Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / Relationships between the United States and its worldwide network of allies has, since the inception of NATO, greatly revolved around the United States' ability and desire to permanently station troops oversees. Since 1941, the United States has entered into these basing agreements for a variety of strategic and sometimes political reasons. From NATO's inception, and as the cornerstone of its defensive structure, the United States has combined the idea of sending troops to different regions of the world with a global basing strategy founded on the concepts of overlapping protection and deployability. At times, to gain access to areas of strategic interest, the United States has offered aid and economic assistance along with a military presence. In other cases, positively affecting the political climate of the country was the stated goal of troop presence. This thesis will examine the effects of basing in Greece and Spain in order to uncover lessons learned which might be applied to the new US global basing plan and current troop positioning activities in Kyrgyzstan. In both cases the United States worked with openly dictatorial governments for the purposes of basing and did not foster the long term political situation initially desired. / Captain, United States Army

En octobre 1957, un événement historique vient bouleverser les États-Unis : le lancement de Sputnik, premier satellite artificiel, propulsé par les Soviétiques. Un mois plus tard, un deuxième satellite est mis en orbite par l'URSS tandis que les États-Unis tirent de l'arrière. Ces lancements créent toute une commotion à laquelle le président de l'époque, Dwight D. Eisenhower, doit faire face. 'Le président Eisenhower et la crise du satellite Sputnik, entre discours et réalité' est une analyse historique des discours du président Eisenhower entourant les lancements des deux premiers Sputniks. Après un survol historique des principaux événements liés au sujet qui nous intéresse, un état de la question permet notamment de cerner comment l'attitude du président Eisenhower envers la crise Sputnik est traitée dans l'historiographie. Puis, une analyse des discours émis entre janvier 1957 et avril 1958 trace les grandes lignes du discours présidentiel d'Eisenhower. Ensuite, ce sont aux discours des mois d'octobre et de novembre 1957, de même qu'à leur réception dans cinq grands journaux des États-Unis, que nous nous intéressons. Ainsi, nous voyons comment ces discours s'insèrent dans la rhétorique propre à Eisenhower, les distinctions à faire entre les discours émis à la suite du lancement du premier Sputnik puis du second, de même que la relation entre réaction médiatique et administration présidentielle. Dans ce mémoire, nous nous interrogeons principalement sur les discours entourant les lancements des Sputniks. Ainsi, nous vérifions si ceux-ci s'intègrent de façon cohérente au discours plus large d'Eisenhower. De plus, nous nous demandons s'il existe une différence notable entre les discours émis à la suite de chacun des lancements des deux premiers Sputniks, de même que sur leur efficacité à convaincre l'opinion publique. Pour y arriver, des dizaines de discours présidentiels et d'articles de journaux ont été minutieusement étudiés. Au terme de ce travail, nous en arrivons à la conclusion que les discours émis à la suite des lancements des Sputnik I et II s'inscrivent en continuité avec le discours général du président, mais que d'importantes distinctions sont à faire entre les deux. En effet, Eisenhower passe de sa figure publique de bon père de famille à celle de leader qui passe à l'action sur la question des satellites spatiaux entre les mois d'octobre et de novembre 1957. Malgré ce changement d'attitude, il semble que l'opinion publique ne soit pas totalement convaincue et que les conflits entourant la crise Sputnik animeront la présidence d'Eisenhower jusqu'à la fin de son mandat en 1961. L'originalité de notre approche repose essentiellement sur l'accent qui est mis sur les discours liés aux lancements des Sputniks. Nous nous posons des questions et y apportons des réponses qui se distinguent de ce qui est paru jusqu' ici dans l'historiographie. De plus, l'importance de l'analyse du discours d'Eisenhower qui est intégrée à ce mémoire est aussi particulière et tranche à l'occasion avec les principales conclusions tirées dans l'historiographie. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Eisenhower, Sputnik, Spoutnik, discours, missile gap, satellite, NASA, espace

De nos jours, le motif de la " crise de l'éducation " est récurrent dans les discussions publiques sur le système éducatif, et ce des deux côtés de l'Atlantique. Aux Etats-Unis, c'est au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale qu'il prend une tournure nouvelle. Jusqu'alors on avait parlé de " crise " pour désigner les difficultés matérielles et financières du système, mais l'expression prend une autre signification après 1945, tandis que s'installe un débat entre les partisans de l'éducation moderne, modèle inspiré par les principes de l'éducation progressiste, et les défenseurs d'une éducation humaniste, qui dénoncent une dégradation des exigences intellectuelles et des résultats de l'enseignement public. Cette étude se propose de restituer les termes de ce débat et d'analyser ses répercussions sur les dynamiques du système éducatif américain. La confrontation entre deux philosophies de l'éducation ne se limite pas à la sphère des professionnels et on en retrouve les échos dans la presse de grande diffusion comme dans certains films hollywoodiens. Alors que les États-Unis font face à une crise de confiance après le lancement réussi du satellite Spoutnik, le gouvernement américain désigne le système éducatif comme maillon faible en s'appuyant sur les critiques formulées tout au long des années 1950 par les adversaires de l'éducation moderne. Le télescopage du débat sur l'éducation et des logiques de Guerre froide ouvre alors la voie à une intervention fédérale inédite dans le domaine de l'éducation, avec l'adoption du National Defense Education Act de 1958.

No description available.

