When
you are asked to respond to a policy argument, use the guidelines found here.
When
you are asked to write a response paper, use these guidelines.
For other reading assignments, please keep reading notes, and bring your notes to class.
The planned readings for the semester are listed here, and may change.
Your Policy Paper Assignment is described here.
November 20 Meeting. What are US National Interests? How are they pursued through our politics? To help us understand how to ask those questions, and how to answer them, please read the following documents. Yes, they are long, and reading strategically is a good idea. By now you should be able to identify the central pieces of such arguments, and find them quickly. What are those pieces?
nationalinterests.pdf (on your course disk). This is 52 pages of text, and includes an executive summary.
natsecur_princeton.pdf (on your course disk). This is over 80 pages of text, and is organized to explain the content of interests and how to judge policies that pursue the interests.
Write a response paper to the documents. In comparing the two, note the perspectives of the participants, and the effects of 9/11 on their respective topics and approaches to analysis.
Also please
read the two articles in the resources section of
Tuesday,
Nov.13. We begin Unit 8. Effects on US Politics. Packer 11, Ricks Afterword.
Packer supported going to war with
Read the following
two articles for Tuesday, and bring your responses to each that address the
following questions.
-mayer_hidden_power.doc—What are the respective powers of the President and the
Congress, as described in the Constitution?
How do signing statements or any of the other organizational tactics
described in the article affect those powers?
-cole_review_ashcroft_doc—What
is Cole’s view of how the Constitution checks governmental power? What personal commitments does he have that
might influence his interpretation?
Thursday, Nov. 15. Please read:
-gordon_end_of_bush_rev.doc—What political
changes are behind his main claims? What
additional evidence would you want to see in order to evaluate his
argument? Feel free to gather and report
on that evidence in class.
-Cost_of_War_in_Iraq_NBER.pdf—At
a minimum, please read the abstract, introduction and conclusion. Skim through the rest so that you know the
structure of the argument. Would
Congress make decisions differently if they followed the advice in the
conclusion?
To supplement the Gordon article, please take a look at the CSIS
website on their Smart Power project, including this Newsletter which
guides readers through contemporary events.
Read the Smart
Power report introduction, pp. 5-`14, and as much of the rest as you
wish. (The report is also in
On each of these days, we may find it useful to discuss the NSA domestic surveillance program, the law
regarding detention of people at
401, Week of November 6, 8 (and perhaps into the 13th). The Packer and Ricks chapters are more of a reference than 300 pages to tackle from start to finish. Delve into those areas that are useful to your policy papers, or that you feel unsure about. We can refer to them in the coming week, but discussing what we would change and whether the interpretations are reliable is something we will talk about the 13th.
Packer, 9, 10. Packer’s chapter 9 contains some useful distinctions between the Sunni and Shiite insurgencies, and a now-familiar account of how the early warning signals were clear and ignored. Note his use of the groupthink concept, p. 319. This sets up a discussion of how to discuss the torture issue, the excessive focus on US politics, and so on. Chapter 10 is mostly about the situation with the Kurds, framed by the story of Gertrude Bell.
Ricks,11-19. This is a long series of chapters (200+
pages) about various pieces of the insurgency period. 11 is perhaps Ricks’ longest chapter,
covering many topics of the insurgency getting under way, tales of leadership
(some positive, some negative). 12 is about the emergence of prisoner abuse and torture. 13 is an expansion of a metaphor, US
military forces as sprinters in a marathon race, with suggestions for what
needed to be learned once it was clear an insurgency was underway. 14 is about the
attempt by the Marines to clarify their tactics, and includes a reference to General
Mattis’ reading list. 15 continues the
narrative of the spreading insurgency, including the first battle of Fallujah. 16 is mostly about the use of special forces in this kind of
conflict, and compares them to the Army and to the numerous contractors. He reports that more and more soldiers were
expressing doubts about how things were going.
