...in Iraq have prompted some people on the left to make comparisons to the American experience in the Vietnam War. These people argue that the United States has put itself into an in-extractable “quagmire” from which there is no feasible withdrawal. This type of reasoning by historical comparison is not wise because no two historical events are completely alike. In the case of Iraq and Vietnam, extreme caution should be exercised in comparing two wars so far apart in historical circumstances, geography, and time. It becomes pretty obvious that the differences between the two conflicts greatly outnumber the similarities. This is especially true in the strategic and military dimensions of the two wars. There is simply no comparison between the environment, the scale of military presence, losses incurred over time, the quality of enemy resistance, the role and scope of enemy allies, and the duration of open warfare style combat. There are, however, two political parts of the Iraq and Vietnam wars that are similar in nature: our attempts at nation-building in a foreign culture, and our trying to sustaining domestic popular support in a long and drawn out war against insurgents. Policymakers should have an understanding of the reasons for U.S. political failure in South Vietnam, as well as for the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ failure to sustain popular support for the accomplishment of U.S. military objectives in Vietnam. A repeat of those failures in Iraq could have uncalculated...
Words: 1628 - Pages: 7
...in Iraq have prompted some people on the left to make comparisons to the American experience in the Vietnam War. These people argue that the United States has put itself into an in-extractable “quagmire” from which there is no feasible withdrawal. This type of reasoning by historical comparison is not wise because no two historical events are completely alike. In the case of Iraq and Vietnam, extreme caution should be exercised in comparing two wars so far apart in historical circumstances, geography, and time. It becomes pretty obvious that the differences between the two conflicts greatly outnumber the similarities. This is especially true in the strategic and military dimensions of the two wars. There is simply no comparison between the environment, the scale of military presence, losses incurred over time, the quality of enemy resistance, the role and scope of enemy allies, and the duration of open warfare style combat. There are, however, two political parts of the Iraq and Vietnam wars that are similar in nature: our attempts at nation-building in a foreign culture, and our trying to sustaining domestic popular support in a long and drawn out war against insurgents. Policymakers should have an understanding of the reasons for U.S. political failure in South Vietnam, as well as for the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ failure to sustain popular support for the accomplishment of U.S. military objectives in Vietnam. A repeat of those failures in Iraq could have uncalculated...
Words: 3524 - Pages: 15
...each other because of who they supported in a war. We see a great example of this in the book My Brother Sam is Dead, written by James and Christopher Collier. Keep in mind, this book was written during the Vietnam war. The book details the story of the Meeker family during the American revolution. The family, for the most part, upholds the crown. Yet, the eldest son, Sam, upholds the patriot cause. This creates a “tug-of-war”, and the youngest son Tim is being pulled on by his Tory father and his Patriot brother. The authors’ use many creative tools to slip in how they feel about war. Some would slip through an untrained, or unobservant eye, and others can smack you right in the face. I think that the biggest tool that the Colliers’ use is...
Words: 535 - Pages: 3
...Chapter 38 The Bipolar World THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE No sooner had World War II reached its bloody finish than the world was thrust into an even more frightening conflagration. The United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies faced off in a fundamental struggle to shape the postwar world. It was a contest based on power politics, competing social and economic systems, and differing political ideologies that lasted over fifty years and touched every corner of the globe. A spiraling arms race eventually brought the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. While the war remained technically cold, the fear of a nuclear disaster made it feel very different to the peoples of the world. OVERVIEW The Formation of a Bipolar World Despite the lingering general animosity and mistrust that the Soviets and Americans shared, at the heart of the cold war was a fundamental disagreement between political, economic, and social systems. Capitalism and communism, at least in the minds of the superpowers, remained mutually exclusive. The United States attacked communism and backed, at least in theory, liberalism. Consequently, the United States criticized the Soviet record on human rights and the suppression of civil and religious institutions. In turn the Soviets, led by Nikita Khrushchev, were critics of the failings of laissez‐faire capitalism and the wide gulf between rich and poor in western European and especially the United States...
