History Commons^™

A Fake Future: The Threat Of Foreign Disinformation On The U.S. And Its Allies, Brandon M. Rubsamen

Global Tides

This paper attempts to explain the threat that foreign disinformation poses for the United States Intelligence Community and its allies. The paper examines Russian disinformation from both a historical and contemporary context and how its effect on Western democracies may only be exacerbated in light of Chinese involvement and evolving technologies. Fortunately, the paper also studies practices and strategies that the United States Intelligence Community and its allied foreign counterparts may use to respond. It is hoped that this study will help shed further light on Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns and explain how the Intelligence Community can efficiently react.

Book Review: Last Train To Auschwitz The French National Railways And The Journey To Accountability, Timothy Plum

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The book Last Train to Auschwitz: The French National Railways and the Journey to Accountability, written by Sarah Federman traces the SNCF’s journey toward accountability in France and the United States. Told from the Holocaust survivors’ perspective the volume illustrates the long-term effects of the railroad’s complicity with the Nazis on individuals, and transitional justice that leads to corporate accountability. In a time when corporations are increasingly granted the same rights as people, Federman’s detailed account demonstrates the obligations businesses to atone for aiding and abetting governments in committing atrocities.

Europe: A Strategy For A Regional And Middle Power, Jean-Yves Haine, Cynthia Salloum

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

As the European Union deals with yet another crisis— the COVID-19 pandemic—it must adopt a grand strategy based on unity, policy, and proportionality: cohesion over inaction, policy over process, and regional imperatives over global ambitions. An analysis of past strategy documents and a study of current international trends stress the need for a Union capable of shaping its own environment rather than reacting to it. The pandemic should accelerate Europe’s journey toward power maturity and responsibility.

Stranger Citizens: Migrant Influence And National Power In The Early American Republic, John Mcnelis O’Keefe

OHIO Open Faculty Textbooks

Stranger Citizens examines how foreign migrants who resided in the United States gave shape to citizenship in the decades after American independence in 1783. During this formative time, lawmakers attempted to shape citizenship and the place of immigrants in the new nation, while granting the national government new powers such as deportation.

John McNelis O'Keefe argues that despite the challenges of public and official hostility that they faced in the late 1700s and early 1800s, migrant groups worked through lobbying, engagement with government officials, and public protest to create forms of citizenship that worked for them. This push was made …

Educating Strategic Lieutenants At West Point, Scott A. Silverstone

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article argues West Point responded to the changing strategic environment from the end of the Cold War through the post-9/11 period by innovating its curriculum. Over the past several decades, however, the academy’s educational model has remained remarkably stable, rooted in an enduring commitment to a rigorous liberal education as the best preparation for officers confronting the inherent uncertainties of future wars.

The Baltics And Ukraine: Geopolitical Hotspots, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides detailed historical overview and contemporary analysis on why the Baltics and Ukraine are historical and remain contemporary geopolitical hotspots. Provides analysis of cultural economic, environmental, and security factors influencing long-standing contentiousness over these regions. Places emphasis on how Russian behavior and policies influence this contentiousness. Concludes by noting that differences between the U.S. and its allies and conflicts within the U.S. Government may limit the ability of the U.S. to effectively respond to events in these disputed regions.

Us And The Cold War In Latin America, Thomas Field

Publications

The Cold War in Latin America had marked consequences for the region’s political and economic evolution. From the origins of US fears of Latin American Communism in the early 20th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, regional actors played central roles in the drama. Seeking to maximize economic benefit while maintaining independence with regard to foreign policy, Latin Americans employed an eclectic combination of liberal and anti-imperialist discourses, balancing frequent calls for anti-Communist hemispheric unity with periodic diplomatic entreaties to the Soviet bloc and the nonaligned Third World. Meanwhile, US Cold War policies toward …

A Roundtable For Victoria M. Grieve, Little Cold Warriors: American Childhood In The 1950s, Thomas Field Jr., Julia L. Mickenberg, Lori Clune, Mary Brennan, Donna Alvah, Victoria M. Grieve

Publications

Dr. Thomas Field introduces a roundtable discussion of Victoria M. Grieve's Little Cold Warriors: American Childhood in the 1950s, providing a synopsis of reviewer critiques before the reviewers expand on their views and the author responds.

