and responds to crises.

Rethinking U.S. National Security after Covid19

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Bilmes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Federal Spending ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military

AbstractThe United States has traditionally defined national security in the context of military threats and addressed them through military spending. This article considers whether the United States will rethink this mindset following the disruption of the Covid19 pandemic, during which a non-military actor has inflicted widespread harm. The author argues that the US will not redefine national security explicitly due to the importance of the military in the US economy and the bipartisan trend toward growing the military budget since 2001. However, the pandemic has opened the floodgates with respect to federal spending. This shift will enable the next administration to allocate greater resources to non-military threats such as climate change and emerging diseases, even as it continues to increase defense spending to address traditionally defined military threats such as hypersonics and cyberterrorism.

The United States and the Rise of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Grieb
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
American Politics ◽  
State Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Central American ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The Military

The militarycoup d'étatwhich installed General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez as President of El Salvador during December 1931 created a crisis involving the 1923 Washington Treaties. By the terms of these accords, the Central American nadons had pledged to withhold recognition from governments seizing power through force in any of the isthmian republics. Although not a signatory of the treaty, the United States based its recognition policy on this principle. Through this means the State Department had attempted to impose some stability in Central America, by discouraging revolts. With the co-operation of the isthmian governments, United States diplomats endeavored to bring pressure to bear on the leaders of any uprising, to deny them the fruits of their victory, and thus reduce the constant series ofcoupsandcounter-coupsthat normally characterized Central American politics.

The Soviet Factor in the US-China Military-Technical Cooperation during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-47
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Cooperation ◽  
Arms Sales ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The development of the PRC’s armed forces included three phases when their modernization was carried out through an active introduction of foreign weapons and technologies. The first and the last of these phases (from 1949 to 1961, and from 1992 till present) received wide attention in both Chinese and Western academic literature, whereas the second one — from 1978 to 1989 —when the PRC actively purchased weapons and technologies from the Western countries remains somewhat understudied. This paper is intended to partially fill this gap. The author examines the logic of the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States in the context of complex interactions within the United States — the USSR — China strategic triangle in the last years of the Cold War. The first section covers early contacts between the PRC and the United States in the security field — from the visit of R. Nixon to China till the inauguration of R. Reagan. The author shows that during this period Washington clearly subordinated the US-Chinese cooperation to the development of the US-Soviet relations out of fear to damage the fragile process of detente. The second section focuses on the evolution of the R. Reagan administration’s approaches regarding arms sales to China in the context of a new round of the Cold War. The Soviet factor significantly influenced the development of the US-Chinese military-technical cooperation during that period, which for both parties acquired not only practical, but, most importantly, political importance. It was their mutual desire to undermine strategic positions of the USSR that allowed these two countries to overcome successfully tensions over the US arms sales to Taiwan. However, this dependence of the US-China military-technical cooperation on the Soviet factor had its downside. As the third section shows, with the Soviet threat fading away, the main incentives for the military-technical cooperation between the PRC and the United States also disappeared. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, this cooperation completely ceased. Thus, the author concludes that the US arms sales to China from the very beginning were conditioned by the dynamics of the Soviet-American relations and Beijing’s willingness to play an active role in the policy of containment. In that regard, the very fact of the US arms sales to China was more important than its practical effect, i.e. this cooperation was of political nature, rather than military one.

The American War in Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carter Malkasian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narrative Format

The American War in Afghanistan is a full history of the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020. It covers political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war and details the actions and decision-making of the United States, Afghan government, and Taliban. The work follows a narrative format to go through the 2001 US invasion, the state-building of 2002–2005, the Taliban offensive of 2006, the US surge of 2009–2011, the subsequent drawdown, and the peace talks of 2019–2020. The focus is on the overarching questions of the war: Why did the United States fail? What opportunities existed to reach a better outcome? Why did the United States not withdraw from the war?

scholarly journals The Convergence of Military Conduct and Policing in Israeli-Controlled Territories

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nir Gazit ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States in May 2020 and the subsequent turmoil, as well as the violence against migrants on the US-Mexican border, have drawn major public and media attention to the phenomenon of police brutality (see, e.g., Levin 2020; Misra 2018; Taub 2020), which is often labeled as ‘militarization of police’. At the same time, in recent years military forces have been increasingly involved in policing missions in civilian environments, both domestically (see, e.g., Kanno-Youngs 2020; Schrader 2020; Shinkman 2020) and abroad. The convergence of military conduct and policing raises intriguing questions regarding the impact of these tendencies on the military and the police, as well as on their legitimacy.

scholarly journals The Legal Status of Election Officials in the State of Montana

Legal Concept ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 137-144
Author(s):  
Alexey Szydlowski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Full Description ◽  
Election Law ◽  
Us States ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us

