United State Foreign Policy Formation
In this Essay, I will discuss and contrast positions of two different concepts, the concept of security imaginary proposed by Jutta Weldes in The View of the ExComm and the concept of balance of political power on geographical significance by Halford J.Mackinder in The Geographical Pivot of History. This essay aims to analyze the position of both notions on the event of Cuban missile Crisis during the Cold War period that will provides the insight of strong perception as a fundamental basis of interactions in global stage.
In The View of the ExComm, the author—Jutta Weldes—highlights the key concept of “Security imaginary” in which, according to McGeorge Bundy, formed up by the strong national conviction
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Mackinder proposed that the most influential and constant factors that have an effect on the actual balance of political power are the geographical conditions, both economic and strategic, combine with domestically capabilities: the relative number, virility, equipment, and organization. From Mackinder’s notion on the geographical significance, He envisioned the "heartland" which he also referred to as the "pivot area" as the core of Eurasia, and considered all of Europe and Asia as the World-Island, in which today is Russia. Later, the notion of “Pivot area” by Mackinder become known as the Heartland Theory— “who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world.” Mackinder's theory strongly values geographical condition as one consistent feature contributing to power centrism.
According to Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, United States Department of State, “The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict due to the secret emplacement of nuclear weapon in Cuba by USSR.” The missile deployment was beyond the proverbial pale and that the U.S. national interest required the removal
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From the written memorandum of a top secret State Department, Raymond Garthoff, he explain the threat to United State security and strategic credibility by the attempt of Soviet Union to gain its strategic capabilities through nuclear weapon installment that “ the presence of MRBM launchers and IRBM launchers in Cuba provide a significant accretion to Soviet strategic capabilities for target in the continental United State by over 40 percent,...a Soviet attack without warning could destroy appreciably larger proportion of overall United State strategic capability than it could if the Cuban complex were not included.” This present an important of geographical condition in strategic balance of political power that encouraged the intolerant policies of united State toward the Cuban Missiles Crisis rather built by the collective conviction in domestic