Reflection 10

I want to start off by saying that I still stand by my stance that security is not all encompasing, as I said on Wednesday (or Thursday morning). But I just want to reflect a little bit on the 2010 Security strategy. One of the means of advancing US interests as stated in the National Security strategy is Prosperity, meaning economic stablility and the well being of the citizens. This week we went to the Christ house, where many homeless people with chronic sicknesses go to get well before they move on to improve their lives. This is a great establishment, and shows that there are people out there who are trying to help people contribute to US society. But at the same time, the fact that there are so many homeless people overshadows the National Security strategy's efforts to promote prosperity. Sick and homeless people can not help the country increase its prosperity, and therefore they have to be taken care of and put in homes before they can ever contribute to society. If prosperity is key to national security, you have to start out by making sure the citizens of your country can contribute to that prosperity. That is all I have to say for today.

Reflection 10—

So let me see if I can somehow relate this to security. Last night I was on the phone with my girlfriend (as usual) and she had just seen the movie “Food Inc.” Now, I haven’t seen the film, but it sounds like the basic premise of it is to say that if there isn’t reform to the food industry, bad things are going to happen. In Obama’s NSS 2010 he relates the security of America to essentially the stability and prosperity of its citizens. In “Food Inc.” one statistic says (don’t quote me on this) that in the near future, over 50% of American minorities will have contracted diabetes. Isn’t this the kind of epidemic that Obama is striving to prevent? The problem with such a sophisticated and modernized world is that there are insufficient funds and insufficient time to properly address all of the threats to our society. I’d say the prospect of millions of Americans having a potentially fatal disease is a pretty substantial threat to our way of life. Any kind of universal healthcare will be crushed if funds are consumed with just an individual problem. The domino affect of something like this is massive. Why am I not terrified…or why will I not care tomorrow? Is it because there are bigger threats to our security? Not really. It is because I can’t do anything about it. Yes the idea of “oh if one person addresses it and then another and another until everyone has changed” is quite a beautiful fantasy, that logic discounts reason. As a singular citizen I have no power beyond filling in a bubble on a scantron. Our security as a nation depends on the effectiveness of our leaders in a system designed to render them ineffective. Senator Kaufman told Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night that the system is fundamentally structured to crush legislation…Well that sucks. Unless some serious reorientation of the political and economic systems occur then all of these issues we are facing will become malignant and effectively screw us over, whatever that means.

Blog 8

National Security involves the measures that are taken, or should be taken, to ensure that the citizens of a country are physically safe and under a stable government. That means stopping and preventing any threats of attack or even sending troops abroad to prevent an attack on the people from happening. But to the US today, it doesn't seem like that is the way things are. The US seems to put every issue in its country as a matter of National Security.
After reading the NSC68 document, it was very clear to me what the US's security strategy was in 1950. The US wanted to subdue the threat of communism because it went against everything the US constitution stood for (under a stable government) and it wanted to try and counter any possible nuclear attack from the USSR (physically safe). That was the basic idea of this top secret security strategy, and it involved nothing but security.
The 2010 security strategy is a little bit different. Not only is it out in the open for anyone to read, which I protest to, but it is very general in terms of what it considers security. Sure, it involves actual security and military options, but for some reason the US seems to consider improving the economy, human rights abroad and education parts of national security, which I just don't agree with. Sure, I understand how educating the youth can contribute to National Security, or how improving the Economy can contribute to National Security. But I don't believe that either of these things really ARE National Security the way that defense is.

Stretching the boundaries too far

Obama’s national security speech encompassed an extremely broad range of threats to be considered in planning national security policy. He mentioned terrorism, nuclear proliferation, violent extremism, cyber warfare, climate change, global health, violations of universal human rights, and a changing global economy.

Determining what the exact boundaries to security policy are depends on how one defines security. National security means maintaining the existence of the nation state through economic, military, and political power. If something impinges on the economic, military, or political security of a nation, or impinges on the values at the core of the nation, then it is considered a threat to security.

With this in mind, something like fighting disease would not be within the boundaries of security policy. Although it does threaten the safety of citizens, it is not something that is a threat to the economic, political, or military security of a nation, nor does it pose a danger to our values. Also, disease doesn’t need to be on the radar 24/7 (except for preventative measures) but can be focused on when an outbreak occurs.  Climate change is beyond the boundary of security for similar reasons. Yes, it is dangerous in the long term and yes, preventative measures need to be taken, but with more pressing matters at hand, such as the increasing presence of terrorist organizations which pose an immediate threat, national security strategy cannot spread itself to cover every single problem or it would be sacrificing attention that is much needed elsewhere.  

