United States Fought Research Articles

“Probably the Most Perfect Symbol of Our Democracy”: The Army, Sports, and the Re-education of German Youth during the Early American Occupation of Germany, 1945–1946

During World War II, Germany and the United States fought it out on the battlefields, but once the Allies were victorious, American attention quickly turned to the playing fields. Despite recent enmity, in the spirit of amity GIs quickly started recreational games with German youngsters. This seemingly natural development was at odds with both American expectations of the Germans and vice versa. Reeducation of Germany, and especially its Nazi-indoctrinated youth, was viewed as essential to peace, and the army, through sports, became perhaps unlikely early reeducators. This article outlines sports’ inherent Americanness, this impromptu playing, and its relationship to the formal army program of youth activities.

Refocusing the Military Health System to support Role 4 definitive care in future large-scale combat operations.

The last 20 years of sustained combat operations during the Global War on Terror generated significant advancements in combat casualty care. Improvements in point-of-injury care, en route care, and forward surgical care appropriately aligned with the survival, evacuation, and return to duty needs of the small-scale unconventional conflict. However, casualty numbers in large-scale combat operations have brought into focus the critical need for modernized casualty receiving and convalescence: Role 4 definitive care. Historically, World War II was the most recent conflict in which the United States fought in multiple operational theaters, with hundreds of thousands of combat casualties returned to the continental United States. These numbers necessitated the establishment of a "Zone of the Interior," which integrated military and civilian health care networks for definitive treatment and rehabilitation of casualties. Current security threats demand refocusing and bolstering the Military Health System's definitive care capabilities to maximize its force regeneration capacity in a similar fashion. Medical force generation, medical force sustainment and readiness, and integrated casualty care capabilities are three pillars that must be developed for Military Health System readiness of Role 4 definitive care in future large-scale contingencies against near-peer/peer adversaries.

United states fight's against terror

United states fight's against terror

THE US FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY IN 2017-2020: CORONAVIRUS TEST

Cutting US Federal Reserve’s policy rate in response to coronavirus, financial measures to fight the possible perspectives of recession may be very effective in the short run, but the case is more complicated than ever been. The usual tools of economic policy are under the question and Trump's trade policy seems to be on the way of the United States fight against COVID-19. The American tariffs on Chinese products – from protective gear for doctors and nurses, personal protective equipment, masks, sterile gloves to the medical equipment – have its impact on the United States market and may contribute to shortages of these products. So the Trump administration’s tariffs may hit medical products which are needed for treating COVID-19 and become an obstacle to fight this pandemic. While some exclusions were made, their effectiveness is limited. At the same time cancellation of sanctions may contribute to fight this pandemic by allowing access to medical products and supporting international trade at the face of recession.

The Borderlands of the Korean War and the Fiction of Rolando Hinojosa

This essay reads the work of Rolando Hinojosa for the ways in which it invites a consideration of the two wars that the United States fought in the middle of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—the US-Mexico War and the Korean War, respectively—as part of a continuous history of US empire. It examines the array of cross-racial identifications operant in his Korean War trilogy—Korean Love Songs, Rites and Witnesses, and The Useless Servants—which attach variously to Japanese and Korean civilians as well as to North Korean and Chinese soldiers. In so doing, this article shows how Hinojosa's war writings are part of an Orientalism that is deployed in the service of anticolonial and antiracist critique but that also recapitulates aspects of the colonial imaginary. These works also engage in an auto-critique of how certain segments of the Chicana/o population came to be beneficiaries of a liberal Cold War racial dispensation that enabled limited forms of upward mobility for some communities of color.

The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great by Harvey J. Kaye (review)

