The Cold War, 1949-1963
25.1 American Commitment to Cold War: National Security Council Document 68
1. How NSC-68 influenced America’s response to Communist North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950 and to Communist expansion in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. The NSC-68 called for military assistance programs that would meet the requirements of our allies. Since South Korea was an ally, we assisted them in repelling the invasion of another communist nation. This help for South Korea meant that a communist nation would be weakened and therefore possibly cripple a potential ally for the Soviet Union. Also, South Korea would then respond to a call for aid if the Soviet Union ever attacked America.
2. The implications of NSC-68 for military spending by the United States and its allies. The NSC-68 stated that “budgetary considerations will need to be subordinated to the stark fact that our very independence as a nation may be at stake.” This meant that no matter how much it cost to build up our military, it would be done in order to protect our nation. Also, the rebuilding of European economies and defenses in order to try and contain Russian expansion without armed conflict, lead to the help of European powers having to return the favor of having their economies rebuilt with helping the United States in the Cold War.
3. The implications of the call for “covert actions” in NSC-68. Covert actions in the NSC-68 implies that the United States was not ready for another war so soon after World War II. Also, the Soviet Union had developed atomic weapons, which meant that the Soviet Union could cause mass destruction in the United States. However, America was unwilling to allow the communist nation of the Soviet Union to expand and gain enough power to crush the United States. So the government decided to use covert operations which would hurt their economy and cause unrest in the Soviet Union.
25.2 American Public Opinion and the Korean War, 1950-1952
1. What these responses reveal about attitudes toward American involvement in the Korean War. At the beginning, American opinion supported the war in Korea. However, as time went on, the American opinion changed because we no longer had a clear chance of winning the war. People then c...
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...tution given rights were ignored as well. The Red Scare was therefore similar to McCarthyism in the 1950s because it was a movement against communism that many people had. The Smith Act was passed which prevented the teaching of overthrowing the government and forced all foreign residents over the age of 14 to register their occupation and political beliefs.
3. How successful were United States responses to the Soviet Union in the 1950s? Were there alternatives to these responses? Eisenhower did a brilliant job in his responses to the Soviet Union in the 1950s. He kept the Soviet Union from expanding by rebuilding the economies of the war struck countries in Europe. Had technology developed that would allow the United States to spy on other countries armaments and military actions without exposing ourselves to any risk. Entered nine treaties that would make attacking the United States bring down a multitude of other countries attacks. Eisenhower also developed a large amount of nuclear devices that would allow the United States to respond to any attack with powerful force. Eisenhower could not have developed a better strategy to hold back the Russians.
Eisenhower’s dynamic conservatism now known as Modern Republicanism labeled him as a nonpartisan leader, who was fiscally conservative in reducing federal spending and socially moderate in maintaining existing social and economic legislation of the New Deal. With the policy shift of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, foreign policy in dealing with Communism went from containing it, to rolling it back. The Strategic Air Command was established as a fleet of super bombers that were equipped with nukes that would allow for massive retaliation in the place of a large standing army or navy, and the threat of massive retaliation was used to get the Soviets to surrender, and issued the Mutual Assured Destruction, where both sides knew that neither nation would declare nuclear war because it would result in total annihilation ...
The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...
The Korean War changed the face of American Cold War diplomacy forever. In the midst of all the political conflict and speculation worldwide, the nation had to choose between two proposed solutions, each one hoping to ensure that communism didn?t sweep across the globe and destroy American ideals of capitalism and democracy. General Douglas MacArthur takes the pro-active stance and says that, assuming it has the capability, the U.S. should attack communism everywhere. President Harry Truman, on the other hand, believed that containing the Soviet communists from Western Europe was the best and most important course of action, and that eliminating communism in Asia was not a priority.
I will examine just a few of President Eisenhower’s foreign policies and how they played in to the influencing the United States involvement in the Cold War and how the Cold War made its way to
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
...ills and built bomb shelters in preparation for possible nuclear warfare. The U.S. also built up its army and its air force, just to be prepared. Overseas, the U.S. enforced the Eisenhower Doctrine, which was a threat warning communist countries not to attack the Middle East, lest they wanted to begin and all out war. The United States also engaged in an Arms Race with the Soviet Union to see who could build the most powerful and destructive weapons and technologies. Brinkmanship was effective in preventing war because neither the United States or the Soviet Union was really prepared to fight yet another war.