I guess that administration needs to be aware of things like disease and climate change because they do pose a danger to our safety, but they should not be trying to deal with these in addition to the more urgent threats.  There are different levels of threats and terrorism, violent extremism, nuclear proliferation, and cyber warfare come first and foremost in protecting our nation.

I think that Obama’s laundry list of threats weakened his overall argument and that focusing his attention on the current critical challenges would have been more effective. Administration should be mindful of things that are dangerous to humanity in all areas, which is why it is good that Obama recognized and mentioned all of these things, but being too inclusive is going to be problematic because certain threats need more attention, even undivided attention, over the others.   

Blog 8—

Determining what the aspects of a security strategy should be or exclude, first begs a definition of security. This definition is dependant upon which theoretical school of thought one identifies with, because they range from narrow to broad interpretations of security. A realist would argue that military force is the primary component of security and probably economic superiority as well. The offensive nature of realist IR dictates that the best defense is having a bigger stick than everyone else. Conversely a liberal would concede that military power is important for security, but on a more defensive scale. The liberal doctrine would promote the idea of diplomacy as the key component of security. Strong alliances and an international presence rule liberal security thought. Constructivists would advocate for the promotion of shared values throughout the world. If the international community were to have the same basic set of moral and humanitarian standards, then the community would be far more socially cohesive, thus ensuring the security of all nations.

In President Obama’s National Security Strategy he addresses all of these scholarly viewpoints. He realistically makes the assertion that the U.S. military must adapt to a new and more versatile enemy, thus remodeling the American war machine to be better suited to wage war in the modern world. There was also a heavy focus on healing our economy to retain our hegemonic economic supremacy. The document also prescribes a massive influx of American diplomats to countries around the world, in order to promote peace and democracy. Obama also spoke about keeping the values of the U.S. strong as well as spreading them to places where people are oppressed and can barely conceive the idea of freedom.

The document addressed a large variety of topics as they relate to security, and all have an argument to support them. The only issue with the document, which is a fundamental one, is that there was no outline for how any of the goals he presented were to be achieved. This leaves us with the big question of 'will any change actually occur.'

Reflection 9

Since I put most of the action stuff in my Blog from yesterday, I think I am going to just reflect on how I felt about the Risk game in general. i had never played Risk before, and it was a really exciting experience to learn how to play in a world politics setting. I am sure it probably will have ruined the real version of Risk for me, should I ever choose to play it. On one hand, I wish it would have just kept going, but on the other, I was kind of glad to finally get it done and over with. I was happy that all of our tactics seemed to be working, but after a while I just wanted the game to end and to move on, because it just felt like no one was coming any closer to their goal, we were all just getting rid of people instead of working to win. But I guess that's how it has to work in the world of Liberalism, which I hadn't thought about yesterday. when you work with other people, things take longer to get done, and so in the end, it is just easier to go at it by yourself sometimes, from a world politics point of view. I guess that is another reason why not everyone in the world will just give in to Liberalism. But anyway, this was probably my favorite subject of the class so far, and hope we can play a game like that again in the future.

Reflection—9

More Diplomatic Risk…So this week of the game really sucked. My teammates and I (the blue team) had a perfectly devised plan to achieve our objective in the game. Since it is over now (sadly) I feel fine revealing fully our two objectives, which were to either have 15 alliances on the Diplomatic Status board or to have no wars declared on the board. At the end of Fridays class the blue team, almost single handedly, tapped into our physical and diplomatic resources to eliminate the red team from the game. We did this successfully, clearing the status board of wars. The only two neutral squares remaining were determined by the black team and us. Our secret power (as we understood it) was that we could censure any team from changing the diplomatic status board from one round of play. So…if you can follow the logic, we clearly were not going to declare war and could censure black if they attempted to declare war. No wars on the status board…game won…blue team kicks ass. Roland and I are high-fiving, Rachel and Hillary are giggling, and Kate is about to have a nervous breakdown she’s so excited. Then we were informed by PTJ that we could only use our power to freeze the board at the beginning of the round, effectively ruining our beautiful moment. Thanks a lot.

