Postwar America
11.9.2 Understand the role of military alliances.
Military alliances are used as a symbol of influence, as well as a deterrent from those who threaten to go to war otherwise.
11.11.2 Discuss the significant domestic policy speeches of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton (e.g., with regard to education, civil rights, economic policy, environmental policy).
11.9.3 Trace the origins and Geopolitical consequences
The problems that the Americans and the Russians faced was due to a period of high tension debates between the two countries leaders.
11.8.7 Describe the effects on society and the economy of technological developments since 1945.
Section 1
1.a) The key issues during the 1952 elections would have to be the Cold war, and the civil rights movement.
b) The checkers speech got a lot of backing for Nixon because previously people didn’t trust Nixon that much because he lied.
2. a)Brinkmanship was the term describing the action of going very nearly to war with Russia. Massive retaliation was the threat we had if Russia went to war with us. Then Russia got the Warsaw pact, its version of NATO.
b) Both we pacts to deter the other party from going to war with one another, the NATO was also used though to render aid to those who need it.
c) The weaknesses of Dulles’s policies was that all you would get out of it was M.A.D.
3. a) The conflicts in Egypt and the vietnam were caused by the tensions felt by
The unconditional support from alliances can be blamed to cause World War I. The nature of the alliances is laid out in the alliance document. The alliances stipulated assistance and contribution of the signing parties in the event of conflict. It can extend from money or logistic sponsorship, similar to the supply of materials or weapons, to military activation and a statement about war. Partnerships might likewise contain currency components, for example, trade agreements, investment or loans. It is best known to cause World War I. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, European nations formed, abolished, or restructured their own alliances. By 1914, the Great Powers of Europe split into two opposing alliance blocs. For quite a long time Europe had been a mixture of ethnic and regional competitions, political interests, contending desires, military dangers, suspicions and disorder. France and England were antiquated foes whose competition ejected into open fighting a few times between the fourteenth and mid nineteenth hundreds of years.
B. Support for #3: President Kennedy was most well-known for the Cuban Missile Crisis which began on October 14, 1962 and ended peacefully on October 28, 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest America had ever come to nuclear war (Reeves). President Kennedy wanted to put an end to racial discrimination.
Over the past several decades, there have been great tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union which continue into what is known today as Russia. Suspicions and tensions between these two countries increased greatly during and directly after World War II, particularly between 1941 and 1949.
In 1949, the United States signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and other capitalist states . Through this treaty, the countries agreed to defend each
Alliances were formed with the European countries formed partnerships to protect each other. There were two different alliances, one was the Triple Alliance was between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Then there was the Triple Entente was and alliance between France, United Kingdom, Russia. In the midst of all the war the nations that remained Neutral were Spain, Portugal, Greece, Serbia, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire, and Montenegro (Doc. D). In document E it states that France and Russia have both equal desires to preserve peace, and only want to make sure that they meet the needs for a defensive war. Then in Document G shows a comic of how the different Allies had “ganged up” on Germany and Austria, then there was Italy that had been
In 1949 the US formed a mutual defense alliance with Western Europe called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Truman had a hard time convincing Congress that this organization was necessary on account of American sentiment previously being avoidant of entangling alliances. The NATO charter pledged that an attack on one of the member nations constituted an attack on all of the members. Stalin’s aggressive actions at Berlin accelerated the American effort to use military means to contain communism. So the implementation of this alliance represented Truman’s willingness to disregard the tradition of neutrality. The Soviets also create an alliance called the Warsaw Pact countries that had the equivalent ambitions as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
During the year 1879 to 1914 many alliances were signed between countries and it meant that the countries were pledged to help each other in war if one of their allies declared war. The details of these alliances is such as:
Western Germany was to be remilitarized. The United States and other members of NATO decided to make Western Germany a member of NATO. The Soviets saw this to be a direct threat and responded with the Warsaw Pact. America saw the Warsaw Pact as a way of the Soviets spreading communism. The United States felt by including Western Germany in the Pact it would put them in danger of a new war and create a threat. Document 3 shows how NATO responded to the creation of the Warsaw Pact. This document outlines the conditions under which Western Germany agrees to ally with the members of NATO. By the United States uniting with Western Germany the Soviets felt they needed to make alliances. Document 4 is important in relation to the Warsaw Pact because it details the event. The United States admittance of Western Germany was a strategy in dealing with the USSR. The Soviets would use Western Germany in terms of promoting themselves with use of propaganda. Also indebting them and reminding of the Soviets role in liberating them. The United States no longer wanted this influence to take place. The purpose of this document was to inform people about why the Warsaw Pact was such a controversial
Analyze the influence of the following on American-Soviet relations in the decade following the Second World War:
The main claim in Nixon’s “Checkers” speech was that he was innocent from accepting funding for his personal
This legislation called for massive economic aid to Europe and believed that the benefits outweigh the costs. The theory was that by stabilizing Western Europe, the United States would reap the benefits of economic prosperity and increased American influence overseas. Similarly, President Truman also established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 to further the union of Western countries. This legislature was not only important because it bound twelve nations under an alliance, but it was also the first time the United States pledged to go to war if another country was attacked. The idea in establishing this was that by creating a unified front, it would dishearten the Soviets from continuing their expansion.
A main factor that caused the base tensions in Cold War was the opposing political systems set in place. The United States had a capitalist political system versus the communist system The Soviet Union lived by. The United States thought that the Soviets were trying to spread communism and
Things especially heated up between the two when the Soviet Union would not accept the offer from America to give reparations for after the war.
Leffler stated that “they were worried that the Kremlin might exploit these weaknesses to alter the balance of power… so they harnessed the economic principles of the open door to the national security interests of the United States. (Heilbrunn) Leffler describes the Cold War in this way: “…neither the Americans nor the Soviets sought to harm the other in 1945… The protests that each country’s actions evoked from the other fueled the cycle of distrust as neither could comprehend the fears of the other, perceiving its own actions as defensive. Herein rests the classic security dilemma… U.S. officials… chose to contain and deter the Russians rather than to reassure and placate them, thereby accentuating possibilities for a spiraling cycle of mistrust.” (Heilbrunn) In 1947, Ernest Bevin, British foreign secretary, “believed it essential to construct a defensive military alliance in Western Europe; and in December of that year he proposed to George C. Marshall an alliance that would guarantee Western European security and prevent further Soviet aggrandizement.” (Heilbrunn) This proposal was realized in the North Atlantic Treaty and the establishment of NATO in 1949. Only an alliance such as this would halt Soviet infiltration and the gradual collapse of one western wall after another. According to Heilbrunn, the Soviet military buildup started after 1945. By 1950 American intelligence estimates suggested that the Soviets
The Soviet Union and the west also formed political alliances to combat the other side. Western Europe and the United States formed NATO,a military pact. The Soviet Union created a similar pact,the Warsaw Pact, between the states within the Soviet Union. These military coalitions put a greater threat behind the growing conficts by involving more countries. These military alliances were supplemented by two edicts set by the Soviet Union and the United States. The United States issued the Truman Doctrine, which stated that they would support those countries resisting communism. Likewise, the Soviet Union later issued the Brezhnev Doctrine which decreed that the Soviet Union would intervene with force in order to protect communism in its satellites.