Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 26, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2291. Adviser: Stephen J. Stein.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / This dissertation examines the influence of the treaty system inaugurated at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-22 upon innovation in the design of the interwar U.S. fleet. The way in which sea power was viewed by the U.S. Navy of the period combined with the Navy’s unique organizational structure to shape the Navy’s efforts in building a “treaty fleet.” In particular, the General Board of the Navy, a formal body established by the Secretary of the Navy to advise him on both strategic and other matters with respect to fleet, served as the organizational nexus for the interaction between fleet design and treaty implementation. The General Board members orchestrated the efforts by the principal Naval Bureaus, the Naval War College, and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in ensuring that the designs adopted for the warships built and modified during the period of the Washington (Five Power) and London Naval Treaties both met treaty requirements while meeting strategic needs. The leadership of the Navy at large, and the General Board in particular, felt themselves especially constrained by Article XIX (the fortification clause) of the Five Power Treaty that implemented a status quo on naval fortification in the Western Pacific. The treaty system led the Navy to design a measurably different fleet than it might otherwise have done in the absence of naval limitations.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Jack M. Holl / Donald J. Mrozek / As president, Dwight Eisenhower believed that nuclear weapons, both fission and fusion, were permissible and desirable assets to help protect U.S. national security against the threat of international communism. He championed the beneficent role played by nuclear weapons, including both civilian and military uses, and he lauded the simultaneous and multi-pronged use of the atom for peace and for war. Eisenhower's assessment of the role and value of nuclear technology was profound, sincere, and pragmatic, but also simplistic, uneven, and perilous. He desired to make nuclear weapons as available, useful, and ordinary for purposes of national security as other revolutionary military technology from the past, such as the tank or the airplane. He also planned to exploit nuclear technology for a variety of peaceful, civilian applications that he also believed could contribute to national strength. However, Eisenhower did not possess a systematic view of national security in the nuclear age as some scholars have argued. Rather, Eisenhower approached the question of how to defend national security through nuclear weapons with an array of disparate ideas and programs which worked simultaneously toward sometimes divergent objectives that were unified only by a simple conception of national strength. In this effort, Eisenhower occasionally pursued what might seem to be conflicting initiatives, but nonetheless consistently advanced his view that strength through nuclear technology was possible, necessary, and sustainable. Because he believed nuclear technology effectively served his goal to defend national security through strength, Eisenhower sought to reverse the perception that nuclear weapons were inherently dangerous by advocating steadily and consistently for the proper and acceptable use of nuclear technology to contribute to the safety of the republic. He conceived policies such as the New Look, massive retaliation, Project Plowshare, and Atoms for Peace in part to convince the American public and the international community of the U.S.'s genuine desire for peace as Eisenhower simultaneously entrenched atomic and thermonuclear weapons into the American national conscience. Through his efforts, Eisenhower made nuclear weapons and nuclear technology ordinary, abundant, and indispensable to U.S. national security in the twentieth century.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Michael A. Ramsay / This dissertation examines combat leadership in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in infantry and machine gun units at the company level and below to highlight the linkages between the training and professional development of junior officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and the army's overall military effectiveness in World War I. Between 1865 and 1918, the growing lethality of the battlefield had forced changes to tactics and formations that placed novel demands on small unit leaders. The proliferation of new weapons in infantry companies and the thinning and extension of formations required junior officers and NCOs able to exercise an unparalleled degree of initiative and independence while also mastering new tactical and technical skills. When the United States entered World War I, the Regular Army was still grappling with how to reconcile its traditional expectations of small unit leadership with the new "skill sets" required of junior leaders in modern warfare. Faced with the need to produce officers and NCOs to lead its rapidly expanding mass army, the regulars improvised a system for identifying, training, and assigning company-level leaders. Unfortunately, the Regular Army's unpreparedness to wage a modern war, and the host of systemic problems associated with raising a mass army, meant that much of the training of these key leaders was so ill-focused and incomplete that the new officers and NCOs were woefully unprepared to face the tactical challenges that awaited them in France. These problems were only compounded when unexpected casualties among officers and NCOs in the summer and fall of 1918 led to a further curtailment in leader training the U. S. Army. The end result of the U. S. Army's failure to adequately train and develop its junior leaders was that its combat units often lacked the flexibility and "know how" to fight without suffering prohibitively high casualties. When the junior leaders failed, faltered and bungled, the AEF's battles became confused and uncoordinated slugging matches that confounded the plans and expectations of the army's senior leaders. The heavy casualties that resulted from these slugging matches further undermined the AEF's effectiveness by reducing the morale and cohesion of the army's combat units and hindering the army's overall ability to learn from its mistakes due to the high turn-over of junior officers and NCOs.