Reflection: The Black and Whites of Risk

I really enjoyed playing Diplomatic Risk in class. As diplomat for one of the class periods, I had the chance to represent our team at the World Council and strategize for what the order of play should be, I talked with other diplomats about the courses of action we wanted to take, discussed certain deals and negotiations, and predicted what other teams were planning to do. During the game, and especially when I was diplomat, I found myself recalling Machiavelli’s assertions about world politics. I don’t think it’s this way in the real world, but in the fictional realm of world politics, it was impossible to trust anyone. Even the teams who we were on good terms with were sneaky on numerous occasions. There was no true “working together” because every team wanted to win, and only one team could do so. In the real world there aren’t as many black and whites as there were in the game.  In Risk, everybody wanted to win and there were specific goals that we each had to reach in order to attain the status of victorious. In the real world success isn’t measured by a clear “win” or “loss” but in my opinion, is measured more by…how things are going…and what current relationships between states are.   Also, in the game of Risk there was a definitive end, something entirely uncharacteristic of actual world politics, for the obvious reason that life seems to continuing every day, and this makes a difference because you know how much time you have to reach a certain point.

Blog 7

Before I say anything about Risk relating to World Politics, I would just like to clarify that I had no idea we had been trying to bring the Green Team down and was only made aware by my diplomat well after hope was already lost for the Green team. Just clarifying so that I don't get as may angry glares as I already am.
In the beginning of the game, we almost exactly simulated World Politics. Every group was acting in its own interest, simulating Realism, but at the same time was making deals and alliances with other groups to help themselves acheive their goal, simulating Realism. But that as because we had all just started to play the game, and everyone had a general interest in the affairs of their respective "countries." Then, time went by and after several thousand backdoor deals and meetings took place in the dorms, teams started to band together and trust eachother to help neutralize a common threat, which at that time was the red team. This is exactly like when Russia and the US set aside their political differences in WW 2 to defeat the Nazi's, because they decided that since they had the same goal, it was better to work together to acheive it than try to take on Germany by themselves. After the Red country was gone, things started to change. several people lost interest and those who were interested became more interested. After that, people were making secret alliances left and right, while some (which I must once again clarify, had nothing to do with me) turned their back on their allies without them knowing. During the last round of Risk, the Yellow, Blue, and Black teams arranged a three way tie by completely destroying the other two nations.
During the game, the Yellow team was working very closely with the Green team to mutually acheive their goals. But later, the Yellow team (EXCLUDING ME) decided that the green and yellow teams could not win together, so they decided to find another way to win. This is exactly like when the USSR and the US's friendly relations fell apart shortly after destroying Nazi Germany, because it was immediately after the red team had been destroyed that green-yellow relations fell apart.
So overall, I believe it almost exactly simulated real world politics, except for the three way tie at the end. The ending of this game showed that Liberalism is the way the world chose to go, but in the actual world things would have never happened like that. The world's countries will never be able to trust each other enough to put their entire fate in another country's hands, for fear that they will betray them. In the real world, everyone is still scared of each other to the point that they don't quite trust anyone, which is why the three theories of International Relations are so balanced in the real world. And that is why things will never be as they were in our game of Risk.

Blog—7

Diplomatic Risk is the shit. I think PTJ should make it a game that other people can buy, because it’s just about the most stimulating board game on earth. However, to engage the actual question posed, the key element that relates Diplomatic Risk to the real world is the people behind the scenes. The Heads of State are only partially in power during DR because they are constantly being advised of the group plan, because as they are sitting isolated from the bustle of the game, they are relatively uninformed about the workings of their state. This is very unlike the real world where a Head of State would ideally have the most comprehensive grasp of state strategy and status.

The realistic component of the game which makes it so enjoyable is the off board and off World Council allegiances, bargains, and treachery. Players are constantly aligning themselves with one thread of play and revolutionizing their gameplay at the end of every turn. As things change and shift in the real world, so do the interactions between states, as they do in DR. The disease outbreak in the United States is one such incident where states act mainly out of self-interest and their viewpoints change, as they do in the real world.

However, similar to real states, each team in DR has a way to win the game or “objective” that they are constantly working to achieve. This can be equated to the core values that all nations hold and define the way a nation goes about conducting their foreign policy. DR is an effective instrument to immerse IR students in a simulation setting that exposes us to some semblance of what goes on in the international community.

Diplomatic Risk vs. the Real World

Diplomatic Risk accurately represents the complexity of a community where highly conflicting objectives exist. Some states will be against each other, maybe not because of any personal hatred or dislike, but simply because they both want (and can’t both have) the same thing. Problems also arose in Diplomatic Risk when states who wanted to help others couldn’t always do so because it might mean compromising their own goals. For example, we had a mutual alliance with the green team. They had the capacity and desire to help us, but what we wanted them to do for us would have meant a sacrifice on their part which realistically can’t be done.  

