The raw freshness of the attacks on September 11 inspires amnesia regarding other national security crises: the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis. America has never been without military involvement in the world, at least not since WWII dictated that our troops help stabilize areas like Germany, and since the Cold War necessitated our involvement in conflicts worldwide-from South America to Southeast Asia. But September 11 was the first time many Americans had to confront the reality of an attack on U.

A realistic perspective, as opposed to one that emphasizes the national character of America as an exportable commodity, is what will best prevent attacks on American soil and what will allow our nation to flourish most easily in the international community. Granted, it may not inspire the "unity" of the American people as called for in the 9/11 Commission Report, but what a realistic foreign policy will do is protect those same people from anti-American attacks.

This phenomenon of a certain type of "national character" is not new. It has been evidenced in recent U.S. history, during the Cold War. During these years, the idea of communism as inherently evil and of capitalism and democracy as being the only true means of freedom inspired the American people to unite behind the threat of the Soviet Union. The spread of communism was enough to justify American intervention in wars like Vietnam, and although this conflict eventually split the nation bitterly, our involvement in it was based on the need to unite behind a common enemy, that of communism, which was being fostered in Southeast Asia. This policy of intervention when communism appeared to be gaining strength anywhere was demonstrated and supported as a foreign policy in our Cold-War era involvement in Latin America as well; threats to the national character of America must be fought at any price (Hook and Spanier 2004).

During a time of crisis or threat, as the post-September 11 period has demonstrated, Americans come together in the common goal of defeating an enemy. After Pearl Harbor, Americans united in their support of joining the Allied powers in WWII. The Cold War brought with it its own enemy, the Soviet Union, which enabled the American people to rally around the cause of defeating Communism. This conflict also inspired the national unity that came after the Cuban missile crisis; in short, anytime the United States is directly threatened, the American people unite behind their perception of the enemy and in their desire to protect our nation and its attributes. During WWII, this meant a collective unity against the Japanese and Germany, during the Cold War and Cuban missile crisis, it meant uniting against Communism and anti-capitalism, and in today's society it means unity against terror.

In these situation, the national character model is impossible to uphold-there could be allies whose practices are antithetical to our nati

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Approximate Word count = 1636
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)