· 2 to 3 slides:Summary of how international affairs of the 1980s contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War…
D. NATO – 12 original say an attack on one is an attack on all – isolationists…
The author’s purpose was to show what happened in the Cold War that impacted Europe today. The author uses primary sources to demonstrate the impact of the U.S strategies in the Cold War, but uses secondary sources to reflect on their strategies. This is an opinion article towards the conclusion the author gives his opinion on how he would have done things. “Another way of quietly influencing…
At issue where Europe is concerned is the fissure that has arisen in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). France and Germany's opposition to a U.S.-led war against Iraq has brought into question the very essence of NATO. By thwarting NATO's ability to protect Turkey (a NATO member) against attack in the war, France and Germany have broken a central tenet of the NATO Charter—that an attack against one NATO member is an attack against all NATO members. While attempting to create a counterweight to U.S. power, France and Germany may succeed in shattering an alliance that the Soviet Union could not destroy. This may have serious consequences in the West's ability to wage a war on terrorism, and on future actions involving NATO. What is likely to emerge as a result is an enhanced role for individual European countries in international affairs, while the role of NATO could diminish with…
While most Americans call the war the, “American-Mexican War”, the other side would call it, “The U.S. Invasion”. If it is God’s reasoning to expand the U.S. territory as far as possible, then is it also his reasoning to murder those upon their own land? It is not only unjustified to take the land from the Mexicans, however to become inhuman enough to kill those while doing so is unspeakable. There was no need for any more conflict at that time, so to start a war was not ideal for anyone. Would a war be more beneficial or cost efficient than a compromise or a buyout? The Mexicans had only simple ideas of allowing outsiders into their land to increase population. In the words of General Francisco Mejia, “The right of conquest has always been…
In 1948, NATO (Or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was formed, which was an Alliance of North American and Western European nations. As stated in Document 4, its aim was to "restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area," using force of necessary. However the USSR felt this was a cloak by the United States to hide imperialistic strategies. The Soviet government's response to this was the Warsaw Pact, signed in Poland in 1955. This was a similar alliance with Russia's eastern European satellites. In Document 9 you can see the effects of this alliances, dividing NATO members from Warsaw Pact members with an invisible iron…
In Chapter 10, America Under Fire, two subtitles in the chapter are called “Strains in the Unipolar Order” and “Retreat from Multilateralism”. These two topics help the reader understand the tension and thought processes American had in the late 1990’s. The relative calm of the late 1990s affirmed Americans’ long-standing belief that the peace, is the natural state of global affairs, and that the spread of democracy and free markets would produce violent conflict. In addition to the unrest over globalization, a second source of tension confronted the makers of American foreign policy after the Cold War: the growing rift between Washington and the array of international institutions the United States had actively supported since World War II.…
When Germany and Japan were defeated, new positions of leadership were available. The Soviet Union quickly moved in to capture Germany and Eastern Europe. China, France, and Great Britain were too weak to continue in the war, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union to butt heads. These allies were determined not to repeat the mistakes of World War I, in which the countries failed to set up an organization to enforce world peace. The United Nations was born. It was a “declaration on liberated Europe” which was ultimately a pledge in which liberated nations could create “democratic institutions of their own choice”. The EU still stands strong today and maintains international peace. Although at this time, new tensions began to surface between the United States and the Soviet Union. The struggle for the end of that totalitarian regime started what we call the Cold War. Several small wars broke out and it was questionable if this power struggle would ever end.…
On March 12, 1947, President Truman delivered a speech to congress expressing the need to aid impoverished, free nations, such as Greece and Turkey in efforts to protect them from the Soviet subjugation and totalitarian regime. In addition, just a few months later George Marshall suggests helping the economically, socially, and politically damaged Europe, so they can revive a normal working economy restoring economic health to the world and also prevent weak nations from turning to communism. Seeking further help in preventing the advancement of communism over the entire world, the United States, Canada, and ten Western European nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, to defend themselves against aggressive communism. The U.S.’s alliances and aid to potential communist victims worked as a weapon against the Soviet Union’s threatening escalation of…
