Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Virtual JFK
Can a president make a decisive difference in matters of war and peace? Can a president decisively lead his country into war, or keep his country out of war? Or are the forces that drive nations into conflict far more impersonal – out of the control of any single human being, even a president?
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A president absolutely has the ability to make a decisive difference in matters of war and peace. As evinced in "Virtual JFK," President Kennedy consistently kept America out of war prior to Vietnam. I believe that America would not have involved itself in Vietnam had Kennedy not been assassinated. Despite heavy pressure to intervene in Vietnam, Kennedy had staunchly and stubbornly refused to send ground troops in. However, as soon as President Johnson assumed presidency, he quickly sent in 500,000 troops into the country. Had Kennedy lived, he would have stubbornly stood up against pressure to enter war like he had in the past in Berlin and Cuba.
ReplyDeleteI think a president makes a difference in matters of war and peace to a certain extent. Kennedy purposefully and fervently kept the United States out of war during his presidency. However, I am not quick to say that if JFK had lived America would have stayed out of war. Although this claim is evidenced and largely supported in "Virtual JFK," I do not believe the nation would have stayed out of war. I think that at some point, the tensions in Vietnam would have reached a breaking point and forced the United States to go to war. In matters of war and peace there are certain aspects, such as the actions of other nations, that are beyond the control of a president.
ReplyDeleteGiven the direct control of the military, the President of the United States definitely has the power to react to international crises and then decide whether to engage in war. For example, in "Virtual JFK," President John F. Kennedy consistently avoided overt warfare as part of his overall diplomatic strategy. Understanding the necessity that some action needed to be taken against Communism (from the perspective of an American in the early 1960s), Kennedy mounted covert operations, such as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. However, even in this case, he was completely unwilling to commit outright with U.S. marines. Instead, he ordered them to retreat, and let the resistance forces be defeated by Castro. Yet, the underlying forces that eventually drove the United States into war won over when Lyndon Johnson became president. He quickly escalated the American commitment in Vietnam, thus making America very involved in the Vietnamese Civil War. Therefore, a president's actions most certainly affect the trajectory in which America's diplomatic relations go. Since the president has almost complete control over the military, his decisions are decisive in whether the United States enters war.
ReplyDeletePowerful forces influence a nation’s decision to go to war, but an individual President can often shape and steer those forces. For example, the root causes of World War II were the rise of Naziism out of the ashes of the unnecessarily harsh Versailles Treaty imposed on Germany after WWI. However, it is impossible to deny the role that FDR played in overcoming the United States’ reluctance to get involved. Through “lend lease” and other means of supplying the British, the US became the “arsenal for democracy.” It took the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to bring about America’s entry into the war. But the groundwork for that decision started with FDR’s deliberate strategy of wearing down isolationist sentiment. The Vietnam War may be an even clearer example of a President’s potential to control events rather than be controlled by them. That war, unlike WWII, was a long way from inevitable. As Virtual JFK hypothesizes, other paths were available to the US. President Johnson believed that he had no other option than to oppose Communism everywhere and may also have been influenced by his psychological need to establish himself as a strong and independent successor toe Kennedy. Kennedy, already stung by the Bay of Pigs disasters, might well have been considerably more reluctant to commit massive numbers of American troops to a war where America’s interests were not clearly at risk.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the president in office can make a decisive difference in matters of war and peace. As displayed in "Virtual JFK", President Kennedy kept America out of the war in Vietnam. He stubbornly refused to directly intervene in Vietnam, while in contrast President Johnson later dispatched 500,000 troops into the country. While extenuating circumstances made it difficult for Lyndon Johnson to directly leave the war, I do believe that if Kennedy had not been assassinated circumstances in Vietnam could have been improved.
ReplyDeleteThe president most definitely can keep his country out of a war or lead them into it. When it comes down to it, after all the advice and talk over war strategies, the president is the one who signs the declaration of war. In Johnson's case, there was no declaration of war. After hearing multiple conflicting views on what to do in Vietnam, he comes to the decision of sending troops to Vietnam; this decision directly went against the views of has Vice President Humphries. And so, Johnson sent 200,000 troops to Vietnam. This war is a perfect example of how a President does have the power to drive the US into war. Johnson decided to go to war, even when so many others (including Kennedy) strongly considered and fought against that idea. If Johnson had adopted a different plan of action, the situation could have played out quite differently.