Reviewed by: The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great by Harvey J. Kaye Dean J. Kotlowski, Professor of History (bio) Harvey J. Kaye, The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014), 292 Pages, ISBN. What did the United States fight for during World War II? In an episode of the television sitcom All in the Family, Mike Stivic poses the question to Archie Bunker, who replies that he fought because he was drafted. The characters were fictional, but Archie’s response contained a grain of truth for many veterans, as Norman Lear, the show’s creator, knew. Now, Lear has provided a back-cover endorsement of Harvey J. Kaye’s new book on the origins and the fate of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (Freedom of Speech and Religion, Freedom from Want and Fear) for which Americans purportedly fought in World War II—and then forgot about in the decades that followed. Kaye argues that FDR and the country were on the same page during the 1930s and 1940s. “Americans did not simply suffer and endure the Great Depression. They confronted it,” he asserts. “They did so by electing a man to the presidency who believed in America’s democratic purpose.”1 That was just the beginning. Roosevelt set out to “restore America to its own people” by getting government to work on behalf of average folks rather than corporate elites.2 His New Deal embarked on “a grand democratic experiment of renewal and transformation” by providing price supports for farmers, collective bargaining for workers, pensions for the aged, and public works jobs for the unemployed.3 Most Americans responded to their president’s words and deeds: “They would organize themselves—as workers, as consumers, as citizens—to demand their rights. And they would make America freer, more equal, and more democratic.”4 That impulse continued during World War II, especially after FDR enunciated the concept of the Four Freedoms in his 1941 State-of-the-Union Address. The president’s speech, according to Kaye, “gave voice to the widely held presumption, the boon to the lived experience of the New Deal, that the American experiment was unfinished.”5 Kaye has much to say, and he says it well. The Fight for the Four Freedoms makes a persuasive case that the New [End Page 808] Deal did not end with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the subsequent attack of congressional conservatives on Roosevelt’s domestic agenda. Rather, during World War II, Roosevelt told Americans that Dr. New-Deal had merely shared his practice with Dr. Win-the-War. To prove the point, FDR pushed an “economic bill of rights,” albeit without success, as well as the G.I. Bill of Rights, which Congress enacted.6 Meanwhile, average Americans continued to join labor unions; civil rights organizations boosted their membership and clout; women entered the workforce; and the US government celebrated the country’s ethnic and racial diversity. Moreover, democracy in general and the Four Freedoms in particular became chic in mass culture. The words and imagery of the Four Freedoms figured in a Treasury Department war-bond drive, the title of a symphony by Robert Russell Bennett, a graphic-design contest organized by “the ten-thousand-member-strong Artists for Victory,” and, of course, Norman’s Rockwell’s famous drawings for the Saturday Evening Post.7 Yet, as Kaye deftly illustrates, corporate interests appropriated the concept of the Four Freedoms to advance their own ends. The United States Junior Chamber of Commerce added a fifth freedom—freedom of enterprise—to those voiced earlier by FDR. After the war, business leaders and their conservative backers sought to co-opt what had been a plea to end poverty and fear as well as to defend First-Amendment freedoms. For example, the president of the American Medical Association cited the Four Freedoms in attacking President Harry S. Truman’s proposal for national health insurance, arguing that if passed the measure would “subjugate American medicine.”8 Kaye notes how conservative organizers of the postwar Freedom Train...

