...John F. Kennedy played a significant role in more crises than one, specifically during the Cold War. A large portion of the Cold War crises consisted between the United States and the Soviet Union, which led to a worldwide fear of a nuclear war. John F. Kennedy entered his presidency during the midst of these crises, and decided that he needed to take the responsibility upon himself to handle the situations, resolve them, and preferably, avoid another high cost war, as the United States had just ended the second World War after Japan’s surrender. Throughout this essay, John F. Kennedy’s role during the Berlin Crisis is detailed. But, before the role of the President can be discussed, the reader must first understand the Berlin Crisis, and the...
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...The Cold War Celena Daley Kaplan University SS211: Prof. Jennifer Schmidt 03/12/2016 The Cold War began as a result of a dispute between The United States of America and The Soviet Union. Although the war was never “officially” declared, it began somewhere around 1947 and ended roughly around 1991. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945. Throughout this period, the rivalry between the two superpowers unfolded in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; sports; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defense spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars. There was never a direct military engagement between the US and the Soviet Union, but there was half a century of military buildup as well as political battles for support around the world, including significant involvement of allied and satellite nations in proxy wars. Although the US and the Soviet Union had been allied against Nazi Germany, the two sides differed on how to reconstruct the postwar world even before the end of World War II. Over the following decades, the Cold War spread outside Europe to every region of the world, as the US sought the "containment" of communism and forged numerous alliances...
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...How far did peaceful coexistence ease Cold War tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union in the years 1953-61? The idea of peaceful coexistence emerged after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. His eventual successor, Nikita Khruschev wanted a complete overhaul in the policies of the Soviet Union leading to his ‘Secret Speech’ in which he denounced Stalin and brought his horrendous actions to light. This was known as destalinisation and marked the start of peaceful existence, the idea that both the Soviet Union and the United States of America could peacefully exist without waging a war. While peaceful coexistence did indeed ease tensions to some extent between the USA and the USSR in the years 1953-61, it largely had the opposite effect and actually increased tensions. Firstly, in regards to diplomacy, it can be argued that peaceful coexistence did ease tensions between the USA and the USSR in the years 1953-61. Although nothing of crucial significance was agreed at the Geneva Summit of July 1955, the fact that both superpowers had agreed to meet, and it being the first summit between the two since Potsdam must show that peaceful coexistence had eased tensions to an extent. The summit marked a change in attitudes and almost presented the two superpowers to have matured simply by the fact that they had agreed to meet. Similarly, although the Paris summit never took place due to the U2 spy plane incident, the choice to have it in the first place, and the Vienna summit...
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...How far do you agree with the view that the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-49 was mainly due to ‘Stalin’s own errors’? I disagree with the statement - sources 7, 8 and 9 all suggest that the Cold War had many contributing factors, although it was ultimately the USA’s own economic and national interests to blame, rather than Stalin’s errors, as a result of acts and policies such as the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine in 1947. Both providing evidence to support this view are sources 8 and 9, with source 7 giving the impression that it was the errors of Stalin that contributed most. In addition to these two factors, conflicting ideologies also played a small role in provoking the Cold War, as shown in source 8. Despite this, it was fundamentally the economic and national interests of the USA that was mainly to blame for the start of the Cold War in 1945 and its development through to 1949. Europe was destroyed physically and economically after the Second World War. America saw this as a chance to become a world hegemony, as well as economically advancing the nation - source 9 proves this, saying, “The liberal capitalist US economy needed ever-increasing trade and investment opportunities”, as well as “The Marshall Plan was designed to implant an informal American Empire in Europe”. This shows that the USA not only used Europe’s fragile situation after WW2 to prosper itself, but more importantly increase its world influence, aiming to produce some sort of Empire...
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...The Cold War was a period starting in around 1946, consisting of political and military tension and economic competition. The Cold War was ‘fought’ between the Communist Soviet Union, and the Capitalist West, mainly the United States. As opposed to a hot war, wherein two nations or faction conflict in an armed battle, in a Cold War, the major military forces never engage in physical warfare with each other. Instead, the conflict is expressed via military occupations of various nations, propaganda, strategic conventional force deployments, for example the Berlin Airlift, and providing aid to vulnerable nations, like the Marshal and Molotov Plans. The two superpowers also competed against each other in terms of technological and military advancements; the Space Race and Arms Races respectively. The main reason for this tension was the opposing systems of government and their ideologies, with each seeing a threat in the other. Though the two nations acted as allies in the war against Nazi Germany, their conflicting beliefs and ideologies soon left them as enemies. The Soviet Union soon occupied Eastern Europe, while the Western Allies occupied West Europe. Unsurprisingly, tension began to rise. The US’ Marshall Plan was put into effect to provide financial aid in the rebuilding of nations ravaged by the war in Europe. However, the Soviets denied their nations they occupied to participate. The USSR also funded and aided in communist revolutions in countries occupied by the West...
