Political Science 572: U.S. Defense Policy
"Teaching the Controversy:"
Quadrennial Defense Review Paper Assignment

The objective of this paper is a political analysis of one or more controversial recommendations of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. The QDR is available as a PDF document in numerous locations on the Web (including the class web site): one link to the official DoD copy is http://www.defenselink.mil/sites/q.html

Many recommendations of the QDR reflect long-standing policies on which there is a wide consensus. For some other recommendations, however, there is deep disagreement within the military and the policy community: most of these concern either the most effective way to deal with the problem of terrorism or with transitions from the 20th century, Cold War military to a possibly quite different 21st century military. I want your paper to focus on one of these controversial issues and not, for example, on whether it is a good thing "to deliver first class administrative services, supplies, and support programs for our professionals and their families." (QDR, pg. A-6) In other words, by "controversial" I mean any recommendation of the review that has generated a significant difference of opinion within the political system.

Since the QDR is a fairly specialized document and hasn't generated a whole lot of popular debate, generally you will find these critiques in material on the Web from various Washington-based policy institutes such as Brookings, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Center for Defense Analysis and so forth, although in some instances Congressional hearings and journalistic op-eds may be useful. These critiques do not need to directly address the QDR (which has only been available for six weeks) but should at least address the policies proposed in the QDR: many of these are part of the "smaller, smarter, lighter" debate that has been going on since the 1990s. In choosing a specific topic, you might want to start by locating the critiques, then work back to the QDR itself.

By "political analysis" I mean a researched report that deals with the following questions:

1. What is the current policy; to what extent is this policy still influenced by Cold War priorities?

2. What is the problem that the new policy seeks to solve? Is the problem one that has actually occurred in the past (if so, provide an example or examples), or is it a hypothetical problem? If hypothetical, what is the nature of the evidence that the problem has a likelihood of occurring that would justify the cost required to solve it?

3. What are the implications of the policy with respect to the "alternative grand strategies" discussed in the Posen and Ross article?--does it clearly support, or clearly contradict any of the strategies? While almost all of the QDR is nominally focused on a transition to a 21st century military, to what extent is the recommendation actually making a change, versus simply finding a new rationale for Cold War policies, or being a short-term reaction to 9/11, Afghanistan and/or Iraq?

4. What alternatives to the policy that are being debated? Who is suggesting these alternatives and how realistic are the alternatives? Note that if you can't identify alternatives, you aren't dealing with an issue that is controversial (that said, the "alternative" may be keeping with the status quo that you discussed in part [1])

5. Who in the military, civilian Department of Defense hierarchy, other defense-related bureaucracies such as the intelligence communities and the Department of Homeland Security, Congress and policy communities are supporting the various alternatives; who is supporting the current policy; why are they supporting it? Note that for many of these recommendations, there will be very significant differences between the various branches of the military: the public sources of this disagreement may be subtle and you may find these more evidence, for example, in statements by retired officers.

6. What do you expect will happen in the future, both with respect to the recommendations being adopted (or not) and the consequences of those reforms (or the failure to change things)?

This is a research paper and I expect you to use sources outside of the readings, though you will also find it very useful to integrate material from the readings: There is a large amount of material that you have already read in the class assignments that is directly relevant to these issues, and it could be used quite effectively (many papers miss this opportunity). The paper will be evaluated using the attached evaluation guide; please fill in the pages of this and include it with your completed paper.

Papers should be 10 to 12 pages (typed, double-spaced) in length --I will read longer papers but the additional length should be justified by the quality of the content. Despite the use of electronic submission to TurnItIn.com, I need a copy of your assignment on paper (dead trees and toner dust) in order to grade it.

Technical Detail

Assume that you are writing the paper to be read by someone taking this class--don't dwell on the obvious but be sure to explain technical terms, acronyms and concepts we haven't discussed in class. For example, "Goldwater-Nichols," "JCS," and "DIA" don't need further explanation; "CIPWG" (Critical Infrastructure Protection Working Group) does. Don't give a lot of technical detail unless it is clearly necessary in the political analysis itself: it usually isn't.

Citations--General

Exception: you can cite the QDR as just QDR plus a page number (e.g. "QDR:35")

Citations--World Wide Web

Given the immediate nature of this topic, most of your material will come from the Web. Use the same skepticism in evaluating internet sources that you would use in evaluating other information-- there is a lot of amazingly useful information on the Web (in fact this paper topic would have been impossible to do prior to the creation of the Web), but there is a lot of really nutty stuff: learn to discern the difference. Remember that it only costs about $50 to set up a web site, and consequently a site sponsored by "Citizens for the Protection of Small Cuddly Animals" often as not turns out to be produced by some public relations firm working for a company seeking to wipe out a population of small cuddly animals with a toxic waste site. But you already know that.

For all web citations, use the following formats:

World Wide Web site:

Taylor, Todd. Basic CGOS Style. 1 Sept. 1998. Columbia University Press. Accessed 20 March 2000. .