Words: 2416 - Pages: 10
...Guide and Graphic Organizers – Unit 5: The Modern World, 1914 CE – present 1. World War I Students are required to know the causes, major events, and consequences of WWI 1) Causes a) Imperialism i) No new lands to expand into – some nations didn’t have many colonies (Germany, Italy) ii) Rivalries as nations competed for colonies iii) Sometimes armed conflict in colonial lands for control over resources b) Nationalism i) Pride in one’s nation, want one’s nation to be the best and most powerful ii) Fostered conflict as nations competed to be the best iii) Justified imperialism, militarism iv) Caused disruptions in multi-ethnic nations (Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire); rebellions, revolts against foreign rule c) Militarism i) Build up of a country’s military; keeping a large standing army ii) Nations expanded their militaries as a show of power iii) Arms race: each nation needed to have a standing army because their neighbors had standing armies d) Alliances i) Bismarck: German chancellor behind alliance system in Europe ii) Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy allied; France, Great Britain, Russia allied 2) Events a) Assassination of Archduke Frantz Ferdinand: Serbian terrorists kill the Austrian duke and his wife as they honeymooned in Sarajevo i) Austria demands Serbian submission ii) Russia offers to back Serbians in defying Austrians iii) Austria and Germany declare war on Serbia and Russia (along with Russia’s allies) b) Schlieffen Plan i) Germany knows...
Words: 3465 - Pages: 14
...Government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it.” George Washington’s statement makes explicit the social contract inherent in US citizenry: to enjoy our nation’s freedoms requires we as citizen’s to bear personal responsibility for defending them. And yet, today, while our nation continues to fight war on several fronts and must regularly contemplate new military interventions and increased domestic threats, less than 0.5 percent of our population serves in our armed forces. (Eikenberry & Kennedy) Futhermore, this minute percentage “ ... is disproportionately composed of racial, ethnic, and other demographic minorities.” (Kennedy) In part because of this gross disparity, few americans are forced shoulder any true sacrifice from our military actions. Not only is the familial sacrifice of having a loved one serve no longer widespread but the majority of us bear not the tanglible daily realization of being at war that past generations have known, including materials rationing. Even anti-war protests—like those that were a hallmark of our Vietnam War era—are less visible since we have moved to an all volunteer army. This lack of respresentational and fair accountability on our citizenry translates into less accountability on the part of the parties that govern our policies and therefore our military. This rift between those that serve, those that feel any effect and those that make military decisions is an...
Words: 2852 - Pages: 12
...Rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China When Nixon began his presidency, the relations between the United States and China had been fraught ever since Mao Zedong’s Communist Party achieved power and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Less than a year later in 1950, the Korean War, in which American troops died at the hands of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, further exacerbated the situation. The next twenty years were characterized by American opposition to UN membership for Mainland China, three crises between the two nations in the Taiwan Straits, threats of nuclear attack, and the fighting of a proxy war in Vietnam. But the two decades of hostility and nonrecognition of the People’s Republic of China was brought to an end during President Richard Nixon’s administration, marked most prominently by Nixon’s historic visit to Mainland China in 1972. In ending this hostile estrangement, Nixon thus executed the first stage of a momentous diplomatic revolution in U.S. policy towards Communist China. This turning point, as Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger suggested, also “changed the world” by transforming a Cold War U.S.-Soviet bilateral international system into a tripolar one, in which powers are balanced and national interests are secured. In the process of the rapprochement, President Nixon, managed to show the world his sound judgment, pragmatic perspective, and negotiation strategy in the field of foreign affairs....
Words: 3966 - Pages: 16
...The Black Panther Party “Us living as we do upside-down And the new word to have is revolution People don't even want to hear the preacher spill or spiel Because God's whole card has been thoroughly piqued And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey ……………..America was a bastard And a rapist known as freedom, free-DOOM Democracy, liberty, and justice were revolutionary code names………. WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA? WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA? WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA? WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA?” - Gil Scott Heron Freedom or free-doom is the pejorative option that confronts many group and individuals in this society such as The Black Panther Party. For centuries, exploitation and socio- economic decay of certain ethnic group has continually been indigenous tool of European colonialism with present day society reflecting this same ideology. The economic substructure often illustrate important core concepts within society, the mean of production is ultimate detriment of all of aspect and all its populous dynamics. The capitalistic nature of American society in juxtaposition to the exploitative mean of production is unsatisfactory for many and truly beneficial for some. Many individuals being exploited believed this to be self-evident, with labor and taxation being the oppressors mean of production. To truly understand to political organization of a party one understand its economic intention. The way in which history has unfolded has been purely...