This paper tries to compare and contrast two articles on the Cold War that give two different perspectives on the events that happened. One is Arthur Schlesinger’s “The Origins of the Cold War”, and the other is Christopher Lasch’s article “The Cold War, Revisited and Revisioned”. These articles represent the same historical events interpreting them through two opposite perspectives – the orthodox American view that states that the Cold War was the “brave and essential response of free men to communist aggression” (Schlesinger, p.477) in Eastern Europe and the revisionist perspective that states that the USA abandoned the policy of collaboration and undertook a course of aggression to expel Russian influence from Eastern Europe. This paper will provide evidence that the Cold War did not result from a Soviet attempt of expansion in Europe. It was just the only possible result from the clash of interests between the two greatest powers after World War II – USA and the Soviet Union – the first one aggressively trying to promote capitalism throughout Europe, and the second one aiming at…
Essay 1 Octavian Stoch The former Soviet Union is the chief reason for the onset of the Cold War, as a result of their aggressive actions they forced the United States to protect their own interests and therefore world peace. However, in order to see why the Soviet action constituted United States intervention we must take a look back at the end of World War II, the Yalta Conference. This meeting was to begin the long process of the rebuilding of Europe and the establishment of free elections in previously occupied territories to determine what democratic institution would be installed . Where the Capitalist nations and the Communist nation of Soviet Russia differed was their definition of democracy.…
For Americans and many in the world, the Cold War dominated international relations from 1945-1991. Only the nuclear balance of terror prevented this uneasy peace from becoming all out war, and few if any events could be understood outside of the context of this bipolar rivalry. As the Cold War came to an end, some thought we had witnessed "an end to history."(1) Instead, we have witnessed a fundamental change in the logic of world politics. The United States has had difficulty developing a clear and coherent foreign policy in this new era. The New World Order of President Bush and the strategy of engagement and enlargement of President Clinton seem vague and ambiguous when compared to the clarity and simplicity of the American policy of containment during the Cold War. While this policy of containment rapidly gained a consensus both among the American foreign policy elite as well as the mass public after World War Il, it did represent a fundamental shift of relations with the Soviet Union from one of wartime cooperation. Explaining the origins of the Cold War has been one of the most common and contested topics in the study of American diplomatic history, and the end of the Cold War has changed how historians examine and interpret this period. Increasingly, scholars have gained access to documents, especially on the Soviet side, that have allowed them to go beyond past conjecture and utilize archival evidence. The end of the Cold War has removed much of the passion that surrounded writing Cold War history while scholars and states were still living it. This increased detachment has allowed historians to move from placing blame to recognizing the ideological conflict that was at the center of the Cold War's origins.…
For the nature of this essay, peace is defined as a period without a conflict involving fatalities of more than 1,000 military members. The United States and the U.S.S.R. knew that a war could be started by the push of the button, 2 pounds of force. There are many reasons for why a war was not started during the 43-year period, one of which is known at the Security Dilemma. Part of the Offense-Defense Model, the Security Dilemma is a Neorealist tradition whereas one state increases its security it subsequently decreases the security of others. In relation to the Cold War, Gaddis writes that after the fall of Germany, “there was less of an incentive for these former allies… to keep their anxieties under control. Each crisis that arose fed the next one, and with the result that a divided Europe became a reality.” The Security Dilemma is just one of the possible outcomes of the Offense-Defense…
Ideas are the corner-stones of International Relations and Diplomacy. These ideas are often titled theories, a term that grants the ideas a certain degree of credibility in application, though they remain theories; they cannot be proved., only applied intelligently in hopes of arriving at the correct conclusion. One theory concerning the Balance of Power (BOP) falls under the Neo-Realist analysis of conflict within the International system. This Essay will attempt to apply this theory, somewhat retroactively to the situation in Bosnia and more specifically, to that in Kosovo. Retroactively, because the essay will principally examine how these theories can be applied to the history of the Kosovo conflict, dating to the present. Secondly, it will undertake to detail the current situation in that region in these same terms, providing an accurate description of the status quo. Finally, the Balance of Power Theory will be employed in a prospective manner, to offer a solution to the situation in terms of actually creating a balance of power within the country of Bosnia.…
With the break-up of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in the early 1990s, both the newly established states on its territory and the international community in general were once again forced to confront the many problems of state succession. There is no customary international law that can be applied to different types of succession and, moreover, attempts to codify international law in this area have so far not been very successful (1). In the absence of established international legal rules, how the international community actually behaves in matters of state succession varies according to the circumstances of each individual case.…