Fighting the "Islamic State" The Case for US Ground Forces

Abstract: This article argues counterinsurgency wars are not analogous the challenges presented by the Islamic State. The United States needs accept the nature of the war it is in, and undertake clear and comprehensive assessment of the necessary for strategic success. Such assessment will make apparent the need commit US ground combat forces. (1) ********** The rise of the Islamic State has forced policy makers confront uncomfortable questions: What will it take defeat the Islamic State? What is the nature of the current conflict against the Islamic State? Can the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), bolstered by US and allied air power, advisers, special forces--almost everything short of ground combat forces--defeat the Islamic State? The difficulty the Iraqis experienced in taking Tikrit and the recent abandonment of Ramadi should be instructive, as was the premature announcement by US Central Command of coming ISF spring 2015 offensive retake Mosul, which was followed by admission that the ISF is not yet ready for the kind of fight Mosul entail. (2) Many have already commented on the need have all US options on the table defeat the Islamic State. Retired Marine Corps General James Mattis recently wrote US strategy should include ground combat forces to achieve our war aims. (3) This article explains why US ground forces are not just better option than the ISF, but absolutely necessary for achieving US policy objectives against the Islamic State. Does Our Strategy Fit the War We Are In? All students of strategy have had the ends-ways-means catechism drummed into them at some point in their education. Assessing the US strategy for the war with the Islamic State from this perspective is useful in reaching understanding of what needs be done defeat the Islamic State. Additionally, it will illustrate the continuing challenges in post-9/11 strategy formulation and, in particular, the chasm between desired and deployed means. President Obama, in his February 11, 2015 letter the Congress requesting Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) fight the Islamic State, set forth clear ends for his strategy: to degrade and defeat ISIL. (4) To this point in the fight against the Islamic State, the US has been limited a systematic campaign of airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria and supporting various anti-Islamic State security forces. (5) American means are limited air power, advisers, and US support the Iraqis. The other beyond US supporting forces--the boots on the ground--include the ISF, Kurdish Peshmerga and Sunni and Shi'a militias, the latter backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Indeed, Major General Qasem Soleimaini, commander of the Iranian Quds Force, was at one point directing the offensive retake Tikrit. (6) This is problematic in terms of US strategy in the region, but also creates sectarian tensions with Iranians deeply involved in taking Sunni areas. The AUMF explicitly states it would not authorize long-term, large-scale ground combat operations like those our Nation conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the fundamental flaw in conceptualizing strategy for defeating the Islamic State in Iraq--seeing this new fight as similar in character the past 14 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Clausewitz is instructive when he stresses that war is an instrument of policy.... This way of looking at it will show us how wars must vary with the nature of their motives and of the situations which give rise them. (7) Quite simply, the United States needs understand the war it is in and the adversary it faces in the Islamic State. The Islamic State is not insurgency like the United States fought from 2003 until its departure from Iraq. Rather, it is aspiring proto-state bent on taking and holding territory. …

Asian States in U.S. Arctic Policy: Perceptions and Prospects

Asian States in U.S. Arctic Policy:Perceptions and Prospects James Kraska (bio) In May 2013, five Asian states—China, South Korea, Japan, India, and Singapore—were admitted as observers to the Arctic Council.1 Generally, the United States views the admission of these nations into the work of the council as a positive development that deepens international cooperation on a key global challenge.2 The admission of observer states represents an appropriate progression of the strength and role of the council as an international institution, and it also recognizes the global importance of the Arctic region.3 The U.S. position takes a distinctly American approach to internationalism that reflects a union of liberal values and transparency with a concern for protecting the United States’ national interest in the political stability and environmental security of the Arctic. The aim of U.S. grand strategy is to develop a broadly inclusive and integrated international system in which all nations share certain rights and responsibilities.4 By recognizing the interests of Asian states in the Arctic region and welcoming them into the Arctic Council, the United States seeks to broaden the number of stakeholders positioned to share benefits and assume responsibilities in the region, provide a positive example for other regional and functional organizations, and underscore U.S. regional leadership. The United States’ Interests in the Arctic The United States understands that it is an Arctic nation “with broad and fundamental interests” in the region.5 Six major issues steer U.S. Arctic [End Page 14] policy, which is focused on securing a region that is “peaceful, stable, and free of conflict”: (1) national security, (2) environmental protection, (3) resource conservation, (4) accommodation of the interests of indigenous populations, (5) scientific research, and (6) international cooperation.6 These interests are pursued along three major lines of effort: (1) advancement of U.S. national security interests, (2) pursuit of environmental protection and resource conservation, and (3) development of stronger bilateral and multilateral cooperation.7 These three pillars of U.S. Arctic policy are likely to persist—and indeed become even more acute—driven both by changes in the region’s natural environment and by increased human activity. National security requirements in the region revolve around preservation of the freedom of navigation and overflight in the Arctic Ocean—specifically, traditional rights and freedoms to engage in commercial trade, conduct scientific research, and operate ships and aircraft of the armed forces in, over, and above the ocean. This approach to maritime security has deep historical roots. Since its inception, the United States has regarded freedom of the seas as a core component of a liberal international order. As a new republic, for example, the United States fought its first war as an independent country against France—the 1798–1800 Quasi-War—to protect freedom of navigation for U.S. merchant ships. During the early 1800s, the country also battled Barbary pirates and went to war with England over this issue. A century later, the United States was drawn into two world wars in large part over the issue of freedom of navigation and Germany’s strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Similarly, the Atlantic alliance that connected the United States to its European allies during the Cold War depended on their common interest in freedom of navigation. Thus, it is no mistake to suggest that preserving maritime mobility in the Arctic Ocean is yet another expression of this cardinal tenet of U.S. grand strategy. To ensure freedom of navigation in the Arctic, the United States is on a course to tailor Arctic infrastructure and management, including navigational aids, vessel tracking, ship routing, traffic separation schemes, waterway management regimes, and ports and reception facilities, to the evolving human and commercial activity.8 Space, air, and sea-surface capabilities will be further enhanced as Arctic conditions change.9 [End Page 15] Freedom of navigation on, under, and over the Arctic Ocean promotes national defense, law enforcement, marine environmental response, and search-and-rescue missions.10 Such navigational rights and freedoms rest on a legal framework of customary international law and, in particular, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Although the United...

Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II by Nancy Beck Young (review)

Reviewed by: Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II by Nancy Beck Young Justin P. Coffey (bio) Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II. By Nancy Beck Young. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. Pp. 376. $39.95 cloth) World War II is often remembered as the “good war,” a time when the United States fought its evil enemies abroad and united at home. Both of the ideas are grounded in reality, although by no means did politicians cease battling as the war waged. In Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II, Nancy Beck Young details the internecine squabbling that rent asunder much of the Congress during the war years. Young, professor and chair of the History Department at the University of Houston, has produced a book that contributes a great deal to the scholarship on the Second World War. She takes the focus [End Page 536] away from Franklin Roosevelt and the executive branch and examines the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The book is less about what Congress fought for than what they fought about. Moderates, liberals, and conservatives in the House and Senate argued over economic and tax policy, immigration, civil rights, and civil liberties. Since the liberals and conservatives lacked majorities in either chamber, moderate Democrats and Republicans exercised tremendous power during the war years. Young’s thesis is that the “moderates succeeded in preserving the core of the New Deal economic reforms but never sufficiently coalesced to influence the social justice reform initiatives” (p. 9). Because there was no real appetite in Congress for social liberalism, little headway was made in such areas as civil rights. But the moderates, Young argues, were able to sustain the New Deal’s emphasis on economic reform. Young takes a topical approach, examining each of the battles in a chapter. She begins with the fight over taxes and economic policy, the only areas where congressional liberals succeeded. Although the liberals did not get everything they wanted, rates for the top earners rose, a liberal goal finally realized. Other chapters explore labor policy, resource management, civil rights, and anti-communism. Young also writes about how Congress turned its back on Jewish refugees, refusing in any way to alter the country’s strict immigration policies. The House and Senate were not much better in helping black Americans achieve justice, even those who wore the nation’s uniform. There was much blame to go around, and Young details how it was not just the conservatives in Congress who blocked immigration reform or civil rights legislation. Moderates were not much help, many liberals were divided, and Franklin Roosevelt, Young concludes, showed no real leadership in addressing these issues. One of the most incisive aspects of Young’s work is how she challenges prevailing myths. In particular, Young offers a necessary corrective to the antiquated but still prevalent view that a coalition of southern Democrats and conservative Republicans banded together to halt liberal legislation during and after the war years. By [End Page 537] examining voting patterns, Young ably shows that the issue was far more multifaceted. Many southern Democrats supported economic aspects of the New Deal, as did a number of more moderate and liberal Republicans. She writes, “A careful exploration of roll call voting from the war years suggests a more complicated story regarding the identity of conservatives than the standard assumption that Republicans and southern Democrats dominated the right wing of the political spectrum” (p. 13). Most of Young’s conclusions are solid, although at times she is a bit harsh on the conservatives. In the preface, Young admits that she is a liberal Democrat, and her ideology does bleed through in some of the pages. Overall, Why We Fight is a well-written account of congressional politics during World War II. The research is both exhaustive and impressive. Young “consulted over 100 manuscript collections located in twenty-eight repositories” (p. 307). Readers will find her “Essay on Sources” very helpful. Although more suited for scholars, the book will appeal to a general audience. It should remain the starting point for understanding Congress and World War II for many...

Book Reviews

Volker Janssen of California State University, Fullerton reviews, “America's Economic Way of War: War and the US Economy from the Spanish-American War to the Persian Gulf War” by Hugh Rockoff. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores the economic causes and consequences of the wars that the United States fought in the twentieth century. Discusses a century of war; the economics of war; the Spanish-American War; the Philippine-American War; World War I; World War II; the Korean War; the Cold War; the Vietnam War; the Persian Gulf War; and the American economic way of war. Rockoff is Professor of Economics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.”

