Current Events and U.S. Diplomacy
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Assignment 2: Current Events and U.S. Diplomacy
This paper will be a revised and expanded version of the first research paper. Based on your instructor’s feedback, you will first revise the first paper.
Write three-to-four (3-4) new pages that address the following:
- Define presidential doctrine and summarize the regional or global events during the Cold War leading up to the formation of the presidential doctrine you wrote about in Assignment 1.
- Select one country you wrote about in Assignment 1 and describe the Cold War relationship that existed between the country you selected and the U.S. before the presidential doctrine was announced.
- Describe the relationship that currently exists between the U.S. and the country you selected in section (2) above.
- Describe the effect that the presidential doctrine has had on regional or global affairs since it was announced during the Cold War.
- Assess whether or not the presidential doctrine you wrote about in Assignment 1 doctrine had had the intended effect of altering the behavior of the country you selected in section (2) above since the doctrine was first announced.
- Use at least four (4) quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.
To help you understand this assignment further, the following description and examples may be useful.
Step 1: Define doctrine and identify why a president would want to announce one.
A doctrine is an ideological platform that a president uses to advance a policy towards a country or region in order to accomplish foreign policy goals for the United States, so you will need to expand on this theme.
Refer back to Assignment 1, and build on whatever doctrine you wrote about then. Say, for example, you selected the Truman Doctrine. Therefore, this is the only thing you will write about in Assignment 2 step 1.
Step 2: Select one country you wrote about in Assignment 1 and describe the Cold War relationship that existed between it and the U.S.
Before the presidential doctrine was announced. In the case of Truman, you would pick either the Soviet Union, Greece, or Iran, since all three were affected by his doctrine. If you are writing about the Eisenhower Doctrine, you would choose Lebanon or Egypt; if you wrote about the Kennedy Doctrine, you would have write about Cuba or Vietnam; if your wrote about the Nixon Doctrine, you would choose either Vietnam, Saudi Arabia or Iran; if you chose Carter, you would select either Iran or Afghanistan; and if you wrote about the Reagan Doctrine, you would select Nicaragua, Angola, Russia or Afghanistan (although there were several others).
Step 3: Describe what effect the presidential doctrine you chose has had on regional or global affairs since it was announced during the Cold War.
That is, how did the doctrine change the status quo regionally or globally after it was announced by the U.S.? What happened in Western Europe after the Truman Doctrine was announced? What happened in the Middle East after the Eisenhower Doctrine was announced? What happened with Cuba or Vietnam after Kennedy offered up his doctrine of flexible response? What happened in Southeast Asia or the Persian Gulf after the Nixon Doctrine went in effect? What happened in the Middle East after the Carter Doctrine was announced? What happened in Central America or Africa or the Middle East after Reagan announced his doctrine?
Step 4: Refer back to the country you selected in step two and describe the relationship that currently exists between the U.S. and that country.
How has the relationship changed between the U.S. and that country since the doctrine was announced?
Step 5: Evaluate whether or not the presidential doctrine had had the intended effect of altering the behavior of the one country you selected in section (2) above since the doctrine was first announced.
Your assignment must:
Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.
SAMPLE ANSWER
The Kennedy Doctrine as a foreign policy was envisioned and pursued by the 35th president of the United States. John F Kennedy chose this doctrine as the cornerstone of his foreign policy towards the Latin America between 1961 and 1963. Alive to the threat of communism and especially the threat of a nuclear bomb within range of the US, he knew there was need for a policy that could work despite the ‘current realities’. For President Kennedy, the cold war was not going to stop him securing the nation.
President Kennedy understood that all out war would only result in world war III and the world was hardly two decades away from the last world war. By choosing diplomacy – albeit quite, President Kennedy was able to achieve more than what he set out seeking (Dobbs, 2008). He was able to contain the spread of communism and contribute to the growth of democracy as a governance system in the world. Presently, even the communist countries; practice a form of democracy with their governance structures (Zhang, 2014). China a proud communist country practices Socialists Deliberative Democracy.
Despite the success in Cuba, the same doctrine failed spectacularly in Vietnam. May be the poor intelligence gathering in Cuba should have been a pointer of the state of the Central Intelligence Agency as a unit. After failure in Cuba, it could not accept the same outcome in Vietnam and ended up costing American million if not billions of dollars in a war they were doomed to fail from the start.
May be, had what happened in the background during those 13 days the world was at a standstill had happened in Vietnam, American would have spared the world a whole lot of problems (Dobbs, 2008). In the latter, the world was saved a nuclear holocaust, while in the latter US carried out a costly military operation that was a failure. Having failed to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro – the Bay of Pigs debacle, US should have learnt its lesson. Apparently it did not and Vietnam Happened.
As President Kennedy played brinkmanship with President Khrushchev for the worlds’ gallery, he instructed the Attorney General – who happened to be his brother, to reach out the Soviets (Dobbs, 2008). Through back channel interaction, a possible explosive situation was diffused. Despite having downed a U2 spy plane for whom the standard retaliation was the destruction of the missile site, the Soviets got away with that in exchange for the Russian withdrawing the Nuclear war heads from Cuba.
