Out of Balance: Evaluating American Strategy in Vietnam, 1968–72

Abstract

This paper examines the ineffective implementation of American military strategy in the Vietnam War’s final years. While the Nixon administration conceived a comprehensive strategic concept aimed at winding down the war in South Vietnam, civilian and military leaders struggled to realize, in an effectual manner, Nixon’s wide-ranging political objectives. American officials in Saigon and Washington found it near impossible to balance the competing strategic imperatives of combat operations, diplomatic negotiations, Vietnamization, and the withdrawal of US forces from South-east Asia. This inability to reconcile imbalances within the American strategic framework helps explain more fully the outcome of US political and military efforts in South Vietnam.     

Foreign Policy Reviews and Canada's Trade Policy: 1968–2009

Governments, upon assuming office, most often seek to refocus foreign policy according to the preferences of the new prime minister and the primary means of accomplishing this has been to release a white paper outlining the priorities of the new government. This article will demonstrate that discussions of trade issues reinforce existing studies questioning the innovation and impact of white papers. The purpose of this analysis, however, is not to dwell on the utility of white papers and foreign policy reviews but instead search for a deeper understanding of why trade policy is discussed in an unoriginal and superficial manner. The focus of the article is on the period from 1968 to the present.     

The National Union of Students and transnational solidarity, 1958–1968

In 1968 student activism and the international connections between students became a source of interest and concern throughout the world. These international connections, however, were far from new. Internationalism has always been at the core of the National Union of Students of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (NUS), the largest student organisation in the UK. The NUS represented the majority of British students, although their policies were never universally accepted but were the outcome of sometimes vociferous debate. In the years between the end of the Second World War and 1968 the NUS was deeply involved in setting up two international student organisations, the International Union of Students (IUS) and the International Student Conference (ISC), as well as developing their own bilateral connections with students around the world. The membership and leadership of the NUS were clearly interested, and concerned, about students internationally. However, the extent to which this interest and concern should be seen as solidarity or is more rightly a new manifestation of older British traditions of paternalism and liberal internationalism is questioned in this article.     

The Reporting of International News in Canada: Continuity and Change, 1988–2006

This article examines Canadian daily newspaper editors' views regarding the status of international news reporting in Canada. It is based on a series of surveys administered in 1988, 1995, 2000, and 2006 that measured editors' assessments of issues such as the quantity and quality of international news in their papers, the importance they attach to international news coverage, the areas of the world they consider important to cover, and the sources they use for international news. The article uses the data from the surveys to determine whether 11 September 2001 affected editors' perceptions of international news reporting. This question has been widely studied in the United States, but less so in Canada. The central conclusion here is that 9/11 has had only a limited impact on editors' perceptions. The data across all four surveys demonstrate a remarkable degree of consistency in editors' assessments of international news reporting in Canada.