Attacking the Money Supply to Fight Against Online Illegal Content?

Although the Internet has provided economic growth, new forms of social exchanges and political revolutions, it has also been the field for new types of fraud and rights infringements. When the people who upload or exploit content in an illegal way do so for profit, if it were possible to cut off the financing they use, this might be an effective means of combating the spread of their activities.Original mechanisms have already been invented to combat online fraud; what they have in common is that they target the profits made by the fraudsters through their illegal activities. These mechanisms were the result of either self-regulation – as the example of the battle against the fraudulent practice of domain name tasting shows – or legislation – it is the way the United States fight against illegal online gambling.There are two main types of revenue made from online activities: money paid directly to service providers and money received indirectly through monetization. In studying the possibility of targeting the financial circuits that benefit those engaged in an illegal activity, direct and indirect revenue must be distinguished. It appears that the identification of a payment made through these intermediaries, a payment that profits a particular individual, whether known or unknown and who operates an illegal online activity, may lead to the suspension of the payment if it can be established that it encouraged this activity or brought profit to the person behind it.An individual who notices that an illegal activity is in partial or full infringement of his rights could notify the intermediary(ies) used by the illegal business to receive payments. Such intermediary(ies) would then take one measure or more. Intermediaries would be compelled to suspend payments to the operators of illegal sites in cases where it is clear that the beneficiary is engaged in the monetization of patently illegal content, with due process rules that would guarantee the rights of the person affected.This position paper aims at engaging a debate about mechanisms that would be preventive rather than curative, target the financial flows and not the information flows, involve a critical category of intermediaries which are not currently at the center of internet regulation though they are at the center of its economy.

The Johnson Administration and the Recruitment of Allies in Vietnam, 1964-1968

The Vietnam War has generated a vast literature but one which has often forgotten that the United States fought in Vietnam as part of a coalition. This article examines Washington's efforts under President Lyndon B. Johnson to recruit third country combat assistance. He and his colleagues sought military help less for practical reasons than for political ones as a way of legitimizing the war both domestically and abroad. However, no NATO countries were willing to participate, and some of the five troop-contributing countries (Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand) were attracted probably more by American largesse than by idealism. In exploring the diplomacy of coalition-building, this article has a contemporary resonance in the light of the military campaigns initiated by the White House since 2003.

<i>Chinese Americans and the Second World War</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Chinese Americans and the Second World War Joseph Tse-Hei Lee Americans First: Chinese Americans and the Second World War. By K. Scott Wong. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. Pp. 256. Americans First presents an insightful analysis of the experience of Chinese Americans during World War II. K. Scott Wong draws on extensive archival sources, memoirs, periodicals and interviews to examine the identity formation, networking and survival strategies of Chinese Americans during the war. According to Wong, the war transformed the American perceptions of the Chinese and Chinese Americans as China and the United States fought as allies against Japan. The second-generation Chinese Americans joined the army, fought against Germany and Japan, and participated in defense-related industries on the home front. This enabled them to assert their Chinese identity and claim American citizenship in the midst of the war. The book is composed of six chapters. Chapter One examines the Chinese American reactions to Japanese aggression in China during the 1930s and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Chinese Americans raised money and supported China’s war efforts against Japan. They boycotted Japanese goods in Chinese American urban communities, better known as Chinatowns. Some took advantage of the anti-Japanese political climate and called for an end to Japanese American business activity in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chapter Two looks at the social, economic and political transformation of Chinatowns throughout the war. The American entry into World War II had created new opportunities for Chinese Americans in the war industry. Many Chinese Americans joined the military for the first time; some also took up white-collar professions. They crossed the racial boundaries and assumed new social roles when they interacted with a broader spectrum of American people in new situations. Thus, they contributed to China’s wartime efforts and were able to obtain American citizenship through military service. The change of American perceptions of the Chinese and Chinese Americans is discussed in Chapter Three. Once China became an ally of the United States, the racial barriers to Chinese migration were abandoned. In 1943, the U.S. government repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This allowed the Chinese to enter the United States and apply for naturalization. By becoming the “good Asians in the good war,” Chinese Americans carved out for themselves a small place in American society. But the drawback is that they internalized the racial discourse of the time and distanced themselves from Japanese Americans throughout the war. Chapter Four argues that Chinese Hawaiians had a different wartime experience from that of Chinese Americans on the mainland. As a cosmopolitan [End Page 298] and multiethnic society, Hawaii was more tolerant of ethnic minorities than the rest of the United States. But during the war, mainland racism affected the race relations in Hawaii. The growing American military presence on the island brought about the intensification of discrimination against black soldiers which the military did nothing to stop. Many Chinese Hawaiians who had joined the military found they had to adjust to this new environment of white antagonism against the blacks and other minorities. At the same time their exposure to mainland racial attitudes made them realize that the whites, or haole (upperclass whites in Hawaii), were not necessarily superior human beings relative to Asians or other ethnic groups. This awareness prepared them for a more active role in postwar Hawaiian society and politics. The U.S. military provided a safe haven from deportation for illegal migrants during the war. Chapter Five focuses on the Fourteenth Air Service Group, which consisted of nine units with the highest concentration of Chinese American personnel in the military. These were segregated military units created out of convenience to accommodate those Chinese military recruits who were illegal migrants and not fluent in English. But these segregated units established on the basis of race were not effective in turning working-class migrants into professional soldiers; they only provided technical support for the regular army. Nevertheless, the white-collar professional training and skills that Chinese soldiers acquired in the military did help them to integrate into American society after the war. Evidently these changes during the war led...