ReplyDeleteA president definitely has the power to both enter and avoid a war. In virtual JFK, Kennedy was challenged by six different conflicts, all of which he managed to avoid the outbreak of violence and war. Many forces and factors come into play which turn a country in the direction of a war. For instance, America's involvement in Vietnam was largely caused by the public fear of the spread of communism. Therefore public opinion shifted greatly towards the path of way. However, the president retains the power to make the final decision to either send in troops or not to send in troops. Factors may sway his opinion and stance however ultimately the decision belongs to him/her. As evidenced in virtual JFK, once Kennedy had been assassinated, LBJ's options were far more open and included many different paths concerning Vietnam. Should he have desired, he had the power and the opportunity to lead America away from the war in Vietnam, avoid it completely. Conversely, he also had the means to send American troops into the conflict, which ultimately, he ended up doing. Even without this variety of decisions, the fact remains that Kennedy, for lack of a better word, saved the U.S from war on six occasions. Six times forces had been pointing the country towards conflict and six times he had successfully negotiated a peaceful conclusion. This leads me to believe that yes, a president possess both the power to enter and keep a country from war.
ReplyDeleteA president can absolutely make a decisive difference in matters of war and peace. As shown in Virtual JFK, a president can decide to go to war or not to go to war. For example, John F. Kennedy definitely chose to take a more pacifistic approach to dealing with foreign threats. In his attempt to counter Castro and his communist government in Cuba, Kennedy decided to forgo direct military intervention, and instead opted to support a local insurgency with funds and training. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum was Lyndon B. Johnson who used a made up attack on US ships to start a war that ultimately claimed over 50000 American lives. While it is ultimately congress who creates and votes on a declaration of war, the president absolutely has influence and say over its drafting and passing.
ReplyDeleteA president can make a decisive difference in matters of war and peace and JFK's presidency was a perfect example of this. For example, Virtual JFK showed how JFK strived to keep the country out of conflict for as long as possible. Firstly, during Castro's reign in Cuba, JFK refused to take military action to support his cause, while he could have just as easily sent in troops. Perhaps more notably, JFK resisted sending last numbers of troops to Vietnam during his presidency. While this shows how a president can decidedly facilitate peace, Lyndon B Johnson showed the opposite example. He was a deciding factor that caused war by dispatching a large number of troops to Vietnam after JFK's assassination.
ReplyDeleteThe president of the United States certainly plays a large role in conflicts, both domestically and abroad. Each president inherits the long list of consequences of the actions of their predecessors, and conflicts may arise completely outside of the president’s control, but his (or hypothetically her) decisions as the leader of a world superpower will dictate how events ensue afterwards.
ReplyDeleteKennedy inherited the presidency at a precarious time in world politics in the wake of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second term. Whereas President Eisenhower’s foreign policy was secretive and aggressive, JFK took a more peace-driven approach. During the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy refused to send in the United States marines and air force to reinforce the faltering assault, risking his early term reputation and that of the “invincible” US armed forces in order to prevent any further escalation. In another episode, he ordered US tanks to back away from confrontation with the Soviets as the Berlin Wall was being built. Two notable lines from “Virtual JFK” that stood out for me as indicative of his approach were as follows – 1) “No unilateral intervention on the part of the US unless we are attacked” (paraphrase) and 2) “Get those tanks the hell out of there!” (during the Berlin Wall Incident). Kennedy carefully avoided war with Cuba, the East Berlin soviets, and as “Virtual JFK” suggests, would likely have prevented war in Vietnam. Obviously, Kennedy had nothing to do with the rises of Lenin, Stalin, Castro or communism in general for that matter. He was dealt a certain hand of cards and chose to deal with them as a symbol of peace, and I think it’s in that symbol that the answer to this question is really evident.
I’ve always thought of the president as a figurehead, and even a metaphor for much larger social impetuses. In this way JFK and Obama are not entirely unlike each other; young, charismatic, handsome, and assertive yet passive, they can still relate to the young men sacrificing their lives in foreign jungles, deserts, and beaches in conflicts completely outside of their control. During a recent trip to Disney World with his family, Obama jokingly compared himself with Mickey Mouse on the basis of ear size. This comparison is laughably true, but I also think the comparison runs even deeper in the eyes of the people. Perhaps its what the president represents that determines his decisiveness (and his country’s reaction) in matters of war and peace.