17 is about the first half of 2004, when
the press, Congress and others began to ask tougher questions. Ricks places the scandal over the Abu Ghraib prison at the center of the shift. 18 is about
the transition to general Casey, the second battle of Fallujah,
and the departure of several key
Among the articles, I have made some distinctions among MUST READ pieces and BACKGROUND pieces. Below the assignments, a short description of all but nie_declass is provided here.
For Tuesday the 6th, read nie_declass.pdf, Bacevich_surge, and at least pp. vi-viii of counterinsurg_approach.pdf.
For Thursday the 8th, let us directly compare the arguments in Fallows_Victory and Case_for_Bombing_Iran, as a policy question. Write a response paper, comparing them. Hersh_redirection is important for this discussion.
·
Anderson_insurgency
(BACKGROUND)was written in late 2004, and the tone was
despairing. The Iraqis known to
·
Bacevich_surge (MUST
READ)is by Andrew Bacevich,
one of the best analysts of the situation.
This was published in January of 2007, and his son was killed in
· Insurgents.pdf (BACKGROUND) describes the various actors in the insurgency, as of a couple of years ago. Similar information in chart form is at http://www.mideastweb.org/iraq.htm.
· hersh_redirection (MUST READ) is about the Bush administration’s more recent ideas about regional threats and responses to them.
·
counterinsurg_approach.pdf (MUST READ) is by two
authors from the Strategic Studies Institute (Read the 3-page summary
starting on p. vi, and as much of the rest as you
wish.).
·
Case For Bombing Iran.doc (MUST READ) is the Norman Podhoretz
argument—a long-time neocon with a recent book on
this topic, he is the foreign policy advisor to Rudolph Giuliani.
·
fallows_victory.doc (MUST
READ) is an argument that the war on terror is largely won, and that it is time
to shift approach. His article is a
summary of what he learned after talking to about 60 experts. One of the big ideas he has learned: “terrorists, through their
own efforts, can damage but not destroy us. Their real destructive power,
again, lies in what they can provoke us to do.”
·
galbraith_way_to_go.doc ((BACKGROUND)
is a summary of strategy concerns, and an argument about what can be
salvaged.
401, Week of October 23,
25: We move on to a new unit. On both days, we need to begin the process of
developing your policy papers. Come
to class with a policy paper topic, or a policy area that draws your
interest. We will talk about the
process of developing a policy paper.
For the assigned readings, let’s start with a summary of the current state
of affairs.
For Monday, Oct.
23: The Office of the Special Inspector General for
Iraq Reconstruction recently released a report (which
is also in
For Wednesday,
Oct. 25, read What Went Wrong in Iraq_plus_response and write a response to any part of it you find
interesting (the article, or the exchange of letters at the end).
Agenda
for the week of October 16, 18.
As one
of you pointed out, the schedule of readings has a reference to “the midterm,”
but no such test is listed in the syllabus.
That’s right, there is no midterm.
Sorry for the confusion.
Assignments for the week = Unit 5: The Media in the War. Packer 12, epilogue, after word; Ricks 4
(review); also, from your Course Disk, massing_press_enemy_within.doc, and media_iraq.pdf.
This unit encourages us to focus on
current media content in coverage of the war.
Toward that end, read massing_press_enemy_within.doc for Monday. Note that the author offers his own judgments
(use phrases like “a hostile White House, aggressive conservative critics, and
greedy corporate owners” is one clue, but he does show you how he reaches the
conclusions). Do these claims ring true
in your own reading of current news?
Write a response paper that includes references to your own reading of
news. We will look at examples, so you
need to be familiar with Massing’s analysis of
media.
The authors of the media_iraq.pdf article are heavily involved in data
collection about the situation in
Discussion
questions for the week of October 9, 11:
You are to read four articles, csis_iraqlitany.pdf, barno.pdf, Danner_Logic of Torture, and the article in Sakai_Resources_Unit Four Articles, torture_approval_doj.doc.
