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Begin New Search Political Geography United States Author Charles W. Parker III

1. U.S. Military Concepts of War and their Impact on Foreign Interventions

Author:
Charles W. Parker III
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This essay argues that military doctrine shapes the nature of United States foreign interventions. In particular, the U.S. military's concepts of “war” and “Military Operations Other Than War” (MOOTW), and the resulting institutional orientation of the Pentagon towards such contingencies, have had a profound impact on the planning and execution of contingencies around the world since the U.S. became a great power. Before World War II, MOOTW-like military interventions were commonplace and mostly successful in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Most military interventions such as the Philippines War of 1899-1901 and in the Caribbean (Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua) between 1899 and 1941 were successful limited campaigns that helped consolidate the United States as a regional and global power. U.S. military doctrine and capabilities in counterinsurgency, peace enforcement, and foreign internal defense, were robust. This core competency of the U.S. military was lost in the large scale and conventional struggles against the Axis powers and later the Soviet Union.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
United States, Soviet Union, Cuba, Central America, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Dominican Republic

2. The U.S. National Security Strategy and the Global War on Terror “Force Multiplier”

Author:
Charles W. Parker III
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
In September 2002, President George W. Bush published a new National Security Strategy (NSS) in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks in the United States homeland. The publication of the new NSS represented a codification of a series of policy ideas that had been brewing since the end of the first Bush Administration and throughout the Clinton Administration, which were sharpened as a result of the newly perceived threats to the United States' security posture. Some prominent academics have argued that the NSS and Bush's actions represent a “neoimperialist” or “unilateralist” approach to the conduct of U.S. foreign relations, and are a radical and fundamental shift in the trajectory of U.S. power projection and assertiveness. They also lament a rift in relations with European allies in part due to this new policy trajectory, to the point of declaring that the Europe and the United States will be future rivals on the world stage.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and Europe