...Short Essay on War and Terror The United States is known as a Super Power in the world today for two particular reasons and they are one, the outcome of World War II and two, how the President at that time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt handled conflicts at home as well as conflicts overseas. During that time the United States was going through some challenges dealing with the Great Depression and the difficulties of Germany beginning to start conflicts in Europe where there was nothing being done about it. World War II was a situation America had stayed out of for about three years, but when the U.S. finally did get involved the balance was then tipped in the favor of the allies due to the U.S. involvement. Also, as it was shown in World War I, when the United States gets involved with conflicts dealing with issues overseas we are very effective and are resolute on becoming triumphant. This resolve continued with a Reaganite point of view, it was president Regan who responded to the Soviet proxies with a proxy war built on the Nixon doctrine of preparing to wage low-intensity conflicts against military nationalist regimes in the Third World. Although by 9/11 the methods changed drastically from low-intensity proxy war to high-intensity direct warfare. [1] No different than the conflict the U.S. has dealt with and continues to deal with today in Iraq and Afghanistan. The era of proxy wars began with America’s defeat in Vietnam and closed with the invasion of Iraq...
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...World War 1 (WW1), from 1914 and 1918, and World War 2 (WW2), which occurred between 1939 and 1945, were two significant battles known to almost all Americans today. These wars were caused by several factors, in which some are alike and some are different. Their causes differ in that one of World War 1’s reasons for war included the German U-boats sinking the Lusitania. On the other hand, one different cause of World War 2 was the Treaty of Versailles. Both wars are alike in that they both were caused due to militarism, imperialism, and nationalism. In analyzing the causes of both wars, it’s crucial to know that there were similarities and differences because of their time periods of occurrence (for different events happening) as well as the...
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...us out of the War” to “Make the World Safe for Democracy” As it is well-known the World War I was primarily of a war fought due to imperialist aims, stemming from the need to satisfy the demand for raw material in the Europe. With the industrial revolution urge for raw material became of crucial importance for the European states. This was followed by the aggressive colonization projects that eventually led to a harsh competition between different parties around Europe, who want to hold control over the economic resources. The United States was not a super-power, as it is now, at the time of the War. Being aware of this Wilson opted to remain as a neutral observer during the initial phase of the war. It was the third year of the war, when the British intelligence intercepted the coded telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on 16 January 1917. While the two blocs, The Entente Powers (France, The British Empire and Russia) vs. The Central Powers, (Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire), were fairly evenly balanced between 1914 and 1917, with the year 1917 the Central Powers started to be weakened due to several reasons. The Americans were convinced that the Central Powers were doomed to lose the war, when the Zimmermann telegram was revealed. Therefore, Wilson aspired to take advantage of these circumstances and use the telegram as a pretext for convincing the American public opinion to join to the War and side with the...
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...American War, America has had problem of getting themselves involved with other nations’ affairs that really shouldn’t concern them. Countries such as Iran and Serbia show resentment and hatred towards America for butting in into their problems. This result in a sour diplomatic relationship between the two countries. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, the USA should stop getting involved with every other countrys’ foreign affairs. Since the US became a world power, they have gotten themselves involved in a lot of situation where they shouldn’t be involved in. There are many reason why the US would intervene with what goes on in other countries. One...
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...that the United States’ military act as the world’s police. What are two real-life international incidents where the States have used military action abroad? What are two factors that propelled America into a dominant military and diplomatic force after World War II? What are the key differences in American foreign policy before and after World War II? What are the main reasons in the changes of pre- and post-war policy occurred? In what manner does the justifications used for America’s overseas involvement during World War II still play a role in United States military action abroad? What example can be provided of such justifications in action? In what fundamental ways in which the rise of the United States to a world superpower has shaped the country’s responses to domestic spending, Fourth Amendment protections, and Americans’ choice of leaders in Congress and the White House on the home front? These previous topics covers the manner of America’s shift of power occurred and the consequences that the United States faces as a result of this elevated status. What are two real-life international incidents where the States have used military action abroad? In 2011, the United States aided in NATO’s successful intervention in Libya. According to the website of foreign affairs, the United States facilitated the intervention, took its led in cutting off funding to Libya as well as freezing Libya’s thirty-two billion dollars of assets, and also instigated the UN’s authorization...
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...World War II Through the 1970’s Stephen Lundert Dr. Mel Albin HIS 105 Contemporary US History Strayer University 2 June 2013 This is the Baby Boom Generation. The period runs from the beginning of WWII thought the end of the 1960’s. The Vietnam War period was a very tumultuous period for the United States and a counterculture was created. This was also a period of great social unrest. The economic upturn that began at the end of WWII came to an end. The US participated in 3 wars; World War II, Korea, and Vietnam during this period. Women and minorities continued to make advances and even had some victories in the Civil Rights arena. There were several major tuning points that occurred during this time period but, I selected WWII and the Cold War because I believe they had the greatest impact. The first turning point to be discussed will be World War II. The war prompted a tremendous mobilization of America Resources, at a level not seen since the Civil War. The American Economy ramped up from that of the low-production Great Depression years to the most powerful economy in the world. The economy showed the most remarkable improvement, Wartime mobilization boosted production, increased demand for labor, and rescues the economy from the depression. World War II initiated the most significant federal management of the economy in American history. When the war began, President Roosevelt implemented the War Production Board (WPB) to steer the economy into...
