Reflection

In the movie watched in class regarding the Rwandan Genocide, we can clearly see the restrained US leadership when asked to send it peace keepers to help the Tutsi population. The US wanted to lower its costs and only sent in air campaigns and evacuated American Citizens. However, these air campaigns might have been just as destructive by killing Tutsi citizens being held hostage by the Hutus. I am very sure a lot of pilots were unable to recognize a Tutsi from a Hutu from so far away and therefore may have defeated its purpose. The best leadership the US could have had would probably held refugee camps (such as the failed camp tortoise) for Tutsi's and Hutu sympathizers. The United States proved to not be a world leader in this situation since it is not only recognized as the world police but also holding so much power in the United Nation Security Council.

Structured Response Question

 It is definitely more difficult for a President to lead in the Cold War era since there was a larger responsibility as one of the two superpowers. The United States was a leader to the democratic societies worldwide that feared falling into communism. Also, there isn't a constant fear of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. A simple mistake could have caused conflict within the two superpowers and therefore led to military conflict and massive casualties. Post Cold-War Presidents do not have to worry about a nuclear war since the United Nations has created multiple treaties and agreements stating the "rules of war" and limiting the usage of nuclear weapons. Also, there are currently multiple superpowers so there is less stress and responsibility.

Reflection post, American Leadership and presidential leadership

It is interesting to see that although some goals have been the same for American leadership in the past each president has in the past 70 years chosen different methods of leadership to achieve their goals, some better than others. Truman for example used an inspirational method to not only mobilize old support but also gain new favors through the use of these inspiring speeches, such as the one which later and today still is seen as the base of the Truman Doctrine. If we look back, Reagan and more recently Obama have used these means to convey their general ideas of what the world is and should be.

This capacity to appeal to inspirational leadership has been said to be one of the key factors in Obama’s 2008 election and recently after the presidential debates, some experts have said that it was impossible for him to use the same kind of leadership because, now that he has been in office, his adversary has a bases to respond on. The leadership question is being deemed central to this new election race and as “leadership aspiring scholars” we should remember how the past displays of US leadership have been influential in presidential campaigns and terms.

Reflection_Presidency_Cold War

In class we debated about the difficulty of presidents during the cold war vs. post cold war. Although both sides proved to show valid and arguable points for either side, I strongly support the idea of presidency during the cold war to be more difficult than post cold war presidency.

My main concern for this issue is the fear of a nuclear war erupting due to an aggravating mistake made by the president during this time. Any action that provoked the Soviet Union could potentially lead to a disastrous war since the two superpowers of the world were hostile towards each other. Post the Cold War, there is a shared distribution of power between many economically strong countries and much more regulations to weapons and procedures that can occur during war. In other words, now the United States doesn't have to carry such a burden of responsibility as a superpower and doesn't need to worry about being attacked by a strong military country.

Structured Response: Presidential Leadership During Cold War v. Post Cold War

Is Presidential leadership more difficult in the Post Cold War than during the Cold War?

In my opinion, presidential leadership is more difficult in the Post Cold War, because that president has to deal with the fallout from the previous administrations, he has to reestablish morale, and stitch back together the fabric of American hope. Gergen says that in the Post Cold War, “what most Americans thought of as they looked back over nearly twenty years was a string of assassinations, a lost war, political scandals, economic turmoil at home, embarrassment overseas, and uneven responses in Washington” (Gergen). Reagan took over a country that was completely devastated, both morally and physically, in numbers. Many troops were lost in the Vietnam War and even more returned home, severely wounded, unable to contribute to the economic structure of the U.S. President Reagan had to revive the economy, reassure the constituency that America could regain face, and “banish the Vietnam syndrome,” all of which he accomplished. I think that this is the most difficult part of being a leader: leading a country that is so downtrodden requires a lot of effort, or at least of pretending to know to one is doing. After the Cold War, the president who lead the country had to be extra careful not to send out troops again, to start another war, or to cause chaos of any sort, because the country could not handle another war at this point. Every action made by the president had to be calculated in a way to make sure that the American people are not negatively affected by it, like they had been during the Cold War.

Some people might argue that leading a country during the Cold War would prove most difficult, but I think that since America was already so engaged in the war efforts, there wasn’t as much resistance as there was Post Cold War. Everything that the President did during the Cold War was what had to be done to “win.” This is no way meant to undermine the effort it took to lead during the Cold War, but in my opinion trying to put a country back on its feet after a roughly 44 year war is a daunting task.   

            

Reflection_Movie

In class, I was astonished to find out how unmoral the United States was for spraying Agent Orange in the highly dense forest areas. Agreed with the previous Secretary of Defense, there is no boundary of what chemicals are legal versus which are not, the United States shouldn't test out a new chemical in warfare without proper data. This harmed innocent civilians in a painful manner and therefore could be argued to be just as bad as the fire bombings.
I argued that fire bombings were much more unmoral than Agent Orange at first. However I quickly changed point of views once I realized how irresponsible the US was with this issue. Also, to find out that the enemy was seeing the war as a war of independence rather than against communism really opened my eyes to the lack of information we know for being close minded. The United States should've realized to retreat once it didn't have any followers.
 The countries that shared similar values didn't support the US in this war and therefore should've allowed the US to realize it needed to take a different approach on this issue.