Establishing a Democratic Religion: Metaphysics and Democracy in the Debates Over the President's Commission on Higher Education

World War II stands as a defining moment for American higher education. During the crisis of international relations that existed by the late 1930s, American thinkers of various stripes felt compelled to mobilize the country's intellectual and educational resources in defense of democracy, thus creating “a great ideological revival of democracy that accompanied the war.” The war aims of the United States—as enunciated in the Atlantic Charter and popular portrayals of the “good war” in which the United States fought to free the world from the grips of evil dictatorships—gave tremendous legitimacy to these efforts, which built into a national discussion on the goals of higher education. Between 1943 and 1947, at least five major reports on general education or liberal education appeared, three of which explicitly treated the relation of such education to “democracy” or “free society.”

BOOK REVIEW: de Waal, Alex, ed. ISLAMISM AND ITS ENEMIES IN THE HORN OF AFRICA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

Reviewed by: Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa Lidwien Kapteijns de Waal, Alex , ed. 2004. Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. xiv, 279 pp. $60.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). The subject of this edited volume is militant Islamism, especially its neofundamentalist, jihadist variant in Northeast Africa. There are four contributors to this book, but its unifying vision is that of the editor, who wrote and coauthored five of the seven chapters. Drawing on his long-standing and critical engagement with local human-rights issues and activists and intellectuals from the region, he has produced a highly informative and insightful book of great relevance to current affairs. After an introductory chapter explaining the book's focus, chapter 2, "On the Failure and Persistence of Jihad," by Abdel Salam and de Waal, traces the history of Sunni militant Islamism from Egypt's Sayyid Qutb (executed in 1964) onward. The authors focus on what they see as a neofundamentalist stage and brand of Islamism, which is even more authoritarian, anti-intellectual, intolerant, and anti-Western than its parent, and is characterized by a commitment to violent jihad. They associate this ideology with particular thinkers, including the chameleonlike and highly opportunistic Sudanese jurist Hasan al-Turabi. In spite of Turabi's oral and written rejection of such a neofundamentalist agenda, it is this ideology that has inspired and justified the violent excesses committed by Sudan's Islamist government in the civil war it has fought primarily against Sudan's south (and is still waging in Darfur). In Egypt, where the security forces suppressed a militant uprising in the 1990s, Mubarak's government has nevertheless gradually accommodated neofundamentalist Islamism to such an extent that cultural and intellectual life and many remaining political freedoms have been, and are being, violently stifled. This analysis of the emergence of neofundamentalist Sunni Islamism forms the backdrop to the two core chapters of the book, both on the Sudan. Chapter 3, by de Waal and Abdel Salam, tells the story of how militant Islamism came to dominate the Sudanese government with the coup of 1989, and traces the consequences and excesses of this regime, including its brutal program of "comprehensive da'wa"—a totalitarian and ethnocidal experiment, if ever there was one—and its "civilizational project," based on a deeply racist and Arab-Islamic supremacist mind-set. Chapter 6 analyzes the foreign relations of Sudan's jihadist government in the region. Mengistu's Ethiopia and Museveni's Uganda were its implacable enemies, and all three regimes actively supported each other's domestic opposition movements, the SPLA in Sudan, the Eritrean EPLF in Ethiopia, and the LRA and ADF in Uganda; however, after the defeat of Mengistu's Ethiopia and, especially, the failed assassination attempt on President Mubarak in Addis Ababa in June 1995, Sudan's front-line states (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda) allied against the Sudan. Had they—and the United States—been quick enough, Sudan's Islamist government would have fallen right then, [End Page 122] but the outbreak of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998 caused the alliance to fall apart and ended Sudan's political isolation. Sudan's willingness to help the United States fight international Islamist terrorism has further remedied its international position. Chapter 4, by Roland Marchal, deals with "Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War." First produced for a conference in 2001, it is an important, but not fully successful, attempt at cataloguing Islamist movements in Somalia, especially al-Ittihad al-Islami and al-Barakat, the financial institution closed down by the United States after 9/11. Although Marchal acknowledges the reality—or is it the possibility?—of al-Ittihad's links to al-Qa'ida, especially in the East African embassy bombings of 1998, he argues that Islamism in Somalia does not have an autonomous power base and is subject to more powerful local political dynamics, such as those based on clan politics. This thesis is illustrated by two fascinating case-studies—based on fieldwork in challenging circumstances—of experiments with Islamic courts in northern and southern Mogadishu. Though Marchal's analysis of the civil war and the...