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...How Did John F. Kennedy Deal With Cuba? Leslie Doughty Professor Nettles Augusta POL 300 July 29, 2013 Strayer University John F. Kennedy was the first American president born in the 20th century. The Cold War and the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union were vital international issues throughout his political career. His inaugural address stressed the contest between the free world and the communist world, and he pledged that the American people would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, and oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty." (Roskin, 2010). Cold War rhetoric dominated the 1960 presidential campaign. Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon both pledged to strengthen American military forces and promised a tough stance against the Soviet Union and international communism. Kennedy warned of the Soviet's growing arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and pledged to revitalize American nuclear forces. He also criticized the Eisenhower administration for permitting the establishment of a pro-Soviet government in Cuba. (Roskin, 2010). Before his inauguration, JFK was briefed on a plan drafted during the Eisenhower administration to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of their homeland. The plan anticipated that support from the Cuban people and perhaps even elements of the Cuban military would lead to the overthrow of Castro and the...
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...didn’t want communism to spread. So the south wanted to do something about it to prevent it to be influences onto them even though Stalin forced North Korea to invade South Korea. If South Korea turns communist then this would create the domino effect as Japan would turn communist. The USA decided to help South Korea by using the Truman Doctrine as this would protect the country from turning communist. They persuaded the United Nations to send troops for the defence mission, this would have created tension as North Korea wouldn’t have like this and could have felt violated. September 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea and this was influenced by the Russians and the Chinese. After Douglas McArthur and the UN pushed North Korea out of South Korea and beyond the 38th parallel they effectively invaded North Korea and invaded all of the way to Yalu River, this was going beyond containment. North China found 250,000 volunteers and them invaded South Korea once again. At this point Douglas McArthur attempts to resolve in nuclear bombings and to conclude McArthur gets fired this could have been a big part in the development of the cold war as this could have turned into a hot war and this could have created more tensions within the cold war and developed more. After two years they decided to stop the fighting it ended causing lots of tension between the two sides. China would end up making Japan turn to a communist country this would have been a part of a domino theory as more countries...
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...The Cold War and U.S Diplomacy politic 300 07/31/2011 The Cold War Diplomacy When most people think of President Kennedy’s Diplomacy efforts, they will often refer to situations that were resolved using the doctrine of flexible response. This is when the military and White House planners implemented a policy that offered them a range of options to choose from: in dealing with a host of threats. These included: the increased use of conventional forces to small and large nuclear weapons. As, this was based on two main principals most notably: destroying the enemy’s ability to make retaliatory strikes against American interests and only attacking the cities along with other population centers as a last resort. (Cohen, 1986, pp. 55 – 56) This is significant, because this new approach was a dramatic shift that was embraced by many previous administrations. To fully understand how this doctrine was used to solve foreign policy issues requires examining: US diplomatic efforts during Kennedy’s time in office, the instances that this approach was utilized, the effects of these efforts on the US along with other countries and the advantages / disadvantages of this doctrine. Together, these different elements will provide the greatest insights as to how this approach was utilized by the Kennedy Administration to deal with a number of different challenges that they were facing. Summarize a Situation that Required US Diplomatic Efforts during the President’s...
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...During Kennedy’s time in office, two situations that required U.S diplomatic efforts were the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was when the berlin wall was built in August 1961, dividing many families in the capital of Germany. It caused the international crisis and risk of military conflict. There was going to be a nuclear confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. According to Taylor (2007), “in 1945 the victors of the Second World War, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and French, had divided Germany into four zones”. On June 24, 1948, Soviet call off all land and water route of Berlin and the western zone in Germany. This was to force western allies out of Berlin and starve...
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...How far do you agree with the view that the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-8 owed more to Soviet expansionism than to USA’s economic interests? My opinion is that the development of the Cold War was due to Soviet expansionism rather than the USA’s economic interests in the years 1945-48. The Sources all present to some extent the idea that Soviet expansionism was to blame. Source 7 argues Soviet expansionism as the most important factor as it claims that the USSR were ‘seeking to expand its influence into Western Europe’ and so causing Western Attitudes to increasingly worsen. However there is still evidence in the sources to support the view that the USA’s economic interests owed more to the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-48. For example in source 8 it suggests that the USA wanted a war with the USSR to help its economy, emphasising the impact of Truman’s ‘military industrial complex’ on aggressive foreign policy which played a huge role in the development of the Cold War. Furthermore it can be argued that it was the misunderstanding and confusion, caused by fear and suspicion, between the two nations which owed more to the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-8. Soviet Expansionism played a huge role in the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-8. Evidence to support this view is found in source 7 which claims that although in 1945 the West had accepted the Soviet’s influence in Eastern Europe; the West became suspicious of...
