Tag: HIST 430

Cameron Binaley

Bush and Obama: A Comparison of American Intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan

America has been at war with various countries and terrorist organizations in the Middle East since 2001. The most notable Middle Eastern wars America has been involved in are the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War. This presentation compares and contrasts President Bush’s and President Obama’s forgein policy on how they dealt with Iraq, Afghanistan, and their allies.

HIST 430, History of American International Relations

Melisa Ortiz Berry

Bushnell History Symposium, P103

10 AM – 1 PM

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Alessia Righi

Leadership Under Attack: Iraq as an Unnecessary War

How would you feel if you were told that the Iraq War was unnecessary? Would you be shocked if the person making this statement was President Bush’s own press secretary? The following paper analyzes whether the Iraq war could have been avoided. Previous studies have examined the success of the war; however, little research was conducted in regard to the necessity of this military intervention. To tackle this question, the leadership of presidents Roosevelt and Bush in the aftermath of two attacks on US soil, respectively Pearl Harbor and 9/11, is scrutinized. Using information from both academic journals and governmental documents, this paper investigates if the decision of going to war was justified in these two different occasions. Three main factors were used in coming to a conclusion: the attack on US soil, the threat that the country was posing, and the public opinion. The findings uncovered by this research reveal that the Iraq war was unnecessary. We conclude that this military intervention could have been avoided and more than four thousand lives saved.

HIST 430, History of American International Relations

Melisa Ortiz Berry

Bushnell History Symposium, P103

10 AM – 1 PM

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Emmalee Rusk

World Wars handled with Realism Vs. Liberalism

“How many World War I or World War II documentaries did I have to watch in high school?” If you went to a high school anything like mine those documentaries were drawn from the shelf at least twice a year. In those documentaries, there was endless mention of the Fourteen Points and the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. The United States’ involvement in both World Wars was influential. However, did one U.S. President handle the conflict better than the other? Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman handled international conflict with liberalism, realism, or both. In the United States involvement in the World Wars, the use of realist thinking of former Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in World War II was more efficient than former President Woodrow Wilson’s liberal thinking used in World War I, which is shown in the actions’ correlation to civilian casualties, sensitivity, and understanding of the severity of the conflict and involvement in ending the wars successfully.

HIST 430, History of American International Relations

Melisa Ortiz Berry

Bushnell History Symposium, P103

10 AM – 1 PM

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Anthony Wurst

May The Strong Protect The Innocent

In his inaugural address, president John F. Kennedy promoted, “creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.”  The protection of indigenous peoples is a key measure by which the progress of modern society should be judged.  Non-Industrialized, indigenous peoples cannot defend themselves against the industrial military machines of modern society.  Therefore, by means of constructivist mechanisms, the popular morals and ethics of advanced military societies decide upon the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples.  Constructivist approaches to international relations assert the power of groups to socialize the international community to new norms.  Recent scholarship states that constructivist “[b]eliefs about [c]hange”  in the international community are that change is “[p]ossible through socialization, diffusion of ideas, or internationalization of norms.”   Before it reaches the international level, this change begins in the hearts of the people.  The genesis of absolute, universally beneficial change is revealed to humankind by the Holy Spirit as taught by the scriptures in Romans 2:14,15 .  Has this mechanism of socialization provided enduring protection for the indigenous peoples whose rights have been infringed by the world’s greatest military machine, the USA?  In this essay, three court cases will be used to compare constructivist socializing of new norms between 1824 and 2017 with realist counterpoints.  We hope to prove that, though constructivism has yielded inconsistent results in protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, it has provided significant protection.  While current academic literature suggests constructivist mechanisms are effective in socializing groups to new norms, a comparison of three court cases involving the US and indigenous peoples reveals constructivism has provided significant yet inconsistent protection, as seen through an examination of Johnson v. M’Intosh, Worcester v. Georgia and Republic of Marshall v. USA.

HIST 430, History of American International Relations

Melisa Ortiz Berry

Bushnell History Symposium, P103

10 AM – 1 PM

Return to schedule