In “Casualties and Consensus,” Larson argues the historical record for the American public’s acceptable levels of casualties in U.S. military operations. In his examination, he assumes the calculation of a Clausewitzian theory of “ends and means” is a simple one based solely on public opinion, when in fact it is a complex formula. To illustrate, largely the “ends and means” equation is comprised of the benefits, success rates, costs, and expectations for the proposed intervention, yet he adds public opinion to the equation, ignoring the fact that opinion polls are highly subjective in nature. Doing this skews the results. Some of Larson’s assumptions are spot-on, but he misses some critical points. Foremost, Larson assumes that the American public considers the same aspects of intervention in casting their opinion that politicians and military analysts evaluate in making their decisions. However, this is not a valid formulary. In reality, public opinion polls are primarily intrinsic, meaning they are based highly on individual emotions and interests, instead of due-diligence analysis and facts. Because of this dichotomy, public opinion polls should not guide public policy. …show more content…
Looking at his proposed data, one might believe his assertion. However, his skewed data is problematic. For example, in table 2.3 he offers public opinion data based on the input of “leaders from San Jose, Calif.” The utilization of this data presents a couple problems. For one, California is comprised of highly Democrat-based political beliefs, which can skew a poll in a certain direction. Another issue is that “leaders” tend to be well-informed and well-educated individuals with economic interests that can guide them in a different direction than lower- and middle-class
Why do people associate wealth with good leadership abilities? That is the main question that was lingering in my mind while I was read “The Minutemen and their World,” book by Robert Gross. The book is about a town called Concord (which is in Massachusetts). The books tells about how the city of Concord was before the Revolutionary war, during the Revolutionary war and after the revolutionary war. In this book, it shows how leaders come about and how they impact their society around them. After reading this book, it made me think about how wealthy people are always seen as leaders? Becoming wealthy in American can be a daunting task to complete. It requires a variety of different skills to make a profitable business. But does creating a lucrative business for personal gain, merits you to being a leader over the masses of common people? We currently have this exact situation playing out before our eyes with GOP candidate Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn’t have any previous experience in political affairs, but he is currently leading
In his article, “Why Has American Stopped Winning Wars?” Dominic Tierney discusses some of the topics in his recent book, “The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.” The book, unlike the article, provides recommendations for how America can adapt to a new era of warfare. Having said that, Tierney’s article published in the The Atlantic, provides no such recommendations nor does it provide adequate reasoning to support his argument, rather he leaves the reader emotionally charged and unable to make an informed judgement concerning the validity of his claims. Specifically, the author commits the fallacies of appealing to emotion, followed by the presentation of glittering generalizations and a false dichotomy. Therefore, the purpose here is to analyze his argument as outlined in the article, “Why Has American Stopped Winning Wars?”
In American politics, public opinion is mostly a latent force that typically has no important bearing on national decision making unless citizens become unusually attentive to politics. Many citizens are uninformed, which leads to inconsistent opinions. In Tides of Consent, there are many factors that shift public opinion. Some changes are fast and responsive, such as spikes in presidential approval, and some changes are slow, and occur in increments that may be overlooked. Public opinion in American politics is meaningless individually, but aggregately, public opinion is meaningful.
Appy claims that public opposition to the war and formation of a peace movement leading to a lack of trust in the government due to lies and cover-ups on events happening in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq are comparable to America’s attitude during the Vietnam War. Supporting this claim to the opposition of the war by the public because of the government’s perversion in the media is seen in the Middle through the example of Pat Tillman. Tillman’s death, which was propagated to make the public believe that he died in battle instead of a result of friendly fire, sets a prime instance for a comparison of the government’s. (Appy, 311-312). The causes of the War in Iraq such as finding and eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction lead to
What is leadership? Are individuals destined to lead or are they mentored into it? Leadership can be taught and seen by hard work, mentoring and a specific mind set, but the great leaders are born with the leadership quality. Leadership is taken from hard work. If one individual sees another individual working hard than the other will try and help the fact and get the job done with more efficiency by he also trying his hardest. It has a conformity affect. If most people in the group work hard and keep their eyes on the prize than good things will happen. Leadership could have been taught by the worker that began the domino affect with the conformity of the group. He could have a very humble father that taught him that hard work pays bills. Therefore if he works to his abilities than the worker will receive riches. If a worker only half-asses it than he will not move up the chain of life. Some people have mind sets that make them successful. Herbert hoover, the 31st President of the United States was an orphan.( The Biography.com website.) This tells us that no one's life is invaluable, and that no matter what environment a person comes
public opinions against the U.S. war efforts in Vietnam.” (Valentine, 2013) Overall, the treatment of the POW’s who were captured was a subject of controversy.
The last study that will be analyzed however, does not frame their research in that manner, instead, “the purpose of this study is to assess the impact of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in the U.S.A. on the changes in the American public’s views about the war.” There is general consensus among Verba, Brody and Schreiber that the polls did not serve as an adequate metric for determining whether the war was truly out of touch with many. Schreiber referred to the demonstrations, noting that “many members of the public simply do not mentally join together” This could lead to the formation of two conclusions according to Schreiber; one being that demonstrations had no effect in altering public opinion, and the other being that those demonstrations had great effect in communicating with the public. “The major point to be gleaned from this review is that there is no evidence that shows an effect of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations on reducing American public support for the war in Vietnam.” Schreiber then goes on to reiterate the point
3. How much public opinion polls should influence the conduct of American foreign policy. American foreign policy should be heavily influenced by the public opinion polls as long as the public has enough information about the issue to make an intelligent decision. However, if the American government is keeping secrets from the people that need to be considered when concerning the conduct of American foreign policy, then the polls should not influence it.
Leadership is a major issue when it comes to whether or not a society is going to be viable. It seems that if the leader is a good leader, a leader that puts his
Since the Vietnam War, the public's opinion has played major roles in how policymakers operate. Their opinions may not always support to choices which are best for the country, however they are still factored into the decision making. Richard Sobel discusses several cases on how the public's attitudes have affected policymaker's decisions in his book, "The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam."
Furthermore, most leaders don’t have the diversity of
Since the war on Iraq began on March 20, 2003, at least 1,402 coalition troops have died and 9,326 U.S. troops have been wounded in action. This is no small number and the count grows daily. One would hope, then, that these men and women were sent to war with just cause and as a last resort. However, as the cloud of apprehension and rhetoric surrounding the war has begun to settle, it has become clear that the Bush administration relied on deeply flawed analyses to make its case for war to the United Nations and to the American people, rushing this country, and its soldiers, into war. This is not to say that this war was waged against a blameless regime or that our soldiers have died
The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.
Joslyn examined the opinions of the public before and after the Gulf War to determined how the outside influences effected the voting behaviors of that group. A survey conducted by the American National Election Studies (ANES) found that people rely on the popular opinions that they see in the media as opposed to recalling their own preferences at
Little or no attention is given to preparing tomorrows leadership. There is no emphasis is placed on critical thinking , problem solving.