U.S. National SecurityNational Security as Ideology and Ethics

Levels of Analysis

LEVEL OF ANALYSIS EXPLANATION

System IR Theories

States

Institutions

Domestic Politics Theories

Individuals Decision Making Theories

Personal Views on National Security Affairs

Answer the following questions as best you can. No answer is wrong.

1.The basic mission of policy makers should be to

A. Realism/pragmatism: adapt to and make the best of the world situation as it is;

B. Idealism: change world conditions.

2. The United States should

A. Internationalism: play a generally activist leadership role in the world;

A. Isolationism: seek to avoid international involvement whenever possible.

3. The United States should generally

A. Multilateralism: try to build international consensus before acting;

B. Unilateralism: Look at its own interests first with less regard to international preferences.

4. Force is useful

A.Hawk: in a wide range of situations;

B.Dove: only in a narrow range of circumstances.

A Few Foreign Policy Ideologies

Realism/pragmatism

Idealism

Internationalism

Isolationism

Multilateralism

Unilateralism

Hawk

Dove

Small Groups

• Think of examples from American history that match 3 of the ideologies we’ve discussed.

• Summarize each of the four articles. – What are the main points?– Agree/disagree?

“The Hedgehog and the Fox” by Isaiah Berlin

“There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'. Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defense. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general…”

“For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of

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which alone all that they are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle… The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes…”

What makes a country secure?

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