PLS 447 Military Intervention FINAL - Dr. Glenn Antizzo (Mississippi College)

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)

-American involvement happened early on- Eisenhower sent in advisors, JFK sent special forces, then...

-American ships in international waters and Americans believed that they were being attacked by Vietnamese forces

-President Lyndon Johnson took the incident to Congress and congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. it was originally intended to allow POTUS to respond to just that incident but then Johnson used it as a blank check to pretty much do whatever he wants

-LBJ used this as a blank check to get involved

Number of troops in Vietnam

- there were 543,000-548,000 American troops in Vietnam at the height of the war in 1968

-about 3.5 million rotated in & out of Vietnam at one point or another

Number of casualties

58,000

Viet Cong

-name of the enemy forces

"Vietnamese Communists"

= a rebel group with the backing of North Vietnam that was operating in South Vietnam in efforts to try to overthrow the govt.

- during the Tet Offensive the Viet Cong was almost wiped out , so from 1968 & on "Viet Cong" fighters refers to North Vietnamese troops dressed like Viet Cong

Vietnamization

-policy that Nixon had to get us out of the war:

- was going to start withdrawing American troops and he was going to shift the brunt of the fighting back to the Vietnamese

Paris Peace Accords (1973)

signed in January of 1973

providing the means for america to get out the war:

1. withdraw troops from the south

2. NV return POWs

3. NV have to help located our MIAs

4. the North Vietnamese, who were occupying the NW part of SV, were promised that they could keep what they already had seized but would go no further than that

-NV just wanted us out of the war, so they agreed to the terms and we left

Vietnam Syndrome

- acts a paralysis in American foreign policy; direct aid and indirectly; Clark and Boland amendments

- In Antizzo's opinion, we dont start to shake this til desert storm and not completely til 9/11

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

courted off the western hemisphere as an American sphere of influence

- originally aimed at the spanish

today: not wanting any foreign powers intervening in this part of the world. only about 3 incidents have broken this

- Cuban Missile crisis was a serious violation on USSR's part

- 2004: we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan but we got a little war weary and we just couldn't afford to be there, so we outsourced the rebuilding and policing operation to 2 other countries: Canada (in our hemisphere) & France

Truman Doctrine (1947)

- response to the greek civil war

- if a country is threatened by an armed minority or outside aggressors and threatened with communist overthrow, then we would be there to help them.

first boots on the ground application this:

-we sent billions of $ to the Greek govt bc the rebels were receiving aid from USSR and others.

- we also sent aid to the Turkish govt

- first boots on the ground: KOREA

Carter Doctrine

-annouced in 1980 after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan

-the Persian Gulf is a vital nat'l interest to the US and the US would obtain it by any means necessary including military force

- since, it has been the cornerstone of American policy and the justification of our involvement in the Iraq war in 1991 and 2003

Reagan Doctrine (1980s)

- Reagan didn't actually say this; it just a doctrine that emerged during his administration by people around him. kinda the flip side of the Truman Doctrine.

- backing democratic rebel groups in communist countries that threaten their interest

- Aid was given to 4 countries:

1. Angola

2. Cambodia

3. Afghanistan

4. Nicaragua

^^ we would give aid & advice to the rebels but we would NOT put boots on the ground.

- "we'll send you aid, but you gotta fight it yourself" (nonlethal, economic, advisors, etc. but not boots on the ground)

- we sent Angola & Afghanistan stinger missiles; laser guided antiaircraft missiles that have deadly accuracy. In Afghanistan, they essentially swept the USSR Air Force from the sky. They did the same thing to the Cuban Air Force in Angola

Powell Doctrine (1990s)

more of a military doctrine than a political one

emphasizes: speed, mobility, and numbers

- only use military force as a last resort but if youre going to do it GO TO WIN. Don't half ass it.

- use every technology necessary

-OVERWHELM the enemy with numbers, tech, etc

W. Bush Doctrine (post-9/11)

- we didn't wanna get hit with another sneak attack like 9/11, so if we found a country or enemy with. a country that's about to strike us, we would engage in preemptive war to go get them first; we hit them before they could hit us

= preemptive war

Angolan civil war (1975-2002)

3 main factions:

1. FNLA

- north --> south

- headed by Roberto, pro-US

2. MPLA

- pro-USSR

- lead by Neto

- de facto govt of the country because they were able to capture the capitol before anyone else could

3. UNITA

- led by Savimbi

- main rebel group fighting against the communist govt

- used to be pro China and then switched to pro-US

Clark Amendment

- as this conflict heated up, we were afraid we'd get sucked in, so Senator Dick Clark of Iowa sponsored this

