FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE
Updated, March 9
History 380
Prof. Grimsley
Winter Quarter 2008
The final exam will be divided into three parts:
Part I, 20 minutes: "objective" (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank) on material covered since the second midterm exam.
Part II. 40 minutes: Essay question covering Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars.
Part III. 48 minutes: Essay question covering Shannon French's The Code of the Warrior and Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars .
Part I.
The objective questions will be drawn from the following terms (naturally, some of these terms will figure prominently in the essays as well):
pike
smoothbore musket
bayonet
“Crisis thesis”
Thirty Years' War
Sack of Magdeburg
“tax of violence”
Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
balance of power
English Civil War
Louis XIV
Michel le Tellier
Vauban fortress
French Revolution (1789-1799)
cannonade at Valmy (1792)
levee en masse
nationalism
Napoleon
strategic net
strategic envelopment
Jomini
Clausewitz
“trinity of war”
imperialism
“Scramble for Africa”
Social Darwinism
Rorke's Drift
Nemesis
quinine
Maxim gun
total war
Western Front
Lost Generation
Second Thirty Years' War (1914-1945)
Dresden, 1945
Mao Tse-tung (Mao Ze Dong)
“triangularity of struggle”
guerrilla
terrorism
“moral camouflage”
dau tranh
historical analogy
"Why They Hate Us" Question
neoconservatism
traditional conservatism (paleoconservatism)
Old Left
liberalism
Irving Kristol
Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
Powell Doctrine
Bush Doctrine
Al-Qaeda
WMDs
globalization
"Functioning Core"
"Non-Integrating Gap"
Part II. Essay on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars
One or two of these questions will be posed on the final exam. You will be required to answer ONE of them. In each case, you may agree or disagree with the response Walzer would probably give, but you must set forth Walzer's appraisal before explaining why you agree or disagree with it.
1. A friend tells you that "ethics of war" is an oxymoron. (An oxymoron is a phrase that contains two contradictory terms; for example, "cruel kindness.") How would you respond to this?
2. Using arguments from Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, do you think that the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was justifiable? If so, on what grounds was it justifiable? If not, why not? For purposes of the question, assume that Iraq did have unaccounted for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and ties to Al-Qaeda. If it was known within the Bush administration that the evidence of WMDs and ties to Al-Qaeda was very open to question, would this change your response?
(Note: Although you may respond based simply on material presented in class, in considering your response, you may find it helpful to consult the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. This joint resolution, passed October 16, 2002, has been much in the news of late because presidential candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton voted in favor of it, while Sen. Barack Obama states that he would not have done so had he been a member of the U.S. Senate at the time.)
3. A U.S. infantry platoon in Baghdad is taking severe fire from a nearby insurgent stronghold. The platoon (about 40 men) is armed only with rifles (M-16s) light automatic rifles (Squad Automatic Weapon), and two light machine guns. The platoon leader gives a SITREP (situation report) to his company commander and requests artillery support. The company commander asks if civilians are in the vicinity. The platoon leader replies that there are. He adds that he has already lost 2 men killed in action and 8 wounded. (Under standard U.S. doctrine, a unit that suffers 25 percent losses is considered "destroyed.") Bear in mind that an artillery shell normally kills or wounds nearly every person within 50 yards of its impact. If you were the company commander, would you authorize artillery support in this situation? What ethical guideline from Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars would Walzer consider to be most useful in this situation?
Part III. Final Essay
Here is the mandatory question that will be asked on the final exam:
Making specific use of Shannon E. French's The Code of the Warrior, Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, and material discussed in class on the warrior code and the problem of moral judgment in war, explain the moral difference, if any, between the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks, killing 3,000+ civilians; and the crew of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, killing 100,000+ civilians. Take care to use reasoned analysis, not emotionally based rhetoric. [You will find especially useful Chapter 9 of French's Code of the Warrior and Part 4 ("Dilemmas of War") of Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars.]