Words: 1341 - Pages: 6
...for disabled people and child poverty. Harold Wilson, the son of a chemist and teacher, was born in Yorkshire during the First World War. In 1924, aged 8, he visited 10 Downing Street, which would eventually become his home. He studied Modern History for a year before transferring to Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, graduating with a first class BA. The Labour politician entered Parliament in 1945 as MP for Ormskirk and later becoming MP for Huyton. In 1947, then Prime Minister Clement Attlee made Wilson President of the Board of Trade. Aged 31, he had become the youngest member of the Cabinet in the 20th century. Under Hugh Gaitskell’s leadership of the Labour party, Wilson served as Shadow Chancellor from 1955 to 1961, then as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1961 to 1963. After Gaitskell passed away suddenly, Wilson fought and won a leadership contest against George Brown and James Callaghan. As Labour leader, he won 4 of the 5 General Elections he contested, although this includes a minority government. His first election victory on 15 October 1964 saw him win with a small majority of 4, which increased significantly to 98 after a second General Election on 31 March 1966. As Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970, his main plan was to modernise. He believed that he would be aided by the “white heat of the technological revolution”. His government supported backbench MPs in liberalising laws on censorship, divorce, abortion, and homosexuality and he abolished capital...
Words: 677 - Pages: 3
... BERNATH LECTURE The New International History of the Cold War: Three (Possible) Paradigms* The Cold War is not what it once was. Not only has the conflict itself been written about in the past tense for more than a decade, but historians’ certainties about the character of the conflict have also begun to blur. The concerns brought on by trends of the past decade – such trifles as globalization, weapons proliferation, and ethnic warfare – have made even old strategy buffs question the degree to which the Cold War ought to be put at the center of the history of the late twentieth century. In this article I will try to show how some people within our field are attempting to meet such queries by reconceptualizing the Cold War as part of contemporary international history. My emphasis will be on issues connecting the Cold War – defined as a political conflict between two power blocs – and some areas of investigation that in my opinion hold much promise for reformulating our views of that conflict, blithely summed up as ideology, technology, and the Third World. I have called this lecture “Three (Possible) Paradigms” not just to avoid making too presumptuous an impression on the audience but also to indicate that my use of the term “paradigm” is slightly different from the one most people have taken over from Thomas Kuhn’s work on scientific revolutions. In the history of science, a paradigm has come to mean a comprehensive explanation, a kind of scientific “level”...
Words: 8015 - Pages: 33
...Introduction The First World War went down in history as one of the worst wars ever to be fought, owing to the magnitude of destruction and loss of life it left in its wake. The war started in 1914 ending in 1919, and has been described variously as the Great War, the War of Nations and the War to End All Wars. (Dwight E, 1966) It was fought by many nations around the world, with Europeans being the main players, and is very significant for the way it shaped the continents years after it ended. Many explanations for the possible causes of the war have been given, some of which have been accepted while others have been disputed. The war was fought in a series of battles fought at different locations at different times and involved over 65million men. This paper discusses the genesis, chronology of events during the war, the main players, the casualties and the implication of the war on modern history. The Genesis, Main Players, Events, Casualties and Implications First of all, it is thought that competition among the major European powers was an ingredient in fuelling the war. This was so especially between Britain and Germany, who were competing to have the most powerful navy in the world. All parties were building up large armies and navies, and from this there emerged a professional and powerful class of military officers. At one point, Germany had a well trained, large army that could match the entire army of Great Britain. This led to emergence of tension in Europe, which...