Additionally, there were far too many alliances for the real world. Blue was allied with every nation, even though some of those nations were at war with each other or not on good terms. If in the real world a state were to help a nation pursue action against another nation, they could be turning against another one of their allies.  This wouldn’t go over too well in real life world politics because you just can’t be friends with everyone, even if you’re the “peace and love” nation.

Also, there were times when I noticed a head of state making decisions without consulting members of their team. While there may be moments of pressure when time is of the essence, I don’t think it’s realistic for a head of state to take on an autocratic role and disregard all pillars of democracy. The reason we have checks on power is to prevent one sole being from making judgments based on what he thinks is best.  Diplomatic Risk portrayed a world that seemed to have five beings in control of all world affairs. It didn’t accurately represent the slew of people behind those heads of state who contribute to the decision making process.  

Reflection 8

I was really looking forward to the Salome show, as I had never been to an opera before. It made me even more excited to learn that it was in German, as I am learning the language and am very interested in it. Getting there was a different story though. First of all, I had forgotten my glasses and could not see the supertitles very well. So, from that point on, I just had to go by what little German I know, and it did not go well overall. I understood "Give me the head of Johannen" pretty well though. But that wasn't really the important part to me. What I found interesting was how such a raw and grotesque scene as Salome holding the head of Johannen was surrounded by an audience of mostly older upper class men and women, which isn't exactly the kind of audience you would expect to find watching a show like that. But even so, it is the Opera; I feel as if the very fact that they are going to the opera would entice them to go, because it has always been an upper class activity. It really shows you that a good portion of society functions upon the stereotypes with which it identify's itself with.

At any rate, I wouldn't go back. There was just a general pretentiousness to the atmosphere that didn't really sit well with me; it just made me feel uncomfortable, or like I didn't belong. And in all honesty, I didn't find the acting all that good. I found the scenes, especially the final one with Salome gripping the head of Johannen, to be unnecessarily long and drawn out. The music and singing were pretty good, I will give them that. But in all honesty I would rather go see Wicked on broadway, and I honestly feel like it would have been more entertaining generally.

Risk

There were two things I noticed in our game of Risk that I wondered how problematic they would be if it happened this way in the real world. One was a lack of communication between our head of state and diplomat and the other was the lightning speed with which changes on the global platform were occurring. Regarding the first, I felt that there were several occasions where our diplomat would find out new information, make an alliance with someone, or decide on a new plan of action and this information wouldn’t be transferred over to our head of state. There was one instance where we made a peacekeeping agreement with another group but when I went over to our head of state to see how things were progressing, he had no knowledge of the agreement and was clearly caught off guard by the sudden change. Also, it seemed like every thirty seconds there would be a whole new slew of alliances, changed aims, and different negotiations being made. It was hard to keep up with everyone else’s change of plans, let alone know what was going on with my own team’s plan. I guess the moral of the story is that head of state and diplomat must be on the same page at all times, and that maybe not major, but definitely minor changes are constantly occurring, making world politics as complex as they currently are.    

Reflection—7

All of the groups that presented in our simulation all had compelling arguments from the standpoint they were tasked to represent. The views of the Sierra Club would coincide more with my personal outlook on the issue, which made it difficult to form a compelling argument to counter their points. This is the challenge with a debate type forum where viewpoints are assigned because many times you are forced to argue a point that you don’t agree with. I would like to further explore this ability because it was difficult to form a cohesive and substantive argument from a perspective that I saw so many holes in.

Also during the rebuttal time, it would have been useful for other groups besides the one presenting, to offer a second rebuttal, making the debate more into a discussion rather than a presentation of points (although that may have defeated the purpose of having a debate). However, altogether interactions with group mates as well as people in other groups were positive and easy to do. It was great working with a group that accomplished everything in a timely manner.

