National+Security

History[[image:http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/8/n/1/hs_sixyears.jpg align="right"]]
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, national security policymaking has become one of the nation’s top priorities
 * Throughout American history, the United States has mostly followed a foreign policy course known as isolationism
 * National security was first introduced in the United States after World War II
 * It became a guiding principle of foreign policy in the United States when the National Security Act of 1947 was signed on June 26, 1947 by U.S. President Harry S. Truman
 * This Act created the National Military Establishment (NME) which became known as the Department of Defense when the act became amended in 1949
 * Created a separate Department of the Air Force from the pre-existing United States Army Air Forces
 * Created the new cabinet level position of the Secretary of Defense which was inaugurated by James V. Forrestal
 * Established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination of national security policy for the Executive branch
 * Established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – the first peacetime intelligence agency
 * National Security was extremely important during the Cold War as the United States and the Soviet Union were at a bipolarity in international relations
 * George F. Kennan proposed the containment doctrine
 * A foreign policy strategy calling for the United States to isolate the Soviet Union in its advances and resist encroachments by peaceful and/or forceful means
 * The era of Détente
 * A gradual transformation from conflict thinking to cooperative thinking in regards to foreign policy strategy
 * This time period called for the superpowers to have an interest in peace and world stability
 * Initiated by the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I and Salt II)
 * Strategic Defense Initiative
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“Star Wars” – created by the Reagan administration
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Plan for defense against the Soviet Union that would create a “global umbrella” in space using computers and futuristic technology to scan the skies and destroy invading missiles
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Nuclear Warfare
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">President Gorbachev and President Bush signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Attempted to become the first accord to mandate the elimination of strategic nuclear weaponry
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">President George Bush and President Yeltsin signed START II in 1993
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Cut the United States and Russian (also Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakshtanian) nuclear arsenals to a total of no more than 6,500 weapons by the year 2003)




 * Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Policymaking Actions**


 * Legislative
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Congress
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Congress has authority over foreign and defense policy just as the President does
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Sole power to declare war, raise and organize the armed forces, and appropriate funds for national security activities
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Senate determines if treaties between nations will be ratified
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Congress has “the power of the purse”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Oversight of the executive branch as they carefully examine defense budget authorizations each year
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Defense spending appropriates about one-fifth of the federal budget
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Executive //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">President
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The president serves as both the chief diplomat (negotiates treaties) and the commander in chief (deploys American troops abroad
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Appoints heads of executive departments and appoints U.S. ambassadors
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Sole power to accord official recognition to other countries and receive their representatives
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The President has an advantage because of his role as the leader of Congress
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The President is aided by a large national security bureaucracy
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Diplomats
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Foreign policy entanglement of the U.S. government is headed by the State Department
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Department chief is the secretary of state (currently Hillary Clinton)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Each nation is handled by a “country desk” which has workers working in designated functional areas and area specialties
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Presidents in the past have found the State Department too bureaucratic and narrow-minded; because of this it is common for the President to rely heavily on personal assistants
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">National Security Establishment
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Department of Defense serves as a link between foreign policy and military policy
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Located at the Pentagon
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 centralized the military hierarchy and have increased cooperation between the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Secretary of Defense is the main civilian adviser to the president on national defense matters (currently Robert Gates)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a group of commanding offers from each of the services, a chairperson, and a vice-chairperson
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">In order to coordinate American foreign and military policies the National Security Council (NSC) was created in 1947
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Consists of the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The NSC was caught in the middle of the Iran-Contra Affair which resulted in the resignation of the President Reagan’s assistant for national security affairs, Vice Admiral John Poindexter
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">In order for the policymakers to make good decisions reliable information was needed
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">As a result the CIA was created to coordinate American information and data-gathering intelligence activities abroad
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Because of the inability to predict the September 11 terrorist attacks some have called for an increase in covert capabilities for programs like the CIA
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">National Reconnaissance Office
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Uses imagery satellites to monitor missile sites and military activities throughout the world
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">National Security Agency
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Develops electronic eavesdropping technology
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Judicial //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">It is up to the court system to regulate civil liberties that may pertain to national security
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">New York Times v. U.S. (1971) //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Dealt with the issue of national security and the public’s right to information
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Ruled that the newspapers had the right to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without government censure. The publication must cause “grave and irreparable danger.”
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Schenck v. U.S. (1919) //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Criticism of the draft is not protected by the First amendment because it created a clear and present danger to the enlistment practices of the U.S. Army during a time of war
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Gitlow v. N.Y. (1925) //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Seditious/subversive speech is not protected from government regulation
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Distribution of Communist pamphlets to advocate the overthrow the government is not protected

