US Action During the Cold War

Over the course of history, the strategic environment has changed rapidly and is now more complex than ever before – it is currently characterized by unpredictability and disorder, and may yet manifest itself in the collapse of nuclear armed nations, destabilizing conflict in geo-politically vital regions, and humanitarian crises. A world of disparate actors – not all nation states – now exists. Unpredictable events will continue to cause strategic surprise. The widespread effects of past conflicts such as World War II, Vietnam and the Iraq war are still being felt and have created significant strategic repercussions. The failures of these conflicts are the result of our military and political leaders’ failure to quickly adapt to wartime conditions. This occurs because of a general refusal to commit to a military culture of learning that encourages serious debate, critical assessments of our military operations, and challenges to our doctrine in the face of emerging change. Additionally, leaders have struggled with the critical responsibility of forecasting and providing for a ready force, one that is well-resourced and prepared to conduct future operations. It is the responsibility of our military and political leaders to send our military to war with a ready force, and a strategy that will ultimately result in victory. But understanding war and warriors is critical if societies and governments are to make sound judgments concerning military policy.

“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” This declaration, made by former President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, is part of the Truman Doctrine, and was the basis for U.S. involvement in Western Europe throughout the Cold War. Although the North Atlantic Treaty, and the resulting North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was established during the Cold War “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” NATO has persisted since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. This essay will seek to examine the U.S. decision to create and participate in NATO. It will begin by providing a history of NATO and the U.S. decision to participate in NATO before considering how this decision is both an instance of continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy since former President George Washington’s Farewell Address. The essay will conclude by considering the legacy of this decision and its impact on U.S. foreign policy. While this essay will consider the period of time leading up to the formation of NATO and will briefly touch on the present day, greatest consideration will be paid to the time period immediately preceding and following the formation of NATO in 1949.

Tensions during the Cold War sparked many changes in American legislation, altering the way many lived their lives. One of the most obvious areas of change is in education, with the fear of Soviet dominance causing transformations across the nation. The severe adjustment of government education changed the way students learned, the information taught in the classroom, and the overall view of education in the eyes of the public in a positive way.

I believe that the United States’ involvement in the Cold War had a significant influence on the debate as well as the Supreme Court decision of the Brown v. Board of Education case.

When Randy picks up Helen and her children, he notices that his niece and nephew are far more accepting of nuclear annihilation then the older generation. He tells Helen, "Maybe one day I 'll get conditioned. I 'll accept things, like the children" (Frank 85). Randy is commenting on the effect that the political climate of the time has on the children. Frank wrote the novel in the 1950 's, a time when the U.S. was engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Most likely, Peyton and Benjamin grew up surrounded by discussion and predictions of nuclear warfare. Today 's children have grown up in a post 9/11 world similarly surrounded by fear mongering. Like Peyton and Benjamin, we have grown up in an era that is shaped by an event. While

In the article, Why has America Stopped Winning Wars? the author, Dominic Tierney, asserts that the United States has entered an age of “unwinnable conflict”. Tierney argues that since the end of World War II excessive military power, an international shift from state-on-state war to internal conflict, the emergence of non-state actors and peace between states have contributed to The United States’ inability to win major conflicts. Tierney uses mistakes in strategy and tactical failures to support his argument.

After World War II, the United Nation was established; however, there were many different perspectives among its permanent members: China, Russian, US, Britain, and France. Each country had different ways to maintain their influences over the world. During the cold war, many countries were established by using the violence to gain the power. During the Vietnam War, the Vietcong organization under support of Soviets Union and North Vietnam continued use terror as the tool to attack South Vietnam government and fear the people lived within. To gain more power and more influences to other half of the world, Soviet Union and its allies such as Syria, Libya secretly supported the terror group and used them as a political tool to break down the Western countries. The terror groups such as PFLP and the PLO usually targeted to citizen of Israel, and US allies. The attack during the Olympic 1972 became most effective for terrorists when Israel had to free fifty prisoners to exchange hostages. Although the ending of tension and completion between the Soviet Union and the United States led to the termination of the Soviet Union, and many of the terrorist of groups based in the United States and Western Europe began wither after Communism fell, terrorism did still survive. In order to maintain and stay alive, terrorism needs to have a sponsor. The state sponsors of terrorism are between Iran, Syria, and their sponsorship group Hezbollah. The states and organizations of the United

During the cold war, the Soviet Union wanted to take over other countries and spread communist throughout the worlds. The United States was not a big fan of communist and didn’t like it at all because belief democracy and capitalism, which the USA believes, was a better government. As the result, U.S adopted a policy of containment, which according to the dictionary, it means “policy of preventing the expansion of a hostile country or influence.” But the question is how did the U.S contain communist? They contain communist by airlift in berlin, war between south and North Korean, and Cuba missile crisis.

