Reflections on Week Eight

Week eight was a very exciting week for me. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the two reports on US national security and decided to choose NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security as the document I would focus on while answering question #7. My answer ended up being quite substantial as there were many aspects of NSC-68 that I found interesting, such as calls for an international system "based on freedom and justice" and strong affirmations of the fundamental ideological purpose of the United States. I found it very surprising that a realist document written on such a topic, and at such a tense period in time, would contain such suggestions and affirmations.

Our Wednesday trip to the International Spy Museum was really fun. The cloak-and-dagger world of espionage has always been an interest of mine—I have a large collection of spy books about Cold War espionage at home—so it was very exciting to be able to explore this interest in the context of a class! Although I've been to the museum before, I find that the amount of information available is simply too much to absorb in one (well, now two) days, so I definitely plan on visiting again. Later that day I went with Gunperi to the Capital to see the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama and to hear him speak, which was a wonderful experience. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be going to college in Washington, D.C.—it's not often that you get to hear the Dalai Lama speak in your city!

I also enjoyed reading Carol Cohn's "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals" for Friday's class. I thought it was a very interesting article which did a thorough analysis of the issue and raised a lot of good points. Being someone who is fairly literate in the language of nuclear strategy, I was actually quite surprised to hear about the sexual overtones in the language of 1980s defense intellectuals, and personally thought such overtones were highly unprofessional. I also thought the language regarding virginity and birth seemed very strange and out-of-place. I was a bit skeptical of some of Cohn's analysis of the language of defense intellectuals, such as when she mentions how the acronym for Permissive Action Links—PAL—makes such planning easier to do. I would have to disagree, as PAL is simply an acronym! Further, when Cohn talks about Oppenheimer's quoting from the Bhagavad Gita I feel that she over-analyzes, as this quote was meant to illustrate the shock and, possibly, guilt at releasing such a destructive force on the world. Overall, thought, I thought it was a good article.

Looking forward to another good week!

-Gregory Proulx