Case Study Intelligent Decision-Making Assignment Isaac Joy

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1 CASE STUDY Case Study: Intelligent Decision-Making Assignment Isaac Joy Liberty University GOVT483: Military Operations and Intelligence (D01) Professor Richard Baranzini May 8, 2023

2 CASE STUDY Incident Being Examined The incident this paper will examine is the construction of the Berlin Wall. This paper will identify decisions made during the construction of the Berlin Wall, look at decision-making overall regarding the Berlin Wall, and discuss solutions to the problem of the Wall itself Decisions Made Before and During the Construction of the Berlin Wall The Cold War was an interesting time for the entire world. Nations around the globe were forced to define themselves it’s either pro-America or pro-Soviet Union so that they would not be ostracized from world affairs. This divide could not be more evident than in the capital of Germany, Berlin. The division of Berlin and Germany was decided at the Potsdam conference at the end of World War II. The conference decided to divide Germany between the four main allies, which were the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France. Moreover, even though Berlin was in the sector of the Soviet Union, it was also divided between the same four allies, as it was the capital city of Germany (Shlaim, 2021). Because of the divisions in political ideology between the Allies, tensions rose almost immediately after the end of World War II. Because conditions were better in West Berlin when compared to East Berlin, people would flock to West Berlin. The decision was made by the East Germans to close the border between East and West Berlin in August 1961. At midnight on August 12-13, barbed wire began to be placed over a 100-mile area around West Berlin. This wall blocked East Germans from exiting their section of Berlin and going to West Berlin and barred those from West Berlin from traveling to East Berlin (Harrison, 2022). This created what was effectively a separate closed country in West Berlin and the rest of East Germany.

3 CASE STUDY The Issue of Appropriate Decision-Making in Regards to the Berlin Wall Whether or not an appropriate decision was made regarding the Berlin Wall is not easy to obtain. From the side of the Western allies, the decision to build the wall was barbaric. The free movement of people is a defining part of Western ideology. One man that led this charge was Willy Brandt, who was the governor of West Berlin at the time of the creation of the Berlin Wall. He condemned the actions that were taking place and protested to the Western allies about this inhuman treatment (Grunau, 2014). To those in the West, this decision was not appropriate in any fashion. This decision was just another example of the divide between the socialist and capitalist ideology and was one that was considered by the West as absurd. From the perspective of the East Germans, the issue of people leaving was a massive problem. The differences between the East and West sections of Germany were so stark that it had created a population crisis for the East Germans. Thousands of people were fleeing to the more prosperous West Berlin from the communist-controlled Eastern sector, and there was nothing that could be done to stop them from traveling. In just the year 1960 alone, almost 200,000 people left East Germany to go to the West. This was in addition to the more than 2.5 million people that had done the same after the end of World War II (Morris, 2019). If this had continued for the foreseeable, the population of East Berlin and East Germany as a whole would have plummeted. This would have caused massive destabilization for the nation and would have shown them to be inferior to the capitalist West. Alternative Solutions to the Problem The main solution to the problem of the Berlin Wall was simply to not build the wall. Of course, as mentioned above, it is not as simple as not building a wall. Regardless, a more diplomatic solution was not possible at the time. The East Germans had a greater level of control

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