Keeping Security in Check with Our Interests

The new focus of the United States when it comes to its national security policy, however, is toward global terrorism, particularly terrorism arising in the Middle East.  

Since the beginning/initial escalation of the Cold War in the 1950s, there's been a larger effort on the part of the US government to become involved in international conflicts.  Through Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, with smaller yet significant conflicts arising in-between, the United States has justifiably affirmed its role as the global hegemony through a policy of internationalism and nation-building, in case anyone was doubting the power of the US.  

We were discussing in our group on Tuesday about the differences between the underlying themes of the 1950 NSC 68 document and the 2010 National Security Strategy.  Both were similar in the calling for necessary cooperation with our targeted enemy, whether it be through diplomatic negotiations/economic policy or through military actions.  However, the diplomatic channels between these two enemies were more open in the Cold War than today.  The relations between the US and the USSR eventually cooled with the introduction of detente policies beginning in the Nixon administration.  However, it's different in modern terms, because one remembers the confrontation in the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis between Adlai Stevenson and Ambassador Zorin.  But how can we confront an enemy that is not a state, or does not have recognition of international organizations?

The United States, since it has realized its global importance in the last century or so, has employed questionable tactics in the name of national security.  In the Cold War, Americans who even questioned the idea of social or income inequality were persecuted by the American public, as propaganda and fear against the Soviet Union provided the federal government with the mandate to imprison political dissenters.  Nowadays, the Patriot Act, along with other "security" initiatives that were a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, have provided the federal government with the authority to listen in on phone conversations, with other unprecedented measures for the sake of national security.  Think about it: if the Cold War were still going on, and we heard on the news that the USSR was wire-tapping on its citizens in order to "protect" its security, we would have laughed and said "Oh those silly Reds, when will they learn?"  The United States, in my opinion, doesn't need to wiretap on its citizens in order to protect itself from internal or external threats.  Torture is also a practice which the United States has ostensibly used in the past (and perhaps the present).  While I understand that our enemies are using similar practices, the United States should not stoop to the level of its enemies.  We're the global hegemon; we should take the high road whenever the opportunity arises, and maybe we'll pass our problems along the way.

With great power, comes great responsibility.