Strategic upheavals, such as the emergence or disappearance of geopolitical threats or radical technological changes, generate profound uncertainty and intense debate about a state’s future strategy. How do decisionmakers reexamine and revise strategy amidst these upheavals? Existing theories of strategic change recognize the significance of upheavals, but raise questions about the mechanisms by which decisionmakers embrace or discard new ideas about strategy. contend that understanding strategic change requires attention to narratives––stories about the past and present of international politics that suggest legitimate pathways for future action. I develop a theory of narrative emergence, positing that after upheavals, national security elites compete to mobilize support for their vision of future policy. They use public and private debates to legitimate their positions and build domestic coalitions. I identify four rhetorical strategies––persuasion, rhetorical coercion, co-optation, and transgression––that have different effects in mobilizing or demobilizing coalitions. If one coalition builds cross-cutting support, this can entrench their rhetoric in public discourse over time as part of a dominant narrative that shapes subsequent strategy debates through constraining and enabling effects. I evaluate this theory in the context of two cases of strategic upheaval in the United States, focusing on the puzzles of U.S. nuclear strategy: the arrival of the atomic age and the achievement of strategic parity between the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals. In the first case, I use qualitative and text analysis to track the rise of a dominant narrative about nuclear weapons during the early Cold War. In this contradictory narrative which I label “Waging Deterrence,” the bomb was both an unusable, revolutionary deterrent and an essential tool for fighting and winning the next war. I draw on archival sources to trace the emergence of this narrative during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, showing this narrative was not predetermined, but contingent on domestic debates as speakers––Presidents, civilian advisors, military elites, and others––used rhetorical strategies in public and private to co-opt and silence opponents. This narrative constrained the possibilities for strategic revision during the later Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. In the second case, parity’s mutual vulnerability upended this narrative; narratives remained unsettled until the Carter administration, where domestic legitimation contests facilitated the return of Waging Deterrence to justify competitive nuclear postures that had a lasting impact on U.S. nuclear strategy. The project offers a novel mechanism to understand strategic change and highlights the discursive and domestic politics of nuclear strategy, showing that foundational U.S. deterrence concepts emerged in part from domestic legitimation contests that rendered other options illegitimate. It also offers insights into policy debates about the future of nuclear and grand strategy amidst contemporary upheavals, suggesting contested processes of narrative construction will be central to shaping future strategy.

No description available.

Starting in August 1942 the United States and United Kingdom started waging a strategic bombing offensive against Germany. Throughout the course of the 1942 and 1943 campaigns, American and British air forces struggled to gain the upper hand in the European air war. By November 1943 American and British defeats at the hands of the German Air Force, or Luftwaffe, had placed the air war in doubt. By February 1944, the air war had turned around in favor of the Allies. This dramatic turn of events has been explained by historians in a number of ways. The most popular narrative is that the introduction of the long range escort fighter, the P-51 "Mustang," turned the tide in the air war. Another narrative is that there was a change in the fighter tactics. Starting in January 1944, American fighters stopped defending the bombers and started aggressively pursuing German fighters. Yet, these analyses do not include a major command changes that took place from November to January 1944. After his appointment to command of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight D. Eisenhower used his position centralize all of the major air commands in Europe under his control. By unifying the air commands, the Allies were able to better coordinate and concentrate their air against Germany. In February 1944 the Allies focused their air forces against the Luftwaffe ultimately wearing down German fighter strength. After finally removing a major obstacle impending the strategic air war against Germany, the Allies concentrated their air forces against transportation and oil targets. The destruction of these two major economic systems crippled Germany's ability to fight the Allies in 1944 and 1945. By changing the command structure, Eisenhower was able to use his air forces in successful coordinated strategic air offensives that the Allies had previously been incapable of accomplishing.

This is an analysis of the U.S. Army's personnel decisions in the Second World War. Specifically, it considers the U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall's appointment of generals to combat command, and his reasons for relieving some generals while leaving others in place after underperformance. Many historians and contemporaries of Marshall, including General Omar N. Bradley, have commented on Marshall's ability to select brilliant, capable general officers for combat command in the war. However, in addition to solid performers like J. Lawton Collins, Lucian Truscott, and George S. Patton, Marshall, together with Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lesley J. McNair, often selected sub-par commanders who significantly underperformed on the battlefield. These generals' tactical and operational decisions frequently led to unnecessary casualties, and ultimately prolonged the war. The work considers six case studies: Lloyd Fredendall at Kasserine Pass, Mark Clark during the Italian campaign, John Lucas at Anzio, Omar Bradley at the Falaise Gap, Courtney Hodges at the Hürtgen Forest, and Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. at Okinawa. Personal connections and patronage played strong roles in these generals' command appointments, and often trumped practical considerations like command experience. While their superiors ultimately relieved corps commanders Fredendall and Lucas, field army and army group commanders Clark, Hodges, and Bradley retained command of their units, (Buckner died from combat wounds on Okinawa). Personal connections also strongly influenced the decision to retain the field army and army group commanders in their commands.

No description available.

Over the last sixty years, voting patterns in the United States have changed dramatically, and this is especially true in the state of Florida. Though there is some literature in the field of political science that outlines the voting and election history of Florida and identifies some trends, this literature is extremely limited and is not comprehensive of the data that is available up to the present day. This study seeks to find Florida’s voting patterns and to explain how they can be understood by both the casual observer and the political scientist. To do so, unique methodology was applied that used the "relative margin" of both a county and a region in a particular election to give the Democratic nominee’s performance context both in the election in question and in history, by comparing the actual margin of victory or defeat of the Democratic nominee to the statewide margin of victory or defeat. This was an illuminating process that ultimately revealed some truths about the election history of Florida: the counties and regions most likely to vote for Democratic nominees in the 1950s and early 1960 are now among the least likely to do so, and the counties and regions most likely to vote for Republican nominees in the 1950s and early 1960s are now considered to be "swing" or "tossup" areas that are regularly and alternatively won by Democratic and Republican nominees. Additionally, the pattern of each region in how it voted in presidential elections was compared to forty seven other states in the country to provide further context as to how the election patterns can be understood in context.