Activity Three

This activity is to accompany Unit Four of the Curriculum Guide.

Incorporating the C.E.L.s:

• Independent Learning
• Critical & Creative Thinking
• Personal & Social Values & Skills
• Numeracy
• Communication

Concept Development Lesson for:

• National Sovereignty
• Intervention
• Spheres of Influence
• Nationalism
• Foreign Policy
• Domestic Opinion
• Military Tactics

The concept development lesson allows students to investigate the relationship between foreign policy and domestic concerns and opinion. The actions of the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan provide the historic background for this activity.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

• know that nations, when considering foreign policy options, will sometimes consider military intervention, as one of those options;
• know that nations and/or populations often resist the intervention of other nations in their domestic affairs;
• know that domestic public opinion will influence national decision makers and thereby affect foreign policy; and,
• know that the military tactics used by a nation will be influenced by military necessities and international/domestic political considerations.

Skills Development

The student will:

• practise constructing a grid that can be used to categorize and classify data;
• practise comparing and analyzing data in order to make inferences;
• practise describing cause and effect relationships;
• practise defining and applying criteria as a basis for making an evaluation; and,
• practise making hypotheses based on reasonable assumptions and inferences.

Values Issues

The student will:

• discuss whether a nation should become involved in the internal affairs of another nation;
• discuss the criteria leaders should use in determining the foreign policy options, including foreign intervention, to institute;
• discuss the domestic considerations will impact the foreign policy decision-making process; and,
• discuss how the degree of national unity/support for a particular policy direction will affect that policy.

Outline of the Activity

Step One

Have student groups research specific aspects of American involvement in the Vietnam conflict and/or of the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan.

Areas of investigation could include:

• reasons for the involvement of the particular superpower in the particular conflict;
• the size and duration of the military involvement of the superpower in the conflict;
• costs of the involvement to the superpower in terms of casualties and financial expenditures;
• the degree of success of the superpower in achieving the goals that motivated their involvement; and,
• the military tactics used by the superpower in the conflict.

The class can construct a grid that lists the different aspects of the involvement and that provides a comparison of the actions of the United States and the Soviet Union. Students may wish to use the Student Worksheet: Comparison of Superpower Involvement in Specific Regional Conflicts.

• As the groups report their findings, the students can place the relevant information on the grid comparing the two superpowers.

Step Two

Have the students review the characteristics of a totalitarian regime and a democracy.

• Have the students focus their discussion on the how decision making occurs in the two systems of government.

• What is the level of public participation in national decision making in the two systems of government?
• To what degree is the public able to gain an accurate appreciation/awareness of current events?
• To what degree does public opinion influence the decision making of national leaders?

Have the students discuss how the two conflicts affected the domestic political scene in each nation.

• How did the "wars" affect the citizens, the domestic economy and the unity of each nation?
• Note the large antiwar movement in the United States during their involvement in Vietnam.
• Note the global nature of the antiwar movement of the 1960s.

Have the students assume the role of national decision makers during the periods of their nation's involvement in the particular conflicts.

• They are to prepare a short paper describing the "lessons" they have learned from the experience of being involved in conflicts such as Vietnam and Afghanistan.

• Some issues to consider:
  • What criteria should be used to determine when/if your nation should become involved in such conflicts?
  • How can a nation sustain public support for military involvement?
  • What are the social and political "costs"' of such involvement at both the domestic and international levels?