The csis_iraqlitany.pdf file is
more a way to remember the long list of policies that should have been handled
better. For the barno.pdf
piece, keep reading notes plus answer this question: What policy changes are necessary if we
follow Barno’s advice? The Danner_logic_of_torture
and the torture_approval_doj articles, read
them together, keep reading notes. Then
read the page on Olufs’ website, http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/torture.htm. Did top government officials endorse policies
that amounted to crimes? Prepare your
arguments, let’s talk about this.
For Tuesday, October 2, we will read danner_war_of_imagination.doc.
What is Danner’s analysis of the arguments and ideas that went into the
decision to go to war? At one point he
says of realism and idealism, “ the two chains of
reasoning looped and intersected, leading inexorably to a common desire for a
particular action—confronting Saddam Hussein and
We should have enough time to watch the first half of one of the Frontline Iraq shows, “The Invasion of Iraq.” Please note the video contains images and noises of war, and people may wish to consider whether they wish to see this. You will be asked to take notes during the class, and to assess arguments offered by the people who made the program and by those they interviewed. Please contact Olufs if you will not attend, and we will arrange a way for you to do this.
Thursday, October 4, we will finish the Frontline show, discuss our notes, and compare the material in the program to claims made in Packer, Chapter four, and Ricks, chapter 7.
For Tuesday, September 25, we read the Packer and Ricks chapters for the next unit. In Packer, chapter 3, we see that Kanan Makiya was important to Packer’s interpretation of the situation. Remember, Packer supported the war. How is his position of support different from that of Pollack (in Next Stop Baghdad.doc)?
Ricks, on p. 53, calls the NIE of October 2002 “shameful.” Why? He also says, p. 57, that this “was a sad moment in American journalism and governance.” Why?
The Ricks chapters are complicated, and describe organizational dynamics that may require careful note taking. What are the organizational dynamics that Ricks says produced the outcomes? Make a list, and bring it to class.
For Thursday, September 27,
we will read (1)
hersh_debate_within.doc,
(2) timeline_justify.doc, (3) HOW IT CAME TO WAR.doc,
and (4) bush_propaganda.doc. Treat each as reading notes assignments. Your notes should prepare you to discuss
differences between them, particularly about the role of particular ideas and
decision makers in the decision to invade
Week of Sept. 18, 20. We move on to Unit Two, Adding
For Tuesday the 18th: Packer makes an argument in chapter
two. What is it? He pays special attention to ideas and
attitudes held by people in important places.
What were the key ideas? How did
these ideas (and attitudes) push the President toward adopting the policy to
invade? Compare his argument to that
made Ricks in his chapter three. What
is Ricks’ argument? What are the key
differences between the two? For
example, does Ricks pay so much attention to ideas? He focuses a great deal on the dynamics of
organization; perhaps we should call it bureaucratic politics. After reading both, what do you find most
compelling, and what do you find most questionable, about the composite answer
to the question, How did
For Thursday the 20th: See the three articles on the required
list. They are on your disk, and on
Week of Sept. 11, 13: We meet only Tuesday, as I am out of town at a workshop on the 13th.
For Tuesday the 11th: Please read Packer, prologue and chapter 1, and Ricks, chapters 1&2. Notice they mention many of the same events, and the same people. Please do a response paper to the readings, focusing on the interpretive framework used by each. For example, what do each tell you about Paul Wolfowitz? How do the different approaches encourage you to think about the politics of the war?
For Thursday the 13th: My original idea was to have you all meet and watch the Frontline video, “Truth, War, and Consequences,” a good presentation with lots of interviews of the people involved in policymaking. But, you can watch it yourselves. Please do this. The PLU library owns a copy, as do most public libraries. You can watch it online at one of the Frontline websites. And you can read the transcript here. I have put a formatted transcript of the show in the Sakai Resources section, in the Unit 1 Articles folder.