1. A Brief History of Nuclear Power 2. The U.S. as Superpower: Strength and Its Limits—Part I

1. 1. A Brief History of Nuclear Power2. The U.S. as Superpower: Strength and Its Limits—Part I History 203 June 5, 2012

2. Announcements • The final exam is scheduled for Monday, June 11, 8 – 10 a.m. (!) in our regular classroom. Here are the instructions and essay question prompts. • Discussion sections this week will spend time on final exam review. • Papers on US Environment since 1945 will be returned in sections this week.

3. A Short History of Nuclear Energy

4. Electricity Sources 2010

5. Energy Production by Source 1949-2010

6. The Military Roots of the Peaceful Atom: Nautilus Nuclear Submarine, 1954

7. Nuclear Power: The First Generation • Shippingport (Pennsylvania) first working US power reactor, 1957 • Three Mile Island (Pennsylvania) 1979—Was fiction stranger than truth?

8. Antinuclear Activism • Through most of the postwar period, Americans expected great things from nuclear power. Experts predicted it would be “too cheap to meter” and would provide limitless supplies of clean energy • By the early 1970s, however, opposition to nuclear power was growing.

9. Growing Protest • Mass protests at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in New Hampshire and elsewhere combined elements of environmentalism and peace activism

10. Chernobyl Disaster, April1986—Two or Three Days After

11. Economic Woes • Nuclear power plants frequently encountered huge cost overruns and long construction delays. • A partially-completed nuclear cooling tower at Satsop, WA after construction halted in 1982.

12. Nuclear White Elephants • The demolition of the closed Trojan Nuclear Plant near Portland in 2006 was a dramatic sign of the long decline of first-generation nuclear power.

13. A Nuclear Renaissance? Nuclear Industry Hopes

14. The First New Nuclear Plant in 35 Years • Groundwork begins for a nuclear project in Georgia • Nuclear power supporters point out that nuclear reactors don’t burn fossil fuels and don’t emit greenhouse gases.

15. Fukushima There are many reasons why nuclear energy in the United States is unlikely to play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. The disaster at Fukushima, Japan in March 2011 has probably set back any nuclear renaissance in the United States for a long time.

16. Fall of the Berlin Wall: 1989

17. Making America the Only Superpower • The End of the Cold War • A fossilized Soviet system • Gorbachev and Rising Expectations • The Soviet disaster in Afghanistan • Ronald Reagan, Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”), and Economic Pressure • The Transformation of China: From Revolutionary Maoism to a “Socialist Market System” (Is this a code name for capitalism?) • China as a rival superpower?

18. Sources of American Dominance • American Economic Might • Military Power • Expanded military spending • New military technology—the “Electronic Battlefield” • New media and communications technologies • American Popular Culture as a Global Force

19. DOD Budget 1947-2010($Billions, 2009$)Source: National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2009, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) March 2008

20. Military vs. Other Discretionary Spending—2009 US Budget

21. US Military Overseas

22. Limits of American Power • Military Victories and “Nation Building” defeats • Somalia 1992-93 • George W. Bush, Second Presidential Debate, Oct. 11, 2000 about Somalia—”[It] started off as a humanitarian mission and it changed into a nation-building mission, and that's where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building.” • Haiti 1994 • Afghanistan • Iraq • Other major powers (Russia, China, European Union) as Partners or Rivals?

23. Battle of Mogadishu, Oct. 1993 • US soldiers in street fighting in Somalia’s capital. • The setting of the book and film Black Hawk Down

24. Limits of Power (Continued) • “Blowback”: Unintended consequences of American domination • Nuclear proliferation • American unilateralism: Rejection of International Agreements: Global Warming, International Criminal Court, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty • Globalization: Is global corporate power a rival to American national power?

25. Globalization and National Power • Global corporations and transnational loyalties • Former CEO of Dow Chemical Company: "I have long dreamed of buying an island owned by no nation and of establishing the World Headquarters of the Dow Company on the truly neutral ground of such an island, beholden to no nation or society."  • Union Carbide: "It is not proper for an international corporation to put the welfare of any country in which it does business above that of any other." • Boeing CEO: His goal is to "rid [Boeing] of its image as an American group."

26. Living within Military Limits? The “Powell Doctrine” • From General Colin Powell’s 1992 article: • “Is the political objective we seek to achieve important, clearly defined and understood? Have all other nonviolent policy means failed? Will military force achieve the objective? At what cost? Have the gains and risks been analyzed? How might the situation that we seek to alter, once it is altered by force, develop further and what might be the consequences?”

27. Powell Doctrine (continued) • “When the political objective is important, clearly defined and understood, when the risks are acceptable, and when the use of force can be effectively combined with diplomatic and economic policies, then clear and unambiguous objectives must be given to the armed forces. …We must not… send military forces into a crisis with an unclear mission they cannot accomplish….” • Colin Powell and the “Pottery Barn Rule”: “You break it, you own it.”