Venezuela Undermines Gold Miner Crystallex's Attempts To Recover On Its Icsid Award, Sam Wesson

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

High-Energy Laser Weapons: Overpromising Readiness, Ash Rossiter

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Multidimensionality: Rethinking Power Projection For The 21st Century, David J. Katz

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Writing The Official History Of The Joint Intelligence Committee, Michael Goodman

Secrecy and Society

This article recounts the experience of a professional historian in being given the keys to the kingdom: access to the classified vaults of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. This article includes some of the problems in having access, but complying with the sensitivities around official accounts, difficulties in writing a global history, or trying to make the work of a committee interesting and accessible, and of trying to determine the impact of intelligence on policy.

Strength Through Diplomacy: A Fundamental Review Of The Relationship Between North Korea And The United States, Benjamin D. Blackstone

CMC Senior Theses

At the time that this thesis is printed, we are reminded of the tumultuous relationship between North Korea and the United States every day. If we follow the mainstream news regularly, it seems like we are on a steady path to war. Ultimately, this paper is centered around the question: what is the best foreign policy strategy for both countries to achieve respective goals, without descending into armed conflict? Specifically, I evaluated the failures of the last three U.S. Presidents and used their shortcomings to explain limitations in current foreign policy strategy. I also attempted to show North Korean concerns …

Deterrence & Security Assistance: The South China Sea, Tommy Ross

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article identifies how the United States can apply security assistance to support regional security in the South China Sea in order to counter China’s assertive expansion strategy.

Remembering An Abolitionist, Ambassador John R. Miller (May 23, 1938-October 4, 2017), Eleanor Kennelly Gaetan, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A memorial for Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, John R. Miller (May 23, 1938-October 4, 2017). Ambassador Miller believed modern-day slavery, encompassing sex trafficking and forced labor, requires a principled global offensive that the United States is morally obligated to lead. In the four formative years he led the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2002 to 2006, John Miller set the office’s course as diplomatically aggressive and programmatically creative. He made the annual Trafficking in Persons report more than a bureaucratic submission, putting daring heroes at the center, and insisting on compelling …

Unconventional Lawfare: Operational Law In The War On Terror, L. P. Miller

Political Science Student Scholarship

This thesis examines the legal work required to establish a sufficient lawfare defense by focusing on the Department of Defense Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps (JAG Corps). The work will describe the JAG Corps as a well-trenched bureaucracy with a moral mission to uphold the military’s honor through laws, and how this was interpreted by the Bush and Obama administrations.

The East China Sea In Dod China Military Power Reports, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 saw Congress require the Department of Defense (DOD) to prepare an annual report on Chinese military power. This report contains classified and unclassified editions. Documenting Chinese military developments, strategy, and trends are critical parts of these reports. Beijing’s military activities in the East China Sea (ECS) are important report components. This work explains the importance of these and other DOD reports for those studying ECS developments, examines how DOD has documented Beijing’s military activities within these publicly accessible reports, and describes how members of Congress have reacted to ECS developments during the Obama …

The Technocratic Politics Of The Common Core State Standards In History, Kate Duguid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper shows that the explicit aims of the American educational standards for public schools, the Common Core State Standards to teach history to create “college and career ready” students, marks a shift from preparing students for political participation to preparing them for market participation. I trace the intellectual and pedagogical origins of the Common Core’s pretense of technocratic apolitical values back through the previous two major American curricular reform efforts. In the first section I discuss the origins and development of the National History Standards and show how Cold War anxiety prompted a shift in evaluating students as potential …

Secrecy, Confidentiality And "Dirty Work": The Case Of Public Relations, Sue Curry Jansen

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

How Civility Works, Keith Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

Is civility dead? Americans ask this question every election season, but their concern is hardly limited to political campaigns. Doubts about civility regularly arise in just about every aspect of American public life. Rudeness runs rampant. Our news media is saturated with aggressive bluster and vitriol. Our digital platforms teem with expressions of disrespect and trolls. Reflecting these conditions, surveys show that a significant majority of Americans believe we are living in an age of unusual anger and discord. Everywhere we look, there seems to be conflict and hostility, with shared respect and consideration nowhere to be found. In a …