This has six parts

1. The author of the item (in many cases, this will be the same as the sponsor of the web site).
2. The title of the page (or the first header on the page, whichever is more informative).
3. The date of the information on the page: this is frequently found at the very end of the page in a note saying "Last update" If you can't find this information, use "n.d.." (as in "no date")
4. The identity of the individual or organization that sponsors the web site. If you can't determine who provided the information, don't use it.
5. The date that you accessed the site.
6. The URL--"uniform resource locator"--which is the web address. If the page is the result of an internal script, there may be a lot of unreadable junk in this--include it anyway.

Journal article from full-text database:

Jacobson, Marjorie. "Note: Pregnancy and Employment: Three Approaches to Equal Opportunity." Boston University Law Review 68 (Nov. 1988): 1019+. Academic Universe. LEXIS-NEXIS. U. of Kansas, Lawrence. 16 March 2000 .

Any material that is used without citation will be treated as plagiarism (because it is plagiarism) and dealt with according to the rules of the University of Kansas. If you are unfamiliar with these definitions and rules, you should acquaint yourself with them:

http://www.writing.ku.edu/students/docs/integrity.shtml
http://www.calstatela.edu/centers/write_cn/plagiarism.htm

are good sources on plagiarism; the University rules can be found at http://www.ku.edu/~unigov/usrr.html#art2sect6 You do not need to specifically cite material from my lectures. You do need to cite material quoted from the textbooks.

TurnItIn.com

1. Open the page http://turnitin.com
2. Click "New Users" (upper right corner of screen)
3. Click "Create a user profile"
4. Select the user type "student"; click "next"
5. Enter the following for Class ID and "password"
   class ID: 1491536
   Class enrollment password: fusionist
6. The remainder of the steps for enrollment are straightforward and I'll trust that with your access to the collective knowledge base of the generation that popularized Napster, you will figure these out.

At the end of this process, you will have "enrolled" in the class account and can electronically submit papers--there is ample documentation on the TurnItIn.com web site as to how this is done. Your paper will be compared against TurnItIn's data base of a gazillion web pages and previously submitted papers, and any identical phrases will be tagged. Typically a research paper will have quite a few matches because it is using material from the web--this is fine so long as the material has been properly cited.

You should feel free to submit drafts of your paper to the "assignments" labeled ``Draft 1'', "Draft 2" and "Draft 3" in order to make sure that you haven't inadvertently forgotten to cite something, but please submit the final version of the paper under the assignment "Final Version". Also note that once you've got a draft on the system, any additional analyses will get a red "Plagiarism off the charts!" warning because it will closely match your previous draft; TurnItIn will nonetheless differentiate any new material. Papers that have not been submitted to TurnItIn.com or where the printed copy differs significantly from the version submitted will receive a zero.

While I want to receive a paper copy of the document, the time that the paper is submitted to TurnItIn will be considered the time that the paper has been turned in. This solves all sorts of problems: you can submit the paper from anywhere, it has an unambiguous time stamp, there are no problems with the paper being "lost", everyone wins. Except plagiarists.

Standard Edited Written English

Computer Issues

Most jobs that you are likely to get with a political science degree will require the use of a word processor, and not just a deep-fat frier. These have spelling checkers: use them. Please make an effort to get the formatting correct, use page numbers and so forth; if you've never learned to use the common features of a word processing program, time is running out in do this in a supportive environment. If your paper is shorter than ten pages, don't attempt to make it seem longer by using two-inch margins, a 14-point Helvetica Bold typeface, and triple-spaced footnotes: I will notice this and probably conclude that the paper is even shorter than it actually is.

When using a word processing program, be sure to make frequent backups on some reliable medium. [Hint: this is life, and more generally it is a habit that will substantially increase your future job security.] I will not accept a "crashed disk" or "virus" excuse for late papers unless you hand in, on time, a printed copy of your most recent backup. Computer virus infections affecting the Microsoft Windows operating system, while decidedly less frequent than a couple of years ago, are still a risk; KU's system was severely disrupted by an assortment of such problems during the final weeks of the 2004 spring semester. Maintain a backup that would not be affected by a virus. A simple way to do this as you near completion of the paper is to just upload your draft to TurnItIn.com; if necessary you can easily recover your text (though not the formatting) from there. This method only takes a couple of minutes and provides a backup isolated from KU's systems. If the only thing you learn in your entire career at KU is how to properly back up files and protect your computer from viruses, your future employers will be eternally grateful to us.

Due dates:

1. The list of QDR recommendations that you are going to critique along with at least two sources that are criticizing these are due in class on Friday, 7 April. I will review these and let you know if I see any problems (usually this will be either that the recommendations are too broad or too narrow). You should also submit this to TurnItIn.com under the assignment "QDR topics" in order to demonstrate that you can use that system.
2. The paper is due by 5 p.m. Friday, 5 May. (if you aren't handing it in during class, put it in my mailbox in the Political Science department office)
3. In fairness to those who finished the paper on time, there will be a penalty of 4 points (out of 100 points) per day, including weekends, for late papers. You don't need to ask permission to turn in a late paper: you just get the penalty. If you are handing in the paper late, I will consider the paper as "handed in" at the time of the last submission to TurnItIn.com (the version I see will be time-stamped with both the date and time of submission)
4. No papers will be accepted after 4:00 p.m. on Friday, 12 May: these will receive a zero.