the politics of US Military Interventions

An Examination of The Politics of US Military Intervention

In his essay , The Politics of US Military Intervention ‘ Jon Western seeks to explain the domestic landscape in the United States as it relates to US war action . Or , more succinctly , Western attempts to make sense of the multitude of infighting that exists within the United States due to the perpetual lack of consensus on the part of the American public when it comes to military intervention

To a certain degree , the author has written the article as a means of informing the [banner_entry_middle]

public that there exists a divide on both sides of the opinion spectrum in regards to the committal of United States military forces to another region in the world for the express purpose of combating an enemy . The author notes that with the singular exception of World War Two , there has never been a consensus of universal support for any military action

The author then goes on to detail the past history of American involvement in other theaters and , wisely , opens the article by placing the theme of the article in direct perspective of the current military involvements of the last decade . After the fall of the Soviet Union , the United States began to direct military actions towards humanitarian missions . After 9 /11 , US military action has primarily been involved in the Middle East and North Africa in an attempt to curtail radical terrorist threats to the United Sates

The article goes on to point out there is a great divide among the public and the politicians as to how to proceed with these military interventions or , in some cases , whether or not to proceed at all . This is viewed in the second half of the article that is subcategorized as the Politics of Intervention

An Examination of the Politics of US Military Intervention Page 2

In this area , Western points out that every nation is caught in the moral paradox of refusing to go to war unless it can be proved that the national interest is imperiled , and of continuing in the war only by proving that something much more than national interest is at stake The article then goes on to provide clear examples of this in a generalized overview

Western then promotes the fact that the Spanish American War , the Korean War and the Vietnam War as historical examples where consensus was split because the public was unaware of the reasons behind intervention . The Spanish American War is then covered in depth and points out the public ‘s discontent . In the final paragraph , Western notes that many American Presidents have had enormous trouble mobilizing public support when the reasons behind intervention are not fully accepted by a portion of the public . Or worse , when something occurs that can devastate public support as evidence in the following

March 16th , 1968 : A company of the 23rd Infantry Division commanded by Lt . William Calley slaughters 347 unarmed civilians (including a dozen babies as young as one month of… [banner_entry_footer]