Additionally, America was to withdraw the Jupiter Missiles it has placed in Turkey which had the range to hit Soviet cities. In reality, the American gave up more for less. However, because they played the public opinion right, to date, the worlds perceives the American as the victors. After the incident, President was famously quoted saying that diplomacy ‘can only defeat us; foreign policy will kill us’ (Fitzsimons, 1972). Herein lays the truth on the Kennedy doctrine.
Fifty year later, adoption of the same doctrine on the same country – Cuba has resulted in another historical breakthrough. In December 17, 2014, President Obama of the USA and President Raul Castro of Cuba announced a resumption of diplomatic ties between the two countries. This was a culmination of numerous efforts in the background by the bureaucrats’ that had started with the lifting of travel restrictions in 2009 (Roskin, & Berry, 2010). To arrive at this point, America and Cuba under the mediation of Pope Francis agreed to exchange prisoners and make the initial steps towards normalizing relationships (Dias, 2014). Who would have thought this possible fifty years ago? Could the Kennedy doctrine have been successful only in Cuba or can and could it be replicated in other countries and situations? What uniqueness did this situation have that made the doctrine work?
The Kennedy doctrine has been successful in other situation when it has been employed. The Americans have had success recently with hostages that had been held in the Middle East. These were exchanged for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay prison. This raises the question; does the Kennedy doctrine not contradict the American publicly held position of not negotiating with terrorists?
The French seem to have perfected the Kennedy doctrine (Nuti, 2010). They have on numerous occasions managed to get their citizens back from captivity. Though some have condemned for negotiating with kidnappers and making kidnapping lucrative, when the need has arisen, the French have struck with vengeance and decisively to deal major blows to terror networks that make money from kidnappings.
It could be argued that even Cuba has applied the doctrine when dealing with one of its most prized assets – baseball players. Having negotiated with Mexico a deal to have a few veterans trailblaze by playing overseas and returning home in the winter, when Mexico fearful of incurring America’s wrath sort to falsify documentation and were discovered, Cuba reacted by reneging on all the contracts. It turned instead to Japan where for the past two seasons, Japanese crowds have been mesmerized by the Cuban talent in baseball playing.
To Cuba base ball is the national past time. Its players are sort in the American Major League like hot cakes. In the recent past, those who have managed to join the league – mainly defectors, clubs have paid some high figures for them. In one case, a club willingly took up a player and paid them a high salary knowing full well that they would be fined the equivalent they paid in salary.
On its part, Cuba has been making changes which can be attributed to the recent interaction with the US. In 2012, as a culmination to many other economic reforms the Cuban government had already undertaken, it abolished the requirement that Cubans obtain government permission to travel abroad (Miller, A & Piccone, 2015). This move was especially critical as it would allow many Cubans who have families across the channel to visit them.
Some of the economic reforms that Cuba implemented included relaxing small business restrictions – nurturing entrepreneurship, expanding access to consumer goods – American goods, decentralize the agricultural sector and liberalize the real estate market. All the reforms are intended to make Cuba adopt a governance structure similar if not the same as the one the in US (Renwick, 2015). Whereas the reforms will benefit the Cuban people, those who benefit in the short to middle term will be the American.
The Kennedy doctrine has had its share of successes and failure when it has been applied. Cuba remains one of the most visible success cases where the doctrine has been applied by two presidents – JFK the architect and Barack Obama in dealing with Cuba and Alqaeda. Other instances abound where the doctrine has been a success – even been applied by Cuba, that it makes it a universally acceptable doctrine.
References
Bjarkman, P. C (2015) U.S.-Cuba Thaw is Not So Hot for MLB, retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/19/u-s-cuba-thaw-is-not-so-hot-for-mlb.html
Dias, E (2014). How Pope Francis Helped Broker Cuba Deal, retrieved February 26, 2015 from http://time.com/3637901/pope-francis-cuba-obama/
Dobbs, M (2008). One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Knopf
Fitzsimons, L (1972). The Kennedy Doctrine, New York: Random House
Miller, A & Piccone, T (2015) U.S Takes a Positive ‘Negative’ Approach to Trade with Cuban Entrepreneurs, retrieved February, 21 2015 from http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2015/02/19-us-trade-approach-to-cuba-piccone
Nuti, L. (2010) A Delicate Balancing Act: The Place of Western Europe in JFK’s Foreign Policy. Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Volume 8, N0.3
Renwick, D. (2015) US-Cuba Relations, accessed February 21, 2015 from http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113
Roskin, M., and Berry, N. (2010) IR: The New World of International Relations, Custom Edition. Learning Solutions
Zhang, Y (2014) A Discussion on the Socialist Deliberative Democracy with Chinese characteristics, Studies in Asian Social Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-5.
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