= law passed in 1976 which essentially cut off CIA funding for rebels in Angola

- repealed in 1985 and the Reagan administration resumed aid AND throws in a bonus of stinger anti-aircraft missiles

Isolationism

- aimed at our involvement in EUROPE; but we fight in other places many times

- not a 'one size fits all' policy

- President Washington warned us against getting involved in Europe's affair in his Farewell Address

Congressional oversight of covert activities:

Rockefeller Commission

- lead by Nelson Rockefeller

- the more conservative of the 3

looked at CIA domestic activity and found the agency had spied on American citizens, engaged in wiretaps, infiltrated radical groups, opened mail, and kept as many as 300,000 secret files among individuals

Congressional oversight of covert activities:

Church Committee

- looked into domestic and foreign activities of intelligence agencies

- 1976 final report which concluded that the CIA conducted 900 of major and thousands of small operations between 1961 and that time

- mostly in 3rd world

- damaged the reputation of the US

- it doesn't recommend suspension of these activities, instead it recommends a sharp restriction of covert operations and more aggressive congressional oversight

Congressional oversight of covert activities:

Pike Committee

- so controversial that the full House voted to suppress its findings bc they released classified information

- report found that after analyzing all officially approved covert actions, evidence showed that contrary to popular belief the CIA was not some rogue agency and had acted within its established boundaries and worked in correspondence with the White House .

- the problem wasn't the CIA itself but whether or not it's under control but whether the policies it was asked to carry out by the White House were legal or moral

- many were concerned the CIA were turning into an American version of the Soviet Secret police

Nicaragua

because of the Vietnam syndrome, congress was worried about us getting drawn into this war in the same way, so Congress passed a series of legislation collectively known as the Boland Amendment, which disallowed the use of American tax payer $ to be sent into Nicaragua

- congress decided to give non-lethal aid to the rebels. all this allowed was allow them to use the $ to buy lethal aid bc we took care if the nonlethal aid, so we indirectly provided lethal aid

Iran-Contra Affair

the American govt were trying to figure out to help out the rebels without violating the Boland Amendment and we wanted to get some hostages that were taking by Hezbollah (Iranian govt-backed terrorist group in Lebanon) free

- so Admiral John Pointdexter and his Second in Command, Lt. Col. Oliver North came up with a plan to accomplish all their goals.

- the Iranian govt needs weapons (like TOW missiles) bc it is fighting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War

- so the US came up with the idea of trading arms for hostages; "we will sell you what you want, if you will use your influence with Hezbollah to get the hostages freed" The Iranians take the deal.

- Not all hostages are released, but most are. so we starting selling but at greatly increased prices

- we use some of the $ to pay for the weapons and use the profits to help fund the rebels in Nicaragua

- this gets caught when somebody who in the revolutionary guard in Iran gives an interview to a magazine who writes a story on this and then it becomes public in late 1986. This almost brings the Reagan administration down

- technically NOT a violation of the Boland Amendment bc it wasn't the American tax payer $ being given, but it was a violation of the SPIRIT of the law (but you cant go to jail for violating the spirit of the law; only the letter)

- Admiral Pointdexter lead this and North was the other

- Poindexter = head of the NSC (not tested on this though)

Active military intervention

when you send forces into a region to actively engage and defeat the enemy forces

- ex: Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Panama in 1989, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003

Reactive

when you set up a security zone in another country and you inforce you rules in that security zone

ex: Israel set up one in Lebanon

- US: we set up no fly zones in Iraq

Peacekeeping/Restoring order

ex:

- when we go into Somalia to feed starving people

- when the UN send forces in Cyprus to separate the Greek from the Turkish

- US sent troops to help with Tsunami relief efforts in Thailand

Proinsurgency

when you back a rebel group looking to overthrow an existing govt

Our support during the Reagan Doctrine for rebels in:

- Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, & Nicaragua

Counterinsurgency

when you are using special forces and tactics to try to defeat a rebel group looking to overthrown the govt of a friendly country

ex:

- Vietnam and JFK sending special forces,

- right now what we're doing in Afghanistan,

- and what we are doing to defeat ISISin Syria and Iraq

Hughes Ryan Amendment (1974)

the first major effort to try to put a leash on organizations like the CIA and others who involve themselves in intelligence activities

- but it involved having to report to six congressional committees; 3 in the house and 3 in senate. this was just too much

- so six years later Congress passed the Intelligence oversight act......

Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980

go read over this in the midterm quizlet too

this is the current law that covers the oversight of intelligence agencies

- now you only have to report to one committed in each house; the House Intelligence Committee & the Senate Intelligence Committee

-- the chair of the HIC is the democrat Adam Schiff

- the executive is supposed to report to them in a "timely" manner but that's the thing- the word timely lol

- this has been an imperfect law but it's better

War Powers Act (1973)

- [go back and read this card on the midterm quizlet]

the term used to describe what the Nixon Presidency started to look like: Imperial Presidency

- WPA does recognize POTUS' position as Commander in Chief and that he may need to act quickly, so it grants the President a 60 day deployment of American forces

- During that 60 day deployment, POTUS must come to both houses of congress (lol no wonder it's not seriously) and get an authorization for the Use of force

- If POTUS does not get that authorization of the use of force within that period, then the president now has a 30 day period for an orderly withdrawal

- if American forces are not out in that time period, congress, according to this law, would have the legal right to cut off funding for the operation

NO AMERICAN PRESIDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN, HAS EVER ACCEPTED THE VALIDITY OF THIS CONSTITUTIONALLY

- the position of EVERY POTUS is that this is an illegal transfer of power / violation of separation of powers. Therefore, the only way this can be legally done is through a constitutional amendment and not through a normal statute

- however, when presidents do get authorizations of the use of force, it's the WORDING THAT MATTERS; they usually say "IN CONCURRENCE with the war powers act..." This is basically to say that we're following the form of the WPA while not recognizing it

September 11, 2001

if you don't know what happened on 9/11, please just drop this class

But if you live under a rock, on 9/11 a bunch of pissed off Muslims attacked the United States

- hijacked 4 planes and flew them into the World Tase Center in Lower Manhattan & the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. The attack was actually supposed to be in Washington, DC. The plane being flown into the Pentagon was supposed to be flown into the White House, but unless you're familiar with Washington (like me), you won't actually know where it is. And the White House is only like 4 stories tall and surrounded by trees. so they flew it into the only thing official-looking they could find- pentagon

- the plane (Flight 93) that crash-landed in Pennsylvania was supposed to be aimed at the US Capitol to destroy the morale of the American people by destroying the very symbol of American democracy but heroes of Flight 93 crash-landed in a PA field and will not be forgotten

the plot of 9/11 was carried out by an organization called Al Qaeda

- it is a terrorist group whose head was a Saudi Arabian named Osama Bin Laden

- they operated out of the base in the countryside of Afghanistan but Bin Laden was so powerful and so friendly with the Taliban regime, news reports saw him as a kinda an unofficial Afghan for the country

- the USA after the 9/11 attack demanded that the Taliban govt in Afghanistan, return Bin Laden and his associates to the States for trial. and they would not comply.

- so in October of 2001 we launched military operations against the Taliban

- we supplied a lot of air muscle and local Afghan troops, called the Northern Alliance, provided some of the goring forces. there were some Americans and British special forces there too, but mostly Afghans

Daisy-Cutter

- one of the weapons we used against Afghanistan

- we also used these in Vietnam

- so big it had to be flown in a cargo plane and pushed out the back with a parachute

- it created craters

May 1, 2011

President Obama was able to track down where Osama Bin Laden was in PAKISTAN and then had Navy SEAL Team 6 go in and we killed that evil piece of shit :)

MOAB

- even bigger than Daisy-Cutter

- President Trump was the first one to use one of these

-- we got word that there were ISIS fighters operating in Afghanistan, and we found a concentration of 100 of them, so not too long after Trump took office he called a military airstrike on them and killed EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Korean War (1950-1953)

started when Kim II-Sung invaded the South

Kim Il Sung

grandfather of Kim Jong-un

Korean War Armistice

1953

Eisenhower

Armastice

temporary ceasefire to buy some time to negotiate peace treaty. but there never was a peace treat for the Korean War... war is technically still going on

coercive diplomacy

credible threat of the use of force to engage in diplomacy

- 2 types

Deterrence

credible threat of the use of force to make the other side not do something

- ex: Operation Desert Shield: when deployed troops in Saudi to deter the Iraqis from going any further.

compellence

credible of use of force to make the other side UNDO something they've ALREADY DONE

-ex: we tried to use compellence to get to get the Iraqis to remove themselves from Kuwait.

- unfortunately the diplomacy didn't work and when your bluff is called, compellence mandates that you must take military action

-SO the Persian Gulf War broke out as a result of a FAILURE of the coercive diplomacy failure of compellence

First instance of US military intervention?