The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans

When examining environmental justice and injustice, surprisingly few studies have examined the experiences of Native Americans. In filling this gap, we criticize and build on environmental and political sociology. We make the case and provide evidence that the U.S. military pursues a pattern of environmental “bads” that cannot be reduced to capitalism and that coercive state policies can mold the spatial distribution of people relative to environmental dangers. Our contribution, then, is both theoretical and substantive. First, we recast the environmental sociology literature by specifying the scope conditions under which a “treadmill of production” and a “treadmill of destruction” are applicable. Specifically, we argue that a “treadmill of destruction” is driven by a distinct logic of geopolitics that cannot be reduced to capitalism. Second, we provide empirical evidence of the “treadmill of destruction” by examining the environmental inequality endured by Native Americans at the hands of the U.S. military. We have collected data on a large number of military bases that have been closed but remain dangerous due to unexploded ordnance. We provide evidence that Native American lands tend to be located in the same county as such hazardous sites. In the twentieth century, the United States fought and won two global wars and prevailed in a sustained Cold War. The geopolitical demands of remaining the world's leading military power pushed the United States to produce, test, and deploy weapons of unprecedented toxicity. Native Americans have been left exposed to the dangers of this toxic legacy.

WHY THEUNITEDSTATESFOUGHT INVIETNAM

▪ Abstract Scholarship on the Vietnam war has advanced understanding of why the United States fought in Vietnam. An examination of this work leads us to consider several related topics, such as why North Vietnam won the war, why the United States and its ally South Vietnam lost the war, and whether there were missed opportunities whereby the U.S. military intervention could have been avoided. The disciplines of history and political science have illuminated many important aspects of the war ranging from such diverse subjects as presidential personality and leadership to congressional-executive relations. Political science has also contributed significant theoretical advances on the subject of why nations go to war and on the nature of international conflict, belief systems, and conflict resolution processes. By and large, however, we believe that most of the seminal discoveries on the subject of “why the United States fought in Vietnam” have been made by historians. We review several of these contributions with expectations that political science will build on this rich empirical foundation in hypothesis testing and theory development.