Geopolitical Implications Of The Sino-Japanese East China Sea Dispute For The U.S., Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Much analysis on Asian strategic challenges facing the U.S. has justifiably emphasized the South China Sea (SCS). This has also been reflected in 2016 presidential campaign debate on the SCS as an emerging area of U.S. foreign and national security policy concern. The East China Sea (ECS) is at least as important for the strategic interests of the U.S. and its allies given the tension between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, potential energy resources in this body of water, increasing defense spending by adjacent geographic powers, the area’s importance as a maritime international trade route, and the possibility …

Regional Integration And Transnational Politics: Popular Sector Strategies In The Nafta Era, Maria Lorena Cook

Maria Lorena Cook

[Excerpt] This chapter argues that although economic integration between the United States and Mexico had been taking place for some time, it was the formal recognition of this process as represented by the discussions surrounding the North American Free Trade Agreement that facilitated transnational political action by non-state actors. Whereas the globalization of the economy and the prevalence of neoliberal economic policies may be considered by some to undermine popular sector organization and actions, formal recognition of regional economic integration in North America has produced a ‘transnational political’ arena that has expanded the resources available to non-governmental groups, increased their …

Security Assistance In Africa: The Case For More, Kristen A. Harkness

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Aiding And Abetting: The Illegality Of Morocco's Nationalist Expansion Into Western Sahara And Their Support From The United States, Rachid H. Yousfi

Master's Theses

This paper will address the illegality of Morocco’s nationalist annexation of Western Sahara and how the United States plays the accommodating role through the selling of arms, economic aid, and diplomatic support. Considered as Africa’s last colony, the Saharawi people have not experienced the basic human right to self-determination and the right for independence. These rights are continued to be withheld for the sake of Moroccan nationalism and their “rightful and ethnic” claims to the territory, disregarding the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s advisory opinion ruling in favor of Saharawi self-determination. It explores the chronology of the Saharawi population from …

Voices From D-Day, June 6, 1944, Musselman Library

Other Exhibits & Events

Seventy years on from D-Day, we still marvel at the stoic heroism of the men who contributed to the success of what remains the greatest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. The Normandy campaign would, in one way or another, prove a pivotal moment in the ongoing world war. A disaster in the campaign to liberate France would set back Allied hopes for crushing Nazism in Western Europe. It would also fray the alliance with the Soviet Union that was essential to defeating Hitler’s forces. By contrast, success would mark not just the end of the beginning of the …

The Coming Financial Wars, Juan C. Zarate

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The 2002 National Security Strategy: The Foundation Of A Doctrine Of Preemption, Prevention, Or Anticipatory Action, Troy Lorenzo Ewing

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, initiated a strategic shift in American national security policy. For the United States, terrorism was no longer a distant phenomenon visited upon faraway regions; it had come to America with stark brutality.1 Consequently, the administration of President George W. Bush sought to advance a security strategy to counter the proliferating threat of terrorism.

The ensuing 2002 National Security Strategy articulated the willingness of the United States to oppose terrorists, and rogue nation-states by merging the strategies of "preemptive" and "preventive" warfare into an unprecedented strategy of "anticipatory action," known as the Doctrine of …

Recalibrating American Grand Strategy: Softening Us Policies Toward Iran In Order To Contain China, Samir Tata

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The Power Of Fission: How The Discovery Of Fission Adversely Affected Us/Soviet Relations, Kathy Shinnick

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

In 1940 FDR told the leading Western scientists that they were not responsible for the way science was being used to perpetuate oppressive world domination. He went on to convince them that while they could not trust Hitler to use their knowledge towards positive means, they could trust the United States to forward the values of world peace.

In light of the events that followed from that speech in 1940 to the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945, without informing the Soviet Union, this pivotal moment insights a series of questions concerning the ways in which the United States’ …

What Lies Ahead For The Oecd?, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

The “rise of the rest” has prompted questions about the capacity and willingness of the United States to lead the liberal international order established under its post-war hegemony. Some prophesize that stronger connections amongst emerging powers are the basis for a parallel international order parading different rules, norms and institutions. In contrast, Ikenberry argues that the visionary use of US power has woven capitalist and democratic societies together into a uniquely entrenched “Western” order that is “hard to overturn and easy to join.” Prevailing arrangements will condition the environment within which rising powers make their decisions; nevertheless, by joining the …