The Cold War was a period of continuous tension between the United States and the Soviet Union lasting from 1945 to 1989. As the two nations emerged from World War II as world superpowers, the race for supremacy commenced. While American democracies consisted hostility towards the idea of a communist state, the Soviet Union aimed to dominate the Eastern hemisphere with their communist ideals. Although the two superpowers never engaged in full scale combat, their rivalries produced a long period of mutual distrust and antipathy. American presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan all played large, impactful roles during the Cold War, however, they each attempted to lead their country to peace in respective ways.

All of the stands and actions that a nation takes in from its relationships with other countries is foreign policy. It involves treaties, alliances, trade, defense budget, foreign economic and military aid, United Nations, nuclear weapon testing and negotiations. Foreign policy has great other matters to, but the basic purpose of this policy has always been for it to protect the security of the United States as whole. From the start of Foreign Policy to 150 years later, this policy was built largely around the policy of isolationism. This policy or in other words, doctrine, isolated a country from the affairs of other nations by declining alliance entrance, economic commitment, and international agreements. Foreign policy has provided countries

As the U.S. continues to fight the Global War on Terrorism, Barnett makes a compelling argument that that the U.S. will continue to utilize military action within those regions and countries that have been unable to accept globalization. Additionally, future engagements will not be with countries of similar size to the U.S., rather smaller states that have significant political, social, and economic challenges. These regions prove to be a threat to the U.S. strategic policy and the theory of globalization and free democracy.

The United States and the Beginning of the Cold War a) There were three cracks evident between the US-Soviet relationship. America and Russia argued about the opening of a second front against Germany. Stalin’s plans where that America and Britain invade western Europe so the Russian Red Army gets stronger and pressure on them is relieved. Roosevelt promised a second front by the time of 1942, but the delay of plans for an Anglo-American invasion of German-occupied France angered Stalin because his plans to make his Army Stronger are not going to be easily fulfilled since the western countries would still be powerful. The invasion of France was delayed until D-Day which angered Stalin.

There is no doubt that the Soviet leadership imposed repressive, and when challenged brutal dictatorships on Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Albania and Czechoslovakia. But it is equally clear that the Soviets were initially willing to accept governments friendly to them in these countries until the west began to make threatening moves both on their ideology and their security. During this post war period it was the United States with its atomic domination, not the Soviet Union which bares the biggest share for creating the cold war, and all that it implied for the rest of the world.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States aimed to contain communism all over the globe. The Middle East was a strategic location, considering that it contained a huge percentage of Earth’s oil, which was a vital resource, while the Suez Canal was a key feature, due to its geographical location. By diminishing the influence of communism in the Middle East, the United States achieved its objective of spreading its political and economic ideals. American actions in the Middle East predominantly were aligned with U.S. value of capitalism. Despite the fact that, some of these actions in this region such as Operation Ajax and the Suez Crisis, contradicted the value

The US response to terrorism after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, marked a major departure in its policy since before then, terrorism was handled as a law enforcement issue with hardly a strategy in place. The aftermath shock still determines the forging of policies for counterterrorism. By 2003 the official position of the United States was set by framing the threat as a war against ‘terrorism of global reach. The implications of which was clear: The United States could not lose. Though US had declared war on social problems such as poverty and drugs in the past, for the first time terrorism became the major threat to national security and therefore the solution involved the use of military force with victory as the outcome. It should be noted that the word ‘war’ was both a diagnostic and a prescription. This paper summarizes and assesses the US Strategy for combating terrorism as it has evolved over the years from 2003 to 2011, focusing on the changes in the US approach to and understanding of counterterrorism within both the domestic and international environment. In order to fully assess the changes, the following shall be discussed below: nature of war and the enemy, the ends, ways and means of the strategies.