= Quebec/Canada in the Revolutionary War

- Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery led an attack on Quebec City. they were defeated but the Continental Congress had authorized that mission, so that was the first instance

Spanish-American War (1898)

America's coming out party as a global power

- we did not want to intervene but bc of the influence of yellow journalism, the press was able to whip up the public into war hysteria and we ended up fighting in this war

- we lost more troops to malaria in south Florida than we actually lost on the battlefield

as part of the peace we gained:

- Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippians (they eventually got their independence)

- This war is when the US starts to realize they have worldwide interests and therefore it's going to have to be more actively aware of whats going on in the world and more of a player. not at the European powers yet

Rapid Deployment Force

oman, egypt, kenya, somalia, israel

Somolia (1992-1994)

-peacekeeping/restoring order missions

- we went in to feed starving people. it was very well-intended

- the initial operation that HW sent us in for went from December of '92 - May '83. this was a success.

problem started when the US passed the baton to the UN

M.F. Aidid

Iran Hostage Crisis (1979)

Desert One -- the name of the base

Operation Eagle Claw

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (1979)

Christmas Day

- Reagan Doctrine kinda begins as a result

Caspar Weinberger

Secretary of Defense under President Reagan

pg. 26-28

paramilitary intervention

the use of rebel forces in another country to press your concerns

ex: used the rebels in Afghanistan to try to get the USSR out of the afghan war

- when we used the MPN to try to bring down the Nicaraguan Sandinista government

North Korea: can missiles strike the USA?

Theoretically, yes

Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)

-During Kennedy's administration

-took Cuban exiles training in Nicaragua to spark a counterrevolution against Castro - huge failure -many killed, others captured. - it was too soon after Castro had come to power. the people still weren't against him yet

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

USSR was caught putting medium range missiles in Cuba, so the Kennedy administration decided to put a naval blockade around Cuba

- this is actually against international law because we were stopping Russian ships on the high seas, BUT we went to war in 1812 bc the British were doing the same thing to us

- so we basically told the USSR that they better get those missiles out of Cuba unless they wanted WW3 and that the american navy was only going to allow ships with empty cargo holds to go to Cuba and only ships with disassembled missile parts to LEAVE Cuba

- the Soviets didn't like it one bit so for about two weeks we were eyeball to eyeball waiting for WW3 but then the USSR finally backed down and got them out

Persian Gulf War

- the war breaks out on September 15, 1991

- and then that starts a massive air campaign that lasts for about 6 weeks

- after softening up the Iraqis the ground offensive starts in late February 1991. it's projected to be about a 120 hour offensive.

3 Prongs to the attack:

3 prongs of the attack

- Eastern Prong: a joint force of Americans and arab troops that are going to the line of death to march straight through Saudi Arabia into Kuwait to march on Kuwait Sea

- joint French & America force are going to go to Nassaria in central Iraq to blockade Iraqi reinforcements from coming down from bagdad. in other words, there's only like one expressway through the desert.... the French and the Americans are waiting there.

the middle force does the left hook / hail mary

Left Hook (start on pg. 88)

-joint American/British force that is backed by heavy armor. they go around in southeastern Iraq to engage the republican guard units that were dug in south of Basra. the British and the Americans are absolutely obliterated the Iraqis.

- we have night vision so we can see them on the battlefield but they cant see us

- M1A1 tanks

UN peace treaty

- no-fly zones in northern and southern iraq

- a sanctuary zone for refugees in northern Iraq

- a UN-supervised dismantling of all weapons of mass destruction; the main reason we went to war with Iraq in 2003 is because they were breaking this part of the armistice

covert intervention

when the CIA conducts operations quietly to kind of hide the role of the United States in the operation so POTUS is able to have some plausible deniability

ex: Operation Ajax

Eisenhower Doctrine

Eisenhower sent in troops into Lebanon in 1958 in order to head off a possible communist take over

- the Eisenhower Doctrine said the United States would intervene in the Middle East in order to stop communist takeovers of middle eastern countries

Israel takes out Iraqi nuclear facilities (1981)

-Russians had built power plant and friendship built a breeder

- reactor to turn into plutonium 239 which is bomb grade material

-Israelis fly in tight formation to Bahgdad and were able to fly over Jordan and Iraq to destroy facilities and set back the Iraq nuclear program ten years

- basically, dont mess with Israel. they are badass

Problems with Libya

1981

1981: Libyans tried to claim gulf as their own territory of waters: violation of international law, sent fleet from Greece, Libyans fired on our planes and Reagan authorized us shooting back

Problems with Libya

1986:

1986: Libyans sponsored terrorism in European airports and discos so Reagan decided to engage in air strike and British allowed us to base their to bomb Libyans - but France would not allow us to fly over them and neither would Spain, so we had to fly around Europe through the Straits of Gibraltar and through Medeterrain to Libya to drop bombs