Week 2 Discussion Bradley Sutton CJS 6125 DF2 Comments

Comment on these two post as if you were me with a 100 words each, DO NOT COMPARE THE POSTS, and put 3 references for each post, and please separate the references with the post it was made for.
Bradley Sutton
Week 2 Discussion
1. I think the world is safer with the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) practiced. Admittedly, there have been nervous situations such as in October 1962 - but it's unlikely the U.S. would have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki if Japan could reciprocate. The guarantees of MAD keeps nuclear powers in check.
2. Containment policy worked because it prevented the USSR from growing geographically larger than it likely could have. The policy was based on the realization that the Soviet Union could not compete economically with the U.S.'s advantageous market for growth and had inherent flaws (Snow, 2014, pp. 79-80). Most of the West relied on the U.S. dollar, while the USSR could only rely on its own bloc. Additionally, a lack of high-tech production gave the U.S. a significant advantage in trade resulting in much higher Gross Domestic Product for the U.S. The NSDD-75 certainly contained the USSR more than it had previously, especially emphasizing the limitations on natural gas and advanced technology. In the 1980s when NSSD-75 was signed, the USSR was already three generations behind the U.S. in terms of computer technology (Snow, 2014, p. 70). Therefore, an expensive Afghan war, a lack of hi-tech production, and short natural resource exports and disproportionate military spending in relation to its total GDP caused the USSR to become economically unsustainable.
3. Non-state actors provide an impetus for coalitions and information-sharing, but they do not necessarily make priority threats. States are more of a threat under globalization; specifically, China has become the top global threat and concern of US national security. The problem with globalization is that it doesn't contain political competitors, and China has exported its totalitarian practices, such as creating debt traps and land seizures in weaker countries like Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Pakistan.
Richard Rodarte
Week 2 Discussion
1. I do believe the mere presence of nuclear weapons in the possession of the United States and Russia (and now other countries en masse at this point) has made the world more safe, utilizing the concept of negative peace. The Cold War was a large-scale battle consisting of smaller skirmishes between allied factions and other smaller systems waging war on the behalf of the two political powerhouses that had the means to change the world, though knowing that if they were to actually come to blows, mutually-assured destruction would be a possible result - keeping the scale of conflict few and far between compared to an all-out war waged with a nuclear arsenal. The only reason the United States was able to stand toe to toe with the threatening presence of the Soviet Union was because of our strengthened war economy post-WW2, military power was guaranteed through the sole possession of nuclear weapons (Snow, 2011, p. 75).
2. The fall of the Soviet Union has a cadre of factors, though I believe one of the strongest blows dealt to their infrastructure was the implosion of their economy as the Cold War dragged on, their overemphasis on maintaining such a large military presence (two and half times as large as the U.S., with four times the armored tanks/vehicles) brought about an era of stagnation. While the West was branching out economically to other avenues of research, development, scientific progress in the areas like computer technologies, the Soviets did not, and were excluded from many international high-technology revolutions (Snow, p. 89). Because they were slow to catch up with the ever increasing demands of science and technology, they missed out on a great deal of globalization footholds, expansion into booming markets, a massive chunk of the world economy was lost to them.
3. As globalization spread across the globe throughout the 1990s like wildfire, so did democratic peace. The two often went hand-in-hand, everyone taking part was under the impression that instilling governments and geopolitical agents with a built-in system geared towards democratic peace, conflict would lessen naturally. Unfortunately, the consequences did destabilize and even eliminated many pre-existing/traditional economies. The overly optimistic approaches and widespread changes created a lot of unseen backlash against the idea of globalization itself, and of course, the U.S. as a whole, considering they were the largest proponent of the concept. Many became fearful of a U.S. dominated global economy as a result. Non-state actors, however, have not taken the place of sovereigns in a prioritized threat assessment. Actors and rogue agents belonging to sects and cells like Al Qaeda, ISIS, ISIL, etc are threatening and have done enough harm to warrant intervention, though they can only participate with asymmetrical warfare and unconventional tactics, nothing rivaling what a force like China or Russia could muster should they declare war.