The Role of Philippine–American Relations in the Global Campaign Against Terrorism: Implications for Regional Security

Introduction When the United States called for global support to combat terrorism in the light of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks (hereafter referred to as 9/11), the Philippines immediately responded by granting the United States over-flight rights for its military aircraft. (1) The Philippines also offered Clark Air Field and Subic Bay Naval Base for use by the International Coalition Against Terrorism as transit points or staging areas for troops fighting the war against terrorism in Afghanistan. Philippine President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, even expressed a willingness to deploy Philippine troops to Afghanistan, contingent upon approval by the Philippine Congress. American officials have praised the Philippine Government's support in the global campaign against terrorism and have described the Philippine initiative as outstanding. The Americans even commended President Arroyo for being quick to speak up, very quick to take action to help the United States fight international terrorists. (2) During the six-month anniversary of 9/11, President George W. Bush in his twenty-minute speech singled out President Arroyo for courageously opposing the threat of terror. (3) President Arroyo was the only head of state mentioned by President Bush in this speech. To recognize Philippine support in combating terrorism, the Bush Administration promised President Arroyo that the United States would give the Philippines US$92.3 million in military equipment to bolster not only its ability to counter terrorism but also to increase its wherewithal to fight local insurgents. (4) This exchange of mutual support is a landmark in Philippine-American relations as it revives the once ailing security alliance between the two countries. When the Americans closed their bases in the Philippines as a result of the termination of the Military Bases Agreement (MBA) in 1991, Philippine-American relations hit their lowest point, with the security relationship being practically moribund. President Arroyo's full support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism and strong commitment to the United States in combating the terrorist network in Southeast Asia reinvigorated Philippine-American ties. This prompted one American security analyst to describe the Philippines as an American front-line state in the war on terrorism. (5) What are the implications of reinvigorated Philippine-American relations for regional security? This article will examine the role of Philippine-American relations in the global campaign against terrorism and its implications for the security of Southeast Asia. A Historical Background to Relations Philippine relations with the United States have played an important role in the security of not only Southeast Asia but also the entire Asia-Pacific region. Those relations began as early as 1898 when Filipino and American troops collaborated against Spain, which had been the colonial master of the Philippines for 333 years. Then President Emilio Aguinaldo responded to the request of Commodore George Dewey to provide Filipino assistance against a common enemy. Dewey provided arms and supplies to Filipino forces while Aguinaldo sent manpower to fight Spanish forces. (6) In the aftermath of the Spanish--American War, a vanquished Spain ceded the Philippines to the Americans in the Treaty of Paris. That Treaty became the basis of American rule in the Philippines. With the Treaty of Paris, the United States established colonial control of the Philippines based on the American perception that the Philippines was an important strategic outpost in the Asia-Pacific. (7) Even then, U.S. President William McKinley viewed the Philippines as a strategic country with strong potential in servicing the United States' commercial and naval needs. (8) American businessmen also saw the Philippines as a strategic gateway to the rich markets of Asia, and a hub for American trading activity in the Asia-Pacific region. …

Why Did the United States Fight Spain in 1898?

Journal Article Why Did the United States Fight Spain in 1898? Get access John Offner John Offner John L. Offiier is Professor Emeritus of Shippenshurg State University and author of An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain Over Cuba, 1895–1898 (1992). Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar OAH Magazine of History, Volume 12, Issue 3, Spring 1998, Pages 19–23, https://doi.org/10.1093/maghis/12.3.19 Published: 01 March 1998

Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam papers: a documentary collection

The recent declassification of top secret Vietnam War papers of the Johnson administration provides an unusually intimate portrait of presidential decision making and fills an important gap in the literature on presidents and on the Vietnam War. For years, the Pentagon Papers served as the most influential published collection of Vietnam-era policy making documents. However, as Vietnam scholar George McT. Kahin has written, the Pentagon Papers are generally very sketchy and inadequate with respect to the political dimension; and for the critical years, 1964-1968, the gaps are particularly extensive. Drawing upon the newly declassified documents and many other Vietnam papers, David Barrett's Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam Papers fills the need for a one-volume collection detailing interaction and confrontations concerning the dilemmas of Vietnam policy. He chronologically presents notes of meetings and phone calls between President Johnson and advisers, as well as meetings with some war critics; memoranda to and from the president; and notes and letters written by friends and associates of Johnson describing his thinking and concerns about the war. This volume offers a first-hand documentation of how and why the United States fought in Indochina in the 1960s; an introduction to the archival holdings for future researchers; and documentary evidence of the major players and their roles in making policy.