A. No. After WW II, the US was responsible for South Korea and we owed it to the South Korean people to protect them. Further, if we had not protected South Korea, the Communist would have taken another step toward world domination.
U-2: Through the uses of a secret plane, U-2, flying above radar detection the United States was able to spy on the Soviet Union. This secret plane allowed the United States to take pictures and gather information. This was a great advantage for the United States, however, the Soviets detected the plane and shot it down. They, however, took the captain hostage and tried to force the Americans to admit they were spying. This did not work because America had a Soviet spy themselves so they made a trade. This was a slight advancement for America’s effort to contain communism because they were able to capture information and keep an eye on the Soviets
With the dropping of the Atomic bomb that ended WWII and the beginning of the Cold War, there was an irony of stability and turmoil in the United States. The start of the 1950s brought about many changes, from the Red Scare and threat of the possible spread of communism in America, to changes in political movements, civil rights movements, and another possible war, there were many significant events and people during this time.
Politicians from both the United States and the Soviet Union are the key players of the Cold War. They are the ones who took actions. President Reagan was credited for his bravery and initiation of the Zero-Option strategic plan. However, some of Reagan’s pugnacious speeches and decision to increase the United States defense spending provoked tension and calamitous accidents like the Korean Aircraft incident. The public’s fear of a nuclear war is another factor that pressured Reagan to create better relations with the Soviet Union. Although Reagan’s improbable Strategic Defense Initiative, claiming to prevent a nuclear war, received numerous criticism, it is a factor that influenced the Soviet Union to make an agreement. Reagan’s realization of the obsolete nuclear war and his initiation of the arms control talks led to a realistic and
During the Lyndon Baines Johnson presidential administration, both those policy makers who supported America’s involvement in Vietnam and those who opposed the war were part of the “containment generation.” They had reached political maturity during World War II and the early years of the Cold War and had experienced the intense anticommunism of the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. These leaders understood and applied the lessons of American nationalism, which had the primary message that the U.S. was the dominating nation that had to embrace its responsibility to aid and improve nations in America’s image. Therefore, when they saw that there was a threat of the spread of communism to areas of Southeast Asia, a majority of the politicians were in favor of the war, which was the most costly U.S. foreign policy intervention during the Cold War. President Johnson and others considered Vietnam a crucial Cold war battleground where an American loss would trigger dire domestic and international repercussions. This view led him to decide to enter the Vietnam War, which was a condemnable action considering that there were intensifying domestic issues that he neglected because he was engrossed in the Vietnam situation. Anti-War protesters, a few politicians, and even the South Vietnamese all pointed out that this war was immoral and was resulting in destruction. Ultimately, Johnson’s decision resulted in a huge price paid on America’s part for its determination to prevent the spread of communism through this war and in the deaths of more 50,000 in an overseas war that was extremely difficult to win and that deepened divisions at home.
They say that the pen is mightier than the sword, and in the case of the Truman Doctrine and NSC-68, this rings true. The world was seeing so many vast changes in power, so many revolutions, and so much blood shed due to war; it was hard to find a solid standing ground for the United States when it came to their stance on foreign policy. America has been a proud nation, and one that stood firm in its believes, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, many people in government disagreed on just what to do when it came to the issue of Soviet Union, the rise and fall of communism, and countries such as Greece and Turkey, failing due to the revolutions they were facing because of soviet uprising. President Truman, writer of the Truman Doctrine, would
In addition to the prevention of communism, President Truman’s decision was also influenced by the apprehensive environment during The Cold War. The Soviet Union was able to ruin the United States as the monopoly of nuclear bombs in 1949 when they successfully detonated their firs...
. The Venona project was a military investigation decoding Soviet cables going in and out the United States. These cables revealed hundreds of citizens and immigrants all on American soil that passed very confidential information to Soviet intelligence. (Citation here) This alarming discovery of spies and the success of them gathering information showed the Soviet Union and communisms ability to influence and control. It was espionage that led to the trails of Julius and Ethal Rosenburg. The Rosenburg were American citizens indited, convicted, and executed for passing confidential information to Soviet officials, which aided them in the duplication of nuclear weapons specifically the atomic bomb. Had the Soviet Union not gained access to such a vital piece of information, the pivoting point of psychological fear to actual physical fear spiraling a world wind of cause and effects around the world, then perhaps the fear its self would not have grown to such status. The Soviet Union’s espionage was a war on American soil, fought secretly to dismantle the super power of the United States.
Donaldson, Gary A. America at War since 1945: Politics and Diplomacy in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996.