INTR 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Fungibility, Vietnam Syndrome
Document Summary
Power is dynamic, its not a static concept. It is always changing, a power asset from earlier years doesn"t necessarily constitute a power asset today. Immediately after the vietnam war, something came into the american psyche (the vietnam. Syndrome), which was a psychological distaste for americas acting as a world wide police force. By the end of the 1980s into the 1990s, not only did soviet entities lose force, the soviet union itself collapsed and disappeared. Another example is japan being surpassed as the worlds number 2 by china. China is now in competition with the united states as the number 1 position of the world. China is in an irreparable tail spin according to certain theorists. Summary: states need to be able to adapt to security needs to be able to maintain power. You can"t measure power unless you can identify that power in relation to someone of something.