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...30318083 Pg 1 Causes of World War 1 The First World War occurred between July 1914, and November 11, 1918. The official starting date of the War is listed as the 4th of August 1914, when Britain declared war on Germany. The War ended with Germany signing the Treaty of Versailles, a peace treaty that acknowledged Germany as the main perpetrator of the War. The end of the War would see over seventeen million people killed, including over sixty-‐two thousand Australian soldiers. The main reasons as to why war erupted is a very complex matter much more complicated than just a simple list of causes. Although there was a chain of events that directly and inevitably led to the fighting itself, the actual original causes of the War are much more profound, and are still a part of continued debates and discussions today. The First World War saw causes such as imperialism...
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...Nearly all of Europe was involved in World War I. The spark that set off the war was when a Serb from a Serbian nationalist group assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Soon, nation after nation started declaring war on each other. However, there were other factors which influenced the war; militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism. Of these underlying causes, the most significant are imperialism, militarism, and most importantly, alliances. Imperialism played an important role in starting World War I. Many European countries controlled the economic systems of other countries, including Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, and in doing so, “[aggravated] relations with Serbia and Russia” (What Started the War?). This...
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...#3 War and Religion The history of human warfare goes back to the beginning of recorded history. Wars have been fought over Power, space, resources, personal preference, insults, to defend, racism, independence, and religion. People can be pretty passionate about their religious beliefs. So, it is not surprising that at least a few famous wars have resulted from disagreements about religion. Atheists say that most wars are fought over religion and without religion clouding the minds of individuals that most if not all wars would be eradicated from world. “John Lennon” sings in one of his songs “Imagine no religion” implying that without religion no wars would be fought. So how can all these “atheist” and political figures think that a majority of wars are fought over religion? I in fact think the opposite and would like to share some of my ideas with you. If wars were fought mainly over religion than history has deceived us. A recent comprehensive compilation of the history of human warfare, “Encyclopedia of Wars” by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod documents 1763 wars, of which 123 have been classified to involve a religious conflict. So, what atheists have considered being "most" really amounts to less than 7% of all wars. It is interesting to note that 66 of these wars (more than 50%) involved Islam, which did not even exist as a religion for the first 3,000 years of recorded human warfare. These numbers show a staggering truth in the matter that most wars are...
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...outbreak of the First World War, all responsibility must not lay on her, for she was not the only country involved in the outbreak. Many will argue that “Germany must bear ultimate responsibility for the outbreak,” but historical evidence proves that this is not so. First of all, it is Serbia who provoked the initiation of the First World War. This provocation came in the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, by a Pan-Slavic nationalist. This problem would not have escalated to greater lengths if the Serbian government had warned the Austrian-Hungarian government of the intended plot to murder their Archduke, of which they had knowledge. When the Austrian government learned that...
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...In 1939 after Germany invaded Poland without declaration of war , France, Australia and New Zealand decided to declare war on Germany. This was considered to be the start of World War Two. Hitler invaded Poland without declaration of war because he claimed it was for self-defense since Polish men attacked a German radio station . Hitler then sent troops to Poland as a response to Poland’s first attack. However Britain and France were not convinced and quickly declared war on Germany , initiating World War Two. Once the war declarations were known, other countries started to take part as well. Some would be with Germany and others would be against. The countries such as Italy and Japan that would be with or on Germany’s side were called the...
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...Cold War Wars The Cold War was the conflict between the two superpowers of the world, the democratic United States of America and the communist Soviet Union. For over fifty years the two superpowers fought each other for power and control of the world. The Cold War started after the end of the Second World War in 1945 when both superpowers were no longer looking at Nazi Germany, but instead at each other and the rest of the world. It rose due to antagonist values with the United States, demonstrating democracy and capitalism, and the Soviet Union, signifying communism and totalitarianism. Being the two principal world powers after WWII, controversy with the Americans and Soviets became a worldwide conflict. However, the Cold War ended up affecting practically every country in the world someway. Some countries were affected by having wars erupt within them. Some examples were Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan. In each of these wars, many amounts of communists fought non-communists. In each case, both sides had help from other countries that were on their side. Either way, the countries were both badly impacted by the fighting. In other countries, the impacts were more positive. The US & the USSR would compete with one another to help countries that were not firmly aligned in one camp or the other. They would often give economic aid to countries to help persuade those countries to take their side. What this meant is that some countries benefited from the cold war in economic...
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...World War One The first world war started for many reasons like competion of the colonies, military technology development, economic competition and different national interests. Many historians believe that Germany caused World War One. But the first world war was triggered on June 28, 1914, when Austrian Empire Franz Ferdinand was murdered by a Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. After that Germany declared war on Russia and France in the beginning of August. Russia and France became allies. On August 4th The United Kingdom declares war on Germany, after Germany invades Belgium. Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia and Serbia declares war on Germany on August 6. On August 19th President Woodrow Wilson announces the United States will remain neutral. In early November The United Kingdom announces that the North Sea is a military area, effectively creating a blockade of goods into Germany. Allied countries An alliance is an agreement made between two or more countries to give each other help if it is needed. When an alliance is signed, those countