The Transatlantic Alliance Student I.D.________________
BS 368
Brian Kennedy Student Name_______________
www.ajarnkennedy.com
Sample Exam
Section 1 (10 points each, 70 points total): Answer any Seven of the following Nine questions.
1.1: From Kennan; “It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy: for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.” What does this mean, and give an example of it from soviet behavior between 1945 and 1950.
1.2: Explain Hegel’s views on the historic process. (thesis, antitheses, etc.) Explain why Fukuyama thought the process had come to end.
1.3: Until his dieing day, former President Nixon believed the U.S. had won the the Vietnam war. Why did he believe this? Do you agree, and why or why not.
1.4: From Huntington “If civilization is what counts, however, the likelihood of violence between Ukrainians and Russians should be low. They are two Slavic, primarily Orthodox peoples who have had close relationships with each other for centuries.” What kind of conflict does Huntington’s analysis suggest can occur between these two states; and has subsequent history supported or invalidated Huntington’s views?
1.5: Notably absent from the Huntington article is any lengthy discussion of a small country named India, with a current population of 1.1 billion. Is India a torn country in the sense that Mexico, Turkey or Russia is? Explain your reasoning.
1.6: “… as a moral issue we where right to choose the lesser of two evils. …What was wrong in backing a weak, corrupt, inefficient regime against a brutally powerful fanatically puritanical, ruthlessly efficient adversary was that our side was likely to lose. If the above lesson of Vietnam is true, and relevant to Iraq, (as some right-wing –the paleoconservative-- opponents of the Iraq war contend) what does the above lesson say about the nature of the anti-U.S. insurgency, and what does that imply about the future security of the U.S.?
1.7: Briefly review the evidence for and against the “Domino effect” in Southeast Asia, as discussed in the The Lessons of Vietnam. Do you think the Vietnam experience proved or disproved the domino effect?
1.8: For Barbara Tuchman, then, the lesson of Vietnam is that in the future the American electorate ought to choose candidates for high office who have more courage and character. More good advice, but experience suggests that we are unlikely to follow it. Name and discuss one other lesson of Vietnam that gives us “good advice” that in practice is hard or impossible to actually follow (i.e. something we all already know we should be doing)
1.9: “[Truth is defined by the Kremlin] Thus the foreign representative cannot hope that his words will make any impression on [mid level soviet bureaucrats]. The most that he can hope is that they will be transmitted to those at the top, who are capable of changing the party line. But even those are not likely to be swayed by any normal logic in the words of the bourgeois representative. Since there can be no appeal to common purposes, there can be no appeal to common mental approaches.” What problem of negotiating with soviets is Kennan referring to, and how does it (or does it not) relate to dealing with radical Islam?
Question 2 (10 points each): Answer any THREE of the following FOUR questions.
3.1 Fukuyama argued that history is coming to an end; since “liberalism” has triumphed as an ideology: What conditions would need to be true for him to be correct. (hint; inevitable, sustainable, irreversible, universal,)
3.2 Fukuyama… “The passing of Marxism-Leninism first from China and then from the Soviet Union will mean its death as a living ideology of world historic significance. For while there may be some isolated true believers left in places like Managua, Pyongyang, or Cambridge, Massachusetts, the fact that there is not a single large state in which it is a going concern undermines completely its pretensions to bring in the vanguard of human history.” Kennan “[Marxist Theory] afforded pseudo-scientific justification for their impatience, for their categorical denial of all value in the Tsarist System, for their yearning for power and revenge and for their inclination to cut corners in pursuit of it. It is therefore no wonder that they had come to believe implicitly in the truth and soundness of Marxist-Leninist teachings, so congenial to their own impulses and emotions.” Question: How are these two views of Marxism different; and do you believe that Marxism has truly died or not? Explain why.
3.3 From Huntington “A Confucian-Islamic military connection has thus come into being, designed to promote acquisition by its members of the weapons and weapons technologies needed to counter the military power of the west…….. A new form of arms competition is thus occurring between Islamic-Confucian states and the West. In an old-fashioned arms race, each side developed its own arms to balance or to achieve superiority against the other side. In this new form of arms competition , one side is developing its arms and the other side is attempting not to balance but to limit and prevent that arms build-up while at the same time reducing its own military capabilities.” Question: Does this new arms race support traditional balance of power (realist or structural views of the world), Clash of civilization view, or “end of History” view? Explain your reasoning.
3.4 Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon; by Stephen Biddle, From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006
“Summary: Most discussions of U.S. policy in Iraq assume that it should be informed by the lessons of Vietnam. But the conflict in Iraq today is a communal civil war, not a Maoist "people's war," and so those lessons are not valid. "Iraqization," in particular, is likely to make matters worse, not better.”
Question: Is Iraq a war of Ideas (Fukuyama) or of Civilizations (Huntington). What lessons of Vietnam do you believe are appropriate, depending on your above answer, and why.
Last Modified: October 8, 2007