Reflection 7

I was very impressed with the way the simulation went. Everyone had good arguments and critiques relative to their topics, and their videos were equally as good. I personally thought that when we were given eight minutes of time in which to do our presentations, it was going to be easy to keep our presentation under eight minutes and still prove our point. That was until I edited our groups video and it ended up being 7 minutes and 50 seconds long. We had to cut out almost half of our material in that video, which made me a little dissapointed because the video became choppy and we didn't get to express everything we wanted to in it. Then, when we had three minutes for our rebuttal, I was unable to address all the arguments I wanted to because my other group members just had enough time to be able to address all the arguments they needed to. So I believe that it would have been beneficial to have had more time to present this simulation, maybe during a lab period. I also think it would have been beneficial to have had some debate time so that we could address each argument but also develop arguments against the rebuttals. I feel like the whole process was very formal and rigid, and I feel like we would have been able to convince our president to sway to one side or the other if we had been able to debate our issues. Otherwise it turned out much better than expected, and I look forward to doing something like it again.

Reflection: Simulation

Overall I liked the simulation assignment and found it to be a valuable exercise in strengthening our skills in public speaking, critical thinking, and analyzing both sides of an issue. Our group’s video was based primarily on an appeal to pathos. While it was highly exaggerated and strayed slightly from reality (for example the fact that it is more likely for GM to outsource to China or India than Italy), our strategy was to invoke emotions in the audience that were favorable to the objective of our speech. We wanted to emphasize the hardship that would ensue for millions of Americans losing their job if the taxes on imports were eliminated.  We still addressed the facts of the case, just chose to do this in our statement and rebuttal as opposed to the video.  If we could change one thing about the exercise, I would vote for more time for rebuttal and less on the presentation because an important part of making one’s case is being able to effectively respond to what an opposing argument brings up.

Reflection—6

After discussion of marginalization in class on Friday, two basic positions arose. The first was that those on the outskirts of society do have an important impact on the public and need to be given a voice. The other was a slight clarification of this idea, acknowledging that the bottom rung is important, but only when they themselves forcefully make their voice heard. There also is a distinct difference between a marginalized people and a people being marginalized, which seemed to be overlooked in class. Suppression is a wholly different attitude than marginalization. The deliberate act of stifling a certain group’s voice in society reverts more to the idea of a dictatorship, than anything that is integral in contemporary democracy. However, to use the past United States as an example, the treatment of African Americans after the abolition of slavery is a clear policy of suppression because of it’s design to intentionally subjugate the interests of a specific group. To combat this, our current democracy has practices such as affirmative action, which have been put in place in the attempt to bring people in from the margins.

The question then arises, how much of this talk of marginalization is applicable to world politics or more specifically IR. In the case of world politics there is some impact in the sense that benevolent international powers, such as the U.S., engage in humanitarian operations to help those who are being suppressed (not those who are naturally marginalized). However, in terms of IR theory, the idea of marginalization is less tangible. Certainly there are states on the outside of power looking in, but that is because they have not established themselves as worth engaging. They impose no threat and provide little benefit to the international community. Third world nations rarely are involved as primary parties of important alliances because their international standing is focused on development more than substantial involvement.

International powers cannot be expected to cater to the desires of non-influential states, even though they sometimes do. States without a high level of international weight can only expect their opinions to be heard, not necessarily acted upon. Therefore they are inherently marginalized but certainly far from suppressed.

My exhilarating journey into one of Manhattan’s most vibrant communities

This past weekend in New York I saw a production of In The Heights with my family and discovered many parallels to some recent topics of class discussion- immigration, the American dream, and social identity. The musical focuses on a tight-knit community in Washington Heights and the hopes and dreams of three generations as they struggle to forge an identity in a neighborhood on the brink of transition. It is a community characterized by its predominantly Hispanic population and lively mix of cultural traditions.  More than any other city in America, Manhattan and New York’s other four boroughs are defined by a varied immigrant population; thirty-six percent of the city’s population is foreign born. Although the “old immigrant” neighborhoods retain some of their original character and culture, much has been subverted over time by assimilation, new immigrant groups moving in and economic change.  Many immigrants, both old and new, come to America to escape oppression- be it political, economic or religious- and to pursue the American dream.  However, their new life comes with many struggles.  Many immigrants experience a tension between the need to assimilate and the equally powerful need to preserve cultural identity, an issue we discussed in class. For the many Hispanic communities in New York City, cultural identity resides, more than anywhere else, in their language. It is a crucial link to the past, and more importantly, a means of preserving their culture for future generations. This brings us back to the debate over whether or not immigrants should be forced to speak English in America. When we encourage assimilation, do we mean obliteration of cultural identity? Though it is important to learn English to prosper in America, In the Heights demonstrates the beauty of holding onto traditions while, at the same time, embracing an additional identity. The multi-cultural identity of immigrants with a strong attachment to cultural roots is what makes the diverse and unique America we have today, an aspect of our country I greatly value.