Introduction: the election law of the US states to date remains insufficiently studied not only in Russia but also abroad. This is due to the fact that the legal regulation of the electoral process in America is attributed to the powers of the states or municipalities, depending on the legal doctrine applied by the state – Cooley Doctrine or Dillon Rule, which objectively imposes a limit on its study and generalization. The purpose of the study is to acquaint a wide range of scientific community with the latest research in the field of the US election law in regard to the first in the domestic law full description of the organizers of elections and referendums at the state and municipal levels in the United States. The author reviews a wide range of regional and local legislation with references to the constitutional, legal and regulatory acts of the US States. The paper is part of a series that explores all fifty subjects of the American Federation and the District of Columbia. Procedure and methods of research: the author analyzes the constitutional and electoral legislation of the United States at the level of Montana at the beginning of 2019. The methodology of the study was the comparative law, formal-legal, formal-dogmatic, specific-sociological, empirical, dialectical, analytical methods, the systematic approach. Results: the information about the organizers of elections and referendums in Montana, which was not previously covered in the Russian scientific literature, is introduced into scientific circulation. The interpretations of certain provisions of the law and legal consciousness of the U.S election law and law enforcement practice are given. The gaps of the legislation requiring additional research are surfaced. The theoretical and practical significance lies in the generalization of both the established and the latest legal sources (constitutions, organic laws, federal laws, charters, by-laws and regulations) of the United States and the subject of the American Federation and the development of proposals for the enrichment of the Russian science and the formation of objective understanding of the processes taking place in the United States in the field of constitutional, electoral law and the state-building. Conclusions: for a systematic and comparative legal analysis the author proposed the review of the legislation on the organizers of elections and referendums of Montana, revealing the existing contradictions, from the point of view of the Russian researcher, which allows considering the full range of elements of the electoral legislation of Montana from a new angle, seeing new legal structures, previously unknown to the domestic statesmen and law enforcers.

scholarly journals Warlords, the United States, and the state of anarchy in Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Shah Azami
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Illegal Mining ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

As part of its “War on Terror”, the United States (US) provided immense sums of money and advanced equipment to Afghan warlords in order to defeat and dismantle the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Nearly two decades after the 2001 US-led intervention in Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime, the US continues supporting the warlords in various ways. As the intervention was also aimed at establishing a functioning state and reconstruction of the war-torn country, the US needed the support of local warlords to achieve its goals. However, over time, warlords and warlordism became a major challenge to the postTaliban state-building project and in many ways undermined the overall security and the state monopoly on violence. These warlords, who had been mostly expelled and defeated by the Taliban regime, returned under the aegis of the B52 bombers, recaptured parts of the country and reestablished their fiefdoms with US support and resources. They not only resist giving up the power and prestige they have accumulated over the past few years, but also hamper the effort to improve governance and enact necessary reforms in the country. In addition, many of them run their private militias and have been accused of serious human rights abuses as well as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, illegal mining and extortion in the areas under their control or influence. In many ways, they challenge the government authority and have become a major hurdle to the country’s emerging from lawlessness and anarchy. This paper explores the emergence and reemergence of warlords in Afghanistan as well as the evolution of chaos and anarchy in the country, especially after the US-led intervention of late 2001. It also analyzes the impact of the post-9/11 US support to Afghan warlords and its negative consequences for the overall stability and the US-led state-building process in Afghanistan.

Population Issues and Reproductive Politics

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rickie Solinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Reproductive Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
United States Today ◽  
The Us

What is the state of population growth in the United States today, and how is it affected by immigration? According to the 2010 census, the US population has grown 9.7 percent (adding about 27 million people, including about 13 million immigrants) during the past...

Eyes in the Sky

The Drone Age ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 96-130
Author(s):  
Michael J. Boyle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military ◽  
Organizational Costs

Chapter 4 argues that drones accelerate the trend toward information-rich warfare and place enormous pressure on the military to learn ever more about the battlefields that it faces. Today, for the United States, war is increasingly a contest for information about any future battlespace. This has had an organizational effect as the ability for the United States to know more through drone imagery has turned into a necessity to know more. The US military is becoming so enamored of its ability to know more through drone surveillance that it is overlooking the operational and organizational costs of “collecting the whole haystack.” Using drones for a vast surveillance apparatus, as the United States and now other countries have been doing, has underappreciated implications for the workload, organizational structures, and culture of the military itself.

A Century of US Diplomatic Security

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
Patrick Cullen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Military Units

The United States' diplomatic security apparatus that operates today from Washington DC to Iraq and Afghanistan is uniquely massive. It is incomparable in its size, budget, degree of institutionalization, and level of sophistication when set against both other nations as well as its own humble origins in WWI. To understand why this is so, the first half of this chapter historically maps and causally explains how, and why, US diplomatic security has been transformed over the course of its modern hundred-year history. The second half provides an empirically rich study of the various roles and functions of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the US military units that protect the US diplomatic mission.

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