==<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Policy Process through government (SALT) ==
 * Talk between the United States and the Soviets began November 1969 and lasted until May of 1972
 * Two treaties were being simultaneously discussed, SALT I and the ABM Treaty
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">A series of “Agreed Statements” were agreed upon and initialed by both Heads of the Delegations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">These agreements were then submitted to the United States Congress in order for verification
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The U.S. Congress then voted to ratify the treaty
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">On September 30, 1972 approval was authorized by Congress as well as President Nixon
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Organizations and Non-governmental groups on the policy process **


 * International Organizations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The challenges of international relations requires the cooperation of many nations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Currently the best known such international organization is the //United Nations (UN)//
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Created in 1945, the UN is an organization whose members agree to renounce war and to respect certain human and economic freedoms
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Composed of 191 member nations with each nation receiving a single vote on all issues
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Security Council
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Only 15 nations hold a seat and 5 of the 15 are permanent members (U.S., Great Britain, China, France, and Russia)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Secretary-General is the head executive of the UN and directs the administration of UN based programs
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Regional Organizations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Organizations of several nations bounded by a treaty for specific reasons (often military)
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Created in 1949
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Original members consisted of the U.S., Canada, most Western European nations, and Turkey
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The members agreed to combine military forces and fight together as one
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">NATO troops fought alongside one another during the Cold War and spread themselves across all of Europe
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">This forced the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies to form the Warsaw Pact (no longer exists)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania have all joined NATO since 2002
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">European Union (EU) //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">A transnational government composed of European nations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The role of the EU is to coordinate monetary, trade, immigration, and labor policies so the members can act as one cohesive economic unit
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The EU uses a common currency known as the euro
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Similar organizations exist in Latin America and Africa
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Non-governmental Organizations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Groups such as churches and labor unions have been longstanding players on the international stage because of their international interests and activities
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Environmental and wildlife groups have also flourished
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Human rights groups are also growing (etc. Amnesty International)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Not all nongovernmental organizations are beneficial to the world, terrorists are also considered nongovernmental organizations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Thus regional and national conflicts can become a part of world politics
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Individuals
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Tourism can enhance friendship among nations
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Foreign-exchange students are also helping develop relations as they are the foundation of the future

[[image:http://www.affordableitguy.com/images/blog-images/06_12_21_Halfbaked-X.gif width="348" height="276" align="right"]]​Impact of Policy on Public

 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">In the ‘60s, the anti-communist stance of the U.S. government caused hysteria and paranoia among many
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Because of more recent terrorist attacks, people have had to reduce their civil liberties in favor of national security
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">At the airport, long lines wait for any security checkpoint due to the increased precautions for people traveling around the country
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Many people complain of new regulations such as the prohibition of liquids, gel shoe inserts, and small scissors on airplane
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Because of the Patriot Act, the government can search phone records, e-mails, and other personal communication methods more easily. They can also access financial records
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">For the prevention of illegal immigration, the National Guard has increased its numbers along the border, which makes it more difficult for people to leave the country legally

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Current Policy
==<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> == >>
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Patriot Act
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The Patriot Act is still active, and it was actually extended under the Obama administration
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Enacted under Bush, this bill allows for an invasion of privacy by the government
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Ideally, this bill would be either completely repealed or edited with many more restrictions
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Passed in the months directly after September 11th, much of the anti-terrorist frenzy has now died down
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">This bill raises the question of the line between terrorist organizations and organizations simply opposing the government. Which ones would fall under surveillance
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Guantanamo Bay
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Guantanamo Bay is a military base in Cuba where the government holds detainees
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">There was controversy during the Bush administration over the basic rights entitled to these prisoners
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">President Obama is trying to close Guantanamo Bay and send many of the prisoners to a prison in Illinois, but he is meeting resistance
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">For an improvement to this policy, it might be better to leave Guantanamo Bay open, just give the prisoners the same rights as American prisoners
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">No senator or representative wants the detainees to be moved to their stat
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Border Control
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">More and more immigrants are coming into the country illegally through the Mexican border
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Bush ordered more members of the National Guard to help patrol the border, and Congress enacted legislation to build a fence in the most problematic areas
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">These measures would hopefully mean less illegal immigration and help stop some of the drug trafficking across the border
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">To change this policy, it would be better to stop building walls. Immigrants will still find a way around them, even if the wall stretched all the way across the Mexican border. An increase in patrolmen would be a better way to discourage illegal activity