question#3
hypothetical midterm essay question:
Should Germany and Japan be allowed to develop their own defense system, including the right to nuclear arms development, and therefore the possibility of making those countries permanent members of the UN security Council with Veto Powers?
My Hypothetical response:
by Tom Wheat
The threat of nuclear war is the ultimate fear of any concerted international coalition's attempt to contain the threat of nuclear proliferation in which deterrence capabilities of more nations has increased while the US grip on security containment grows diffuse after 50 years of Empire. Nuclear proliferation is undesirable in practice and as a form of negotiation eclipsing the missile gap has resulted in the abandonement of US-bilateral and multilateral international arms control treaties. Globalisim has replaced what was once considered by policy pundits as stable Cold War era, MAD deterrence policy. There is growing international unease, given that more nation's have aggresively pursued nuclear armament programs. The threat of such attack can never be fully disregarded. Germany and Japan have historically in the last 50 years acted as emmissaries of US foreign strategic objectives, both in cointainment policy and by mutual defense treaty, i.e., NATO and CEATO.
The historical evolution of US cold war containment doctrine favored these two countries to fall under the US's nuclear security umbrella, as buffer zones in the faultlines of the economic superstructre of US globally directed capitilisim and Russian militant industrial communalisim, during the era of the Cold War. The strategic long term value of utilizing Nuclear weapons on the battlefield is an insane proposition to ponder, also impractical and anachronistic to propose that the US launch a preemptive nuclear strike. The effect of such an act could theoretically dissolve the international coalition once formed by Roosevelt's four police man conception of liberal internationalisim as an offset to the former unstable westfalian balance of power system, pre WWII.
Rather it seems practical to propose that Germany and Japan should pursue and partially subsidize US-Israeli development of a functional missile defense system as well as implement a containment policy that creats more security dividends more so than security liabilities. This containment policy should seek to combat the spread of nuclear weapons from accumulating or stockpiling in politically unstable parts of the world. Reduction and Limitatation themselves anachronistic terms of the former SALT-START multilateral arms control treaty staked on Bush's bilateral standing with Putin in the present day political climate. Roosevelt's vision of Four Police or states regulating and managing 'relatively peaceful' international diplomacy should not be scuttled or compromised to the benefits of our european allies more so than it should increase our strength in concert. Currency Speculation favors OPEC agitation, thereby precipitating embargo, to increase dependancy riding the crest of proliferation blackmail rendering true insolvency to the current free trade regime.
The US needs more votes on the UN security council in order to excercise it's unit veto power status it once held virtually unchecked until after the Korean War. Many Pundits from the entire political spectrum have suggested that the US as sole superpower is in hegemonic decline, the question is will the cost of empire be the sacrifice of the republic, or for that matter can we hegemonically recover if we fail to envisdion a free trade policy that coardinates a long term economic outlook that can reconcille our balance of payments among our allies and not create new antagonisims in the place of old ones.
Containment as a philosophy became devalued after Vietnam and most can agree that Vietnam was doomed to failure. For the US to not fall for this syndrom of defeat, requires a moral and truly objective security doctrine that benefits the US, does not seek to promote more conflict and articulates international dialouge and coalitions that favor nuclear missile decommissioning and stable arms pact treaties in concert with a bilateral and multilateral managed missile defense system. The gap in our security envelope stems from the fact that our pursuit for profit has outpaced our security while our standard or measure of success erodes or dissipates from the reach of our common elect or any other source of national power. For a nation to endure it fundamentally requires that there must be at least a modicum of virtue to progress, beyond unlimited greed.
Cold War curios wanna fuck with me.. check out these References.
Texts
Required Reading
1. Michael J. Hogan (Ed.). America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
2. Thomas G. Paterson and Dennis Martel (Eds.). Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Volume II: Since 1914. Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath and Co. 1995.
3. Walter LaFeber. The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, Volume 2: Since 1896. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994.
4. Gordon Martel (Ed.). American Foreign Relations Reconsidered: 1890-1993. New York: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0-415-10476-9 (paperback)
1. Walter LaFeber. The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, Volume 1: To 1920. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994.
(see Kennedy Speech Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs President John F. Kennedy -Click Here for the speech also see Senator John F. Kennedy, US Senate, April 6, 1954: -)