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...The Cold War The Cold War, often dated from 1947 to 1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States with NATO among its allies, and powers in the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union along with the Warsaw Pact. Role of USSR and USA to the conflicts in the Cold War The Cold War began after World War II. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, both sides fought each other indirectly. They supported opposing sides in conflicts in different parts of the world. They also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other. Or they tried to make each other look foolish. Over the years, leaders on both sides changed. Yet the Cold War continued. It was the major force in world politics for most of the second half of the twentieth century. The Cold War world was separated into three groups. The United States led the West, including countries with democratic political systems. The Soviet Union led the East. This including countries with communist political systems. The non-aligned group included countries that did not want to be tied to either the West or the East. Harry Truman was the first American president to fight the Cold War. He used several policies. One was the Truman Doctrine. This was a plan...
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...Race Term Paper The Nuclear Threat During the Berlin Crisis Introduction On November 10, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech at a Soviet-Polish meeting in Moscow that would ultimately culminate into one of the most profound crises of the Cold War. The Soviet leader accused the Western Powers of violating the 1945 Potsdam Agreement and sabotaging the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and recommended that the Federal Republic abandon, “the hope that we shall cease to support the German Democratic Republic.” (Address by Premier, 1958). Soon after, Khrushchev delivered a speech giving an ultimatum to the allies and gave them six months to demilitarize West Berlin. The Allies' subsequent refusal and the resulting tension put both the U.S.S.R. and the United States in a particularly dangerous situation. Although it is unlikely that full-out thermonuclear war would have resulted from the Berlin Crisis, there was a very real threat of a limited nuclear strike or conventional warfare to both of the superpowers until the tension over Berlin was assuaged. Although November 1958 marked the official beginning of the crisis, Berlin had been a source of contention between the US and the Soviets from the initial division of Germany after WWII (Tine, 2005). The three territorial zones in Western Germany, controlled by France, Britain, and the US, contrasted greatly with the Soviet-controlled East, which upheld socialism. Berlin itself was divided in a similar fashion. However...
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...1 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE ESCALATION OF THE COLD WAR, 1945-1962 David Holloway, Stanford University Nuclear weapons are so central to the history of the Cold War that it can be difficult to disentangle the two. Did nuclear weapons cause the Cold War? Did they contribute to its escalation? Did they help to keep the Cold War “cold?” We should ask also how the Cold War shaped the development of atomic energy. Was the nuclear arms race a product of Cold War tension rather than its cause? The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War The nuclear age began before the Cold War. During World War II, three countries decided to build the atomic bomb: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Britain put its own work aside and joined the Manhattan Project as a junior partner in 1943. The Soviet effort was small before August 1945. The British and American projects were driven by the fear of a German atomic bomb, but Germany decided in 1942 not to make a serious effort to build the bomb. In an extraordinary display of scientific and industrial might, the United States made two bombs ready for use by August 1945. Germany was defeated by then, but President Truman decided to use the bomb against Japan. The decision to use the atomic bomb has been a matter of intense controversy. Did Truman decide to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order, as he claimed, to end the war with Japan without further loss of American lives? Or did he drop the bombs in order to intimidate the Soviet...
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...How far was the USSR responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War 1945-1949? To a certain extent, the USSR’s responsibility of the Cold War cannot be underestimated as their policies following the Second World War may have been seen as aggressive by USA. The forceful take-over of Eastern Europe through the Red Army occupations, especially in distinctive cases such as Poland and Czechoslovakia, can be seen as being far from the “liberation” over which the two war-time allies had agreed, while the rigging of elections did not conform to the Yalta agreement of the organisation of free ones. Stalin responded to the Americans’ policies of containment by creating his own agencies, therefore creating even more hostility between the two superpowers, while also refusing the existence of anything but Soviet puppet states in Eastern Europe. However, the event which cemented the outbreak of the Cold War was Stalin imposing the Berlin Blockade, taking direct action towards weakening the Americans’ position. One may see that Stalin’s blockade resulted in the official creation of two separate German states, one of the most significant events of the Cold War. On the other hand, revisionists point out that the USSR was taking defensive measures to protect itself from anything that could have caused as much damage as the Second World War, while the Americans, who were superior economically, adopted provocative policies. They challenged the patience of the Russians by hiding crucial events from...
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...resisting communism in Europe while the Eisenhower Doctrine was focused upon providing both military and economic assistance to nations resisting communism in the Middle East and by increasing the flow of trade from the United States into Latin America. The Kennedy Doctrine was based on these same objectives but was more concerned with the spread of communism and Soviet influence in Latin America following the Cuban revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power under Eisenhower during the 1950s. Some of the most notable events that stemmed from tenets of JFK’s foreign policy initiatives in regard to Latin America and the spread of communism were: The Bay of Pigs Invasion, April 17, 1961, Increase of U.S. involvement in Vietnam War, 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis, October, 1962, and Ratification of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, July, 1963. The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US...
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