Fog of War Reflection

In Fog of War, Secretary of Defense McNamara makes very difficult decisions, teaching the audience lessons he has learned along the way. Based on the beginning of the movie, it is clear that he was not the most popular man when he held his position and was called egotistical.
However, I do think that McNamara was a good leader, which is what this class is all about. He is reflective on his actions, which is one of the most valuable things a leader can do. The lessons he captures are very important for any leader to follow. I think that he is easy to sympathize with in the movie because we can tell that he has put a lot of thought into his past actions, and because he was trying to achieve his goals in the best possible way.
The lessons that I want to highlight are #1 "empathize with your enemy" and #6 "get the data". In order for a leader to make the best decisions, these are two very important components. He demonstrated that it was important for Thompson to know that Khrushchev only wanted to be able to say that he stopped Kennedy from invading. Additionally, he showed his interest in gathering the facts through his time at General Ford.
While these are two components that he includes now, McNamara failed to consider them when making the decision to use agent orange over fire bombs. He did not get the data and how much damage they could cause, which was irresponsible. Also, he did not empathize with the enemy and consider how many innocent lives would be lost in major cities, compared in the movie to American cities.
I would say that McNamara is a leader, however he made poor decisions during his time. Through reflection, it is obvious that he understands what went wrong and has considered it since.

Reflection on "the fog of war"

The movie Fog of War is a good film in its presentation of the role of leadership in US foreign politics and the non-elected leaders. McNamara hinted at two important aspects of leadership, his managerial leadership, ethics and responsibility.  We’ve have been talking a lot about the styles and theories of leadership, we however have only started touching onto ethics and have not even questioned responsibility. The new questions of leadership shouldn’t always revolve around how to become a leader but should, after what we have learned from the past, include the question of responsibility. Responsibility seems to be for McNamara a central issue not only in his own positioning in the US government. It is interesting to see that although others see him as a leader, he himself does not acknowledge his own capacity to lead probably because in the end he was still following orders, those of the president. The contrast is even more representative of how high ranked US officials act and are seen. In the presidential debate yesterday for example, President Obama took responsibility for the actions of his government. This serves to prove that although leadership is present at all levels of government and international security, the public often forgoes recognizing the value of these type of leaders on the other levels. In such, many forget the ultimate value of McNamara’s leadership, his capacity to mobilize and solve problems faced by the majority.

Reflection

Today in class we spoke about the usage of drones to attack terrorists and the ethical argument of drones. At first I was unwilling to even consider the usage of drones as ethical, however after the debate we had in class, my point of view on this issue has changed slightly. My group had to argue the point that drones are ethical to use. Our arguments included
- Killing less of US military personnel in the process
- More accuracy (not an 18 year old pilot shooting on what he believes may be a terrorist) and possibly more moral warfare (no rape, urinating on enemies)
- Taking away our militaries moral decision
         Example : My argument of a ground troop having to decide to kill a child or not if it is pointing a gun at you . (Sorry to the classmate I put in this difficult position)
- Pinpointing targets to have a more or less clear "shooting?"

 This clearly ties in to the reading of the dirty hands. SOmetimes leaders are forced to preform actions they wouldn't necessarily wish to take, just so that they can have their end met and goals accomplished.

Situational Leadership such as The Marshmallow Challenge

I want to begin with The Marshmallow Challenge. The project was intended for us to see the differences between leaders being assigned, chosen, or not mentioned. While our class failed to include this component in our tasks, it is very important that the differences in projects would have been noted. By assigning leadership, Professor Schroeder is unaware of leadership styles within the group and the dynamics of how they work together. He may think that is the person most capable: however, when actually implemented, someone else may restrain themselves because they are not the designated leader. Additionally, by having the groups choose their leader can cause conflict early on over a struggle of power. Our class has not interacted with each other enough to know immediately who the best leader would be. If not mentioned, there may be power struggles throughout the exercise. So by incorporating the power at all,  he places the groups at a disadvantage and it was in our best interest to not follow those directions.

Nye's main argument that incorporates situational leadership and situational adaptability is very interesting in that it relates back to one of the first discussions we had in class: are people born great or do they become great? This reminds me of Shakespeare's "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Situational leadership definitely applies most to the third portion of that quote. One may not typically be a leader, but if no one else steps up, they may become one. This is what I would have expected to happen in the Marshmallow Challenge, as that is what usually happens with group projects. Our group was very power balanced though.

Finally, what I gathered most from class today was the concept of facilitating disagreement between people working to achieve a common goal in order to make sure the decision is the best. With JFK leaving the room during the Cuban Missile Crisis debate, groupthink was eliminated and people were no longer trying to convince the person in charge. I know when I would go to board meetings in high school, this would happen where people were so passionate about their own idea that they would eliminate all other possibilities in their head because they had to convince the person in charge to go with them. Upon further discussion in committee meetings, their ideas would evolve and opinions would change. Similarly, Lincoln's inclusion of his political enemies encouraged great discussion so that he would end up with the best results possible, looked at from a variety of perspectives.