Words: 1721 - Pages: 7
...AP World History Survival Guide Name ________________________________ Teacher __________________________ Block _________________ Table of Contents | Pages | AP World History Overview | 3 – 7 | The AP Exam | 3 | World Regions | 4 – 5 | Five Course Themes | 6 | Four Historical Thinking Skills | 7 | Essays Overview | 8 - 15 | Document-based Question (DBQ) | 8 – 12 | Change and Continuity over Time (CCOT) | 13 – 15 | Comparative Essay | 16 – 18 | Released Free Response Questions | 19 – 20 | AP Curriculum Framework | 21 – 38 | Period 1 (Up to 600 B.C.E.)—5% | 21 – 22 | Period 2 (600 B.C.E. to 600 C.E.)—15% | 23 – 25 | Period 3 (600 to 1450)—20% | 26 – 28 | Period 4 (1450 to 1750)—20% | 29 – 31 | Period 5 (1750 to 1900)—20% | 32 – 35 | Period 6 (1900 to the present)—20% | 36 – 38 | Help with Some Confusing Subjects | 39 – 43 | Chinese Dynasties | 39 | Political, Economic, and Social Systems | 40 | Religions | 41 | Primary Sources | 42 | “Must Know” Years | 43 | * Many of the guidelines in this study packet are adapted from the AP World History Course Description, developed by College Board. The AP Exam Purchasing and taking the AP World History exam are requirements of the course. This year, the AP World History exam will be administered on: ___________________________________________ Format I. Multiple...
Words: 16161 - Pages: 65
...AP World History Survival Guide Name ________________________________ Teacher __________________________ Block _________________ Table of Contents | Pages | AP World History Overview | 3 – 7 | The AP Exam | 3 | World Regions | 4 – 5 | Five Course Themes | 6 | Four Historical Thinking Skills | 7 | Essays Overview | 8 - 15 | Document-based Question (DBQ) | 8 – 12 | Change and Continuity over Time (CCOT) | 13 – 15 | Comparative Essay | 16 – 18 | Released Free Response Questions | 19 – 20 | AP Curriculum Framework | 21 – 38 | Period 1 (Up to 600 B.C.E.)—5% | 21 – 22 | Period 2 (600 B.C.E. to 600 C.E.)—15% | 23 – 25 | Period 3 (600 to 1450)—20% | 26 – 28 | Period 4 (1450 to 1750)—20% | 29 – 31 | Period 5 (1750 to 1900)—20% | 32 – 35 | Period 6 (1900 to the present)—20% | 36 – 38 | Help with Some Confusing Subjects | 39 – 43 | Chinese Dynasties | 39 | Political, Economic, and Social Systems | 40 | Religions | 41 | Primary Sources | 42 | “Must Know” Years | 43 | * Many of the guidelines in this study packet are adapted from the AP World History Course Description, developed by College Board. The AP Exam Purchasing and taking the AP World History exam are requirements of the course. This year, the AP World History exam will be administered on: ___________________________________________ Format I. Multiple...
Words: 16161 - Pages: 65
...Dystopia Regrettably it is at this point that we find a gradual switchover from Utopia to Dystopia - societies whose planning is far from ideal, and which all too often come to grief. As a concept, Dystopia emerges at the end of the long Eighteenth Century, possibly as a result of social upheaval and the long wars. it comes to the fore towards the end of the Nineteenth Century with gloomy forebodings as to the impact of industrialisation. Some go for a mechanical paradise. Others foresee a world order where things have got beyond repair - and that's not just the machines. Jack London in The Iron Heel (1908)sees the collapse of the American republic between 1912 and 1932 with the rise of 'The Oligarchy' (though he also thinks that international worker solidarity will avert a world war in 1913). Dystopia is highly pessimistic in tone. It traces what happens when things go wrong, either in an ideal world which has gone into crisis or decline, or else is a portrayal of of a world where society has collapsed at some time in the past. It is form of writing with a moral - and a warning. The irony is that reality can be stranger than fiction. The finale of The Mission is a case in point. The humanitarian goals of the Jesuit Fathers ironically contained the seeds of destruction for the Missions. The presence not only of rational Indians, but Christianised ones who were highly skilled proved to be too much of a temptation for the bandeirantes, slavers who came across from Brazil and...
Words: 3201 - Pages: 13
...adopted during the time period by gay activist, and it's resonation with the American people. Following the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the Gay Liberation Movement adopted the style of protesting that had become popular during towards the end of World War II in GermanyThese ideas were popularized by Oscar Wilde, who had discovered them from a pamphlet titled The Early Homosexual Rights Movements. These new forms of revolution were based around peaceful...
Words: 2081 - Pages: 9
