Activity Four

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

Incorporating the C.E.L.s:

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

Concept Application Lesson for: for:

• Sphere of Influence
• National Sovereignty
• Strategic Interests
• Nationalism
• National Security
• Foreign Intervention

This concept application activity provides students with an opportunity, using a historical situation, to gain a greater understanding of the concepts of sphere of influence, national sovereignty and foreign intervention. The changing nature of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and 1989 provides the background for this activity.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

• know that the national security of a nation will be affected by forces/events that occur outside that nation;
• know that nations, included in a sphere of influence of a more powerful nation, will find that their national decision making processes will be influenced by the interests/needs of that more powerful nation;
• know that a nation's desire and ability to intervene in the internal affairs of another nation will be influenced by the resources available to that nation and the actions of the second nation;
• know that nations often feel that the national sovereignty is endangered by undue foreign intervention in their internal affairs; and,
• know that prevailing international paradigms will influence the decision making and policies of nations.

Skills Development

The student will:

• practise making hypotheses based on reasonable assumptions and inferences;
• practise defining and applying criteria as a basis for making an evaluation;
• practise developing a grid that can be used to categorize and classify data; and,
• practise comparing and analyzing data and information in order to draw inferences.

Values Issues

The student will:

• discuss how a government, in attempting to meet the needs of the nation, identifies its policy priorities;
• discuss why the security of the nation is considered to be of a paramount importance to national governments;
• discuss how spheres of influence affect the nations within the sphere and the nation controlling that sphere; and,
• discuss how national sovereignty and spheres of influence seem to be conflicting forces?

Outline of the Activity

Review the following events and concepts with the students:

• sphere of influence;
• foreign intervention;
• Iron Curtain;
• Cold War;
• Brezhnev Doctrine; and,
• national security.
• national sovereignty,

Review/contrast the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 with events in Czechoslovakia in 1989.

Have the students discuss how the concepts of national sovereignty and spheres of influence seem to be antagonistic concepts.

• Identify the critical attributes of national sovereignty and sphere of influence.
• Use several contemporary and historical situations to illustrate how the two concepts seem to come into conflict.

Have students brainstorm and develop a list of factors/conditions that would prompt a nation to send military forces into another sovereign nation.

Have the students also consider the resources a nation would need to enable it to possess enough military force to intervene in the affairs of other nations.

• Have students use the lists of resources needed for a nation to intervene in the affairs of other nations to compare events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and 1989.

• Ask each student or group to focus on several of the following questions.
  • What factors/conditions prompted Soviet intervention in 1968?
  • Were those factors/conditions present in 1968, present in 1989?
  • What resources/conditions were available to the Soviet Union in 1968 that enabled it to send military forces into Czechoslovakia?
  • Were those resources/conditions available to the Soviet Union in 1989?

Step Two

Groups will present their findings to the class for discussion. The class can attempt to come to agreement on a set of conditions that affected Soviet decision makers during those two specific events.

The students/groups will develop a grid that allows for a comparison of conditions in 1968 and 1989 that would address the following issue:

• Why did the Soviet Union not intervene militarily in Czechoslovakia in 1989 as it had in 1968?

The students will present their response to the key issue to the class for discussion.

Evaluation Strategy

Students could prepare a report on the nature of the relationship between Canada and the United States using their knowledge of the concepts of national sovereignty and sphere of influence.

The report could address such issues as:

• Does the United States have a sphere of influence in the western hemisphere?
• Is there any historical/contemporary evidence to support your response to that question?
• Does the United States influence/interfere in the domestic affairs of Canada? If so, is it done deliberately?
• How can a nation, such as Canada, protect itself against undue/unacceptable interference by a larger nation in its domestic affairs?
• Is the relationship between Canada and the United States a "good" relationship for both nations? Do both nations benefit from the relationship?