Abstract not available.

An historical consensus has coalesced around the view that Canadian-American relations reached a nadir from 1961-1963. The argument is that due to differences of both personality and policy John Diefenbaker, Canada's Prime Minister, and US President John Kennedy loathed each other. Scholars have subsequently debated over who was more to blame for this, but their analyses have been incomplete because the American side has largely been ignored. As most, if not all, of the historians who have examined the Diefenbaker-Kennedy era have been Canadian, American archival sources have been used sparingly. Drawing upon the rich documentary collection in the US National Archives and the Kennedy Presidential Library, this thesis argues, in contrast to what many have contended, that US foreign policy was in fact quite complimentary towards Diefenbaker's government. This was primarily because American policy-makers were aware of the potent force of Canadian nationalism, which their experiences with Diefenbaker only confirmed.

In the first comparative study of Canadian and American foreign policy during the Korean War, this thesis argues that, while Canada and the U.S. shared some similar foreign policy goals and interpretations of the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1951, their national security policies were fundamentally distinct. In turn, these differing interpretations had a significant influence on each country's understanding of the Korean War. The United States believed that it had to uphold its international prestige by defending freedom everywhere in order to remain secure. Consequently, the Harry S. Truman administration pursued an aggressive campaign in Korea against the Soviet Union in order to safeguard its position as the leader of the free world. Conversely, Canada, which was preoccupied with its own sovereignty and content with a limited view of containment, had little interest in American objectives. Instead, Louis St. Laurent's government, influenced by past experiences with Great Power politics, sought to limit the excesses of the Truman administration in order to defend its autonomy. The consequence of this divergence forced officials in Ottawa and Washington to reconsider not only their national security strategies but also their relations with one another.

This thesis is the study of the Indigenous peoples of Ghana, Canada and the United States. What links these three groups together is the colonial moment. These peoples are linked together because they have all been affected by the process and legacy of colonization. The "colonial moment" presents an opportunity to analyze the ways in which the Indigenous peoples of these three geopolitical units have experienced the colonization process and its impact as well as to analyze its implications for post-colonial sovereignty. If one goes back to the early days of colonization, Europeans were only a minuscule minority in the territories that would one day become Ghana, Canada and the United States. The evolution from that point forward is totally different. The scene at Ghana's independence celebration eloquently expresses this contrast: At the Black Star Square, as the midnight bell tolled, on March 6, 1957, the Union Jack slipped beneath the floodlights. Rising in its place was the tri-colour flag of red, gold and green, with a black star at its centre, the standard of the new, independent nation of Ghana. On the platform, President Kwarne Nkrumah, his faced streaked with tears, electrified the crowd when he declared: "At long last, the battle has ended. Your beloved country is free forever." What American or Canadian Indigenous leader can boast of his or her country being free on Independence Day? Free from whom and what? That argument begs the question -- why? Why did Ghana, which is much closer and more accessible to Europe, not become the target for mass migration? If the Indigenous peoples of Ghana, who were considered too primitive to engage in treaty as exemplified by the Berlin Conference of 1884, could achieve a form of sovereignty approximately equivalent to that of the other nations of the world, then why should the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, whose international treaty powers were affirmed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, not employ Ghana's sovereignty as a yardstick? This thesis uses the "Ghanaian lens" to examine the above questions and many more, and anchors them in the evolving nature of sovereignty in the colonial and post-colonial context. The aim is to link the analysis of the "shifting" European definition of statehood with the unconscious forces that shaped the colonial prismatic view of Indigenous sovereignty. What might be useful and unique about the thesis is its invitation to uncouple the train of thought from North America and examine the colonial moment and its implications for American and Canadian jurisprudence from an African perspective. It is hoped that this will provide a useful basis for helping to correct some of the injustices perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples of North America. The "Ghanaian lens" is then directed at the contact period to reveal that, despite the introduction of European goods and the concomitant fruits of so-called "civilization," the Indigenous peoples of the world generally suffered throughout this period and did not benefit from the presence of the Europeans who exploited their friendliness. The struggle for independence is the next phenomenon viewed through the "Ghanaian lens." Part VI then illustrates the manner in which the importation of American jurisprudence into the Canadian context has distorted the traditional British legal notion of Indigenous sovereignty to the detriment of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Part VIIA explains why the Western world and the "settled" nations should refrain from perpetuating doctrines of international law that define sovereignty as the exclusive preserve of Europe, which subordinated and excluded "uncivilized" indigenes, resulting in the current neo-colonial state of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Finally, Part VIIB develops a set of doctrines that could coherently account for Indigenous personality, in order to more adequately formulate the potential of the concept of sovereignty to remedy the enduring inequities and imbalances resulting from the colonial confrontation. The thesis then takes the reader on the solution path. On September 13, 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Indigenous peoples of the world share much in common: faith in divine providence, hope in an eternal universe and the aspiration to be free and happy. Indigenous peoples in settled countries are many distinct natives in many countries, but with common concerns and a common voice. One of their prime concerns is to be heard. Indigenous peoples in settled countries cannot effectively express themselves politically. They are politically mute. To claim that they are represented at the United Nations by the countries in which they reside is, therefore, an insult. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This dissertation seeks to answer two primary questions stemming from the war between the United States and Mexico: 1) What methods did the United States Army Quartermaster Department employ during the war to achieve their goals of supporting armies in the field? 2) In executing these methods, what lasting impact did the presence of the Quartermaster Department leave on the Lower Río Grande borderland, specifically South Texas during the interwar period from 1848-1860? In order to obtain a complete understanding of what the Department did during the war, a discussion of the creation, evolution, and methodology of the Quartermaster Department lays the foundation for effective analysis of the department's wartime methods and post-war influence. It is equally essential to understand the history of South Texas prior to the Mexican War under the successive control of Spain, Mexico and the United States and how that shaped the wartime situation. The wartime discussion of Department operations is divided into three chapters, reflecting each of the main theaters and illustrating the respective methods and influence within each area. The final two chapters address the impact of the war on South Texas and how the presence of the Quartermaster Department on the Río Grande served as a catalyst for economic, social, and political changes in this borderland region. Combining primary source analysis of wartime logistics with a synthesis of divergent military and social histories of the Lower Río Grande borderland demonstrates the influence of the Department on South Texas during the mid-nineteenth century. The presence of the Quartermaster Department created an economic environment that favored Anglo-American entrepreneurs, allowing them to grow in wealth and begin to supplant the traditional Tejano/Mexican-American power structure in South Texas. Despite remaining an ethnic minority, Anglos used this situational advantage to dominate the region politically. This outcome shaped South Texas for decades to follow.

Several historians have identified North Texas as constituting a unique cultural region in antebellum Texas, due to the more limited cotton and slave economies and greater opposition to secession. Different settlement patterns have been put forward as an explanation for the distinct "character" of North Texas, with North Texas being portrayed as being settled largely by migrants from the Upper South while the rest of the state was primarily settled by Lower Southerners. The argument rests on the assumption of differing economic and political cultures between Upper and Lower Southerners. This study investigates migration into North Texas counties and the economic life and secession vote in those counties. It challenges the simplistic dichotomy between migrants from the Upper and Lower South by demonstrating the similar rates at which these two groups grew cotton and owned slaves. It also illustrates how geographic considerations better explain the apparent distinctions between North Texas and the rest of the state. Transportation limitations are likely the reason for the more limited cultivation of cotton and, consequently, the lowered importance of slavery in North Texas. Concerns about Indian depredations following the removal of federal troops in the case of secession also seem to have promoted Unionist turnout in the secession vote. The seemingly unique qualities of North Texas appear to have been more practical than political.