Simultaneous Contrast: Examining the use of American National Power
After World War Two the United States moved into a position of global pre-eminence. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive and preventive action, expressed in the 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategies, holds that this level of relative power remains, with the US capable of success anywhere in the world, against any enemy. At a military level this idea is fully supported in the 2004 National Military Strategy's aim of full spectrum dominance. These claims are ambitious enough to be worthy of some investigation. The US can point to operations where force has contributed to significant success, yet a troubling series of failures is equally apparent. The principal question studied in this paper is: what is it about US foreign policy and the wielding of military force that can produce great success but also allow such frustration? An examination of the main strands of US foreign policy since World War Two reveals a nation which has, in the words of Henry Kissinger, "oscillate(d) between excesses of isolation and overextension." These swings have taken place in the context of traditions of individual freedom and a resulting focus on private domestic prosperity, and of an idea of military force closely aligned with just war theories. The consequence is a desire to maintain clear divisions between war and peace, and between political and military decision making. This separation has frequently clashed with the blurred ambiguities surrounding the idea of "winning the peace" in timeless modern conflict. A helpfully apolitical way of appraising the subject is to use the idea of simultaneous contrast where two juxtaposed colors give the impression of a third, different color. All areas of foreign policy can be made to produce the conceptual perception of a color different from those initially spread onto the canvas. The conclusion of this study is that, if the true nature of America's foreign policy story is understood, there is a way to produce that third color; it is possible
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