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American Security Throughout the history, the issue of American national security was rather of geographical than political nature. Since the founding of United States, it persuaded isolationist foreign policies, being separated from the rest of the world by the great oceans. In a way, we can say that such approach was a correct one, on the part of American government back than. What gives us the right to say that is the fact that isolationist view of America is the natural one. It emphasizes the notion of Americans being a special nation, consisting of people who had left their native countries, because they never wanted anything to do with the way old European politics worked. These people were independent and industrious, with the strong private property ethics.
Consisting of mostly Protestants, they had adopted very rational approach to how they envisioned American role in the world. They have rightly concluded that living in potentially rich country will enable them to thrive as long as they dont get involved in European domestic disputes. When we talk of those dangers that represented an immediate threat to American society in 18 and 19 centuries, we can only mentioned British imperialism. Up until the First World War America was only concerned with defense and it has to be noticed that such attitude worked very well. From very beginning, when United States was founded we talk of its continuous economical growth. He government was primarily concerned with its internal affairs and it enabled it to provide Americans with the sense of national security.
Things have changed with the advent of First World War. American economy's development pace was little too fast to find its realization within its own nation. It needed to expand on international markets and the only way to be able to this at the time was to participate in international arms trade, as this became the most profitable branch of American economy than as well as many other nations. Things havent changed much since then, the arms trade is still the most profitable part of any developed nations economy.
Participating in First World War cost America 100. 000 in casualties, yet it enabled it to become the one of great powers in the world along with Germany, England, France and Russia. From that time on we can talk of discontent among foreign nations with American foreign policies. In 1917 the German spy network, consisting of 150 informers was being discovered in America, followed by the extradition of von Papen, the German ambassador to U. S. Yet, Germans would never spy on America hadnt it adopted strong pro-English international stance. Still, it appears that American engagement in European politics at the time was justified as it enabled United States to gain the status of super power.
Great many casualties in First World War caused Americans to indulge in isolationism once again. This sentiment among ordinary citizens was so strong that right to the outbreak of Second World War, President Roosevelt had to promise many times that under no circumstances United States will find itself involved in another bloody European conflict. Yet he still managed to do what American industrialist wanted him to he found a very good excuse to plunge the nation into the war on the side of Soviet Union, which later grew to pose an immediate nuclear threat to America. Since 1941 we can talk of American foreign policy taking course that would not always correspond to American national interests, thus undermining the domestic security of American people.
Since the beginning of Cold War the only country that threatened the very existence of USA became USSR. Yet, at this point majority of American politicians had enough will power to actively fight this threat. When we refer to the period of Cold War, it appears that at this time American foreign and domestic policies had restored its sanity to a large degree. The international communism was fought with all possible means and in the end America prevailed, although Soviet Union had much larger resources in its possession to undermine American national security at the time, than todays international terrorism. In my opinion, during the Cold war era, America had a clear view of what its vital national interests constituted.
While participating in Korean and Vietnam wars, American government was the least concerned about defending local populations human rights, going as far as financing anti-communist terrorists throughout the world. Up until recently, American foreign policy was defined by defending American national interests. At that time the enemies of Soviet Union would automatically become American friends. The Al-Queda network was created during the Afghan war and CIA played a major role in its creation. But since United States was only concerned with providing its domestic security, there was no even definition of international terrorism at that time, because it never existed. Yet situation changed with advent of 90 s.
From that time on it appears that American foreign policy makers were the least concerned with providing security to its own people. Instead America became simply lobbyist of Israeli national interests. It is being declared by Clintons and Bush administrations that American foreign policy's task is introducing the notion of New World Order to people abroad, regardless of their wish. In his article Our Revolutionary Right Dr. William Pierce refers to American attack on Serbia as: not just an attack on Serbia, it was an attack on America as well. This was a case of the common enemies of Serbia and America using American military and economic resources against Serbia now, with the plan to use them against America in the future.
If the New World Order gang successfully compels everyone to toe the line, it will be American freedom which will be sacrificed as well as Serb freedom (Pierce, American Dissident Broadcast 12. 06. 1999). I agree with the Dr. Pierce to a large degree. There is question that Clintons and Bush administrations have failed to address why does the America have to support Israeli genocidal policies in Palestine, angering the whole Islamic world against itself? There are clearly no American interests involved Why did the America have to attack Serbia, making majority of Russian people to think of USA as an enemy again and causing Putin's government to order its nuclear missiles to target American cities again? Why did the American military have to start war against Iraq?
It even failed to lower prices for oil, not to mention its ultimate failure to destroy Saddam's imaginary weapons of mass destruction and prevent human rights abuse in this country Today Americans are being told that evil Islamic fundamentalists cannot physically stand the fact, that American women walk around with their faces uncovered - it causes them to hate America so much, that theyre willing to sacrifice their own lives and lives of many innocent Americans, in order to spread terror. Is it really so? In my opinion, such approach is childish, to say the least. Hatred does not just appear out of blue it caused by frustration. If there is consequence, there is also has to be a reason one doesnt have to be a scientist to understand that.
The real reason for attacks on America is nothing but a result of its present foreign policies, which main task appears to be nothing but gaining as many enemies as possible, throughout the world. Even such countries as Great Britain and Germany were sharply opposed to American bombing of Yugoslavia that took place in 1998. American unquestionable support of Israel, does not find much understanding either. What have Americans gained of it?
It is the fact that America is being hated throughout the world like never before, even among nations that revered our nation up until recently. I think we need to ask ourselves why? Today our country depends largely on our supreme technology when it comes to providing security to its people, yet this technology has a very nasty characteristic it tends to spread among nations that now are being made enemies because of our wise foreign policy. Tom Siegel in one of his articles Lets Face It America - We Are Fighting World War III says: birth rates in the Arab world remain high, with almost half of its population less than 20 years of age. With that high birth rate has come increased poverty, cultural decline, educational distortion, and rage On this Earth there are more than one billion Muslims. Among them are millions of honest and peace loving people.
The fundamentalists and hate mongers of their faith have stolen the religion and twisted it into a call for war on the remainder of the world all of them hate life combine their efforts to shift the countless blames for such miseries on to the backs of Israelis, Americans, Europeans, Christians and western civilization. This is a very good example of wrong political thinking. Of course Muslims get upset a little when their children are being shot in broad day light by Israeli soldiers, whose government is being financially and militarily backed by America, yet theyre not an American natural enemies as they used to be friends even like ten twenty years ago. Saudi Arabia is still remains an American faithful ally. In my opinion, instead of going after imaginary enemies, United States should pay closer attention to those nations that might represent a real threat to American security on very near future. China is one of such nations.
Its population is going to reach 3 billion people by the year 2050. Last year, Chinese spending on military build up was 65 billions dollars, it has 20 nuclear missiles, capable of hitting targets within U. S. mainland and this number will go up to 60 by the year 2010.
Military analytics have no doubt that China is preparing to attack Taiwan, which has numerous defense treaties with USA It is very expansionist nation. Chinese government encourages those illegal immigrants in Russia to mate with local women, for the purpose of simply assimilating Russians genetically in its far eastern regions. China has the biggest military force in the world, its nuclear forces are ranked third after USA and Russia. FBI has discovered many cases of military espionage conducted by Chinese recently, pointing out to the fact that China has a direct interest in undermining U.
S. military power. It appears that China in any potential conflict with USA will use the fact that there is a big number of Chinese live in United States, to its own advantage. Chinese, as all Asians, have hard time adapting to the realities of new society when they immigrate to America. Most of them dont even bother to learn English, as they have their own television and newspapers.
It appears that we have a society within the society and in case of conflict with China, these people will act like a fifth column here in United States, as most of them still associate themselves with China, though being citizens of USA. Another nation that might pose a threat to USA is North Korea. This is the nation of communist fanatics who are now proven to possess nuclear weapons. It is hard to find logic in White Houses handling of a situation. On one hand it attacks Iraq on the grounds that it might posses a weapons of mass destruction, on the other it does absolutely nothing to prevent North Korea from deploying such weapons. Noam Chomsky in his book Deterring Democracy comes up with an explanation why there is such an inconsistency about how U.
S. government deals with threats to American national security: The barbarians must be defenseless: it would be foolish to confront anyone who might fight back. Furthermore, the options have been limited by the notable rise in the moral and cultural level of the general population since the 1960 s, including the unwillingness to tolerate atrocities and aggression, a grave disease called "the Vietnam syndrome. " (Chomsky, p. 123). There is also one nation that does represent certain threat to American national security namely Canada. FBI points out to about 50 terrorist groups operating freely within Canada. Many Canadian citizens are suspected of being terrorists by American authorities, yet Canadian government wouldnt extradite them to United States, as it fears of being charged with racism, for most of those suspected are colored.
Steven Brown in his article How Canada Threatens North American Security says: Liberals are Canada's party of multiculturalism. They fear losing the ethnic votes they need to stay in power, if certain groups become too offended by the War on Terror's security measures. As a result, the Liberals were very slow to outlaw Hezbollah, for example, and still refuse to proscribe the Tamil Tigers, because Canada has the largest Tamil population in the world (about 200, 00) outside of Sri Lanka. To Liberals, power has always mattered most.
Principle is secondary (Brown, FrontPage magazine. com 08. 08. 2003). Still, we need to realise that the key to providing Americans with the sense of security is reconsidering many American foreign and domestic policies and not just getting more and more paranoid about the axis of evil. I share the sentiment of presidential candidate from Democratic party John Kerry who said during his speech in Kansas city on August 7: I know I can run a more effective, smarter, more productive war on terror. I will do it by bringing to our side the allies that we used to have which should have been with us in the first place.
I'll take the target off American troops and we " re going to get our troops home where they belong. " We as Americans, need to have the courage and determination to fight terrorism when it comes to our homeland, yet were also need to be smart and try to eliminate the roots of international terrorism rather than fighting with its consequences, what weve been doing so far. Id suggest that America fully withdraws its support of Israel; its not our business trying to bring peace to that region. The bloody bacchanalia has never stopped there since the state of Israel was being founded and its not likely to stop before one side or another is being physically eliminated. That tiny country boldly ignores UN resolutions, being backed by USA it is the main cause for most of international tension in the world. The second step to take is to withdraw our troops from Iraq or to just simply occupy this country and impose our own rules. We cant play in democracy at the expense of lives of our soldiers there.
The time has come for America to realize that we all live in twenty first century and every our act on international arena will have an impact on our own country. Bombing people into a stone age and then dropping them food parcels from the planes will never make America more popular among the nations of the Earth. Bibliography: American Security Policy: A New Approach for Difficult Times. Tallinn Technical University April 8, 2003 web 18. 10. 2004 Americans fighting alongside Israel.
Milligazette. com web 18. 10. 2004 Atlas, James. "Among the Lost: Illusions of Immortality, " The New York Times, October 7, 2001. web 18. 10. 2004. Chomsky, Noam Deterring Democracy Hill and Wang. 2 nd edition. New-York 1992. China's free ride in U.
S. terror war. Posted: October 1, 2003 web 18. 10. 2004 Pierce, William Our Revolutionary Right American Dissident Voices Broadcast of June 12, 1999 web 18. 10. 2004. See, Tom Lets Face It America - We Are Fighting World War III (08 / 01 / 04) American Daily. com web 18. 10. 2004. Shirt, Gary Our Basic Instincts Were Sound Los Angeles Times.
February 1, 2004 web 18. 10. 2004 Kurtz, Stanley The Other Imminent Danger. North Korea March 3, 2003. web 18. 10. 2004 Foreign Relations of United States 1964 - 1968. Department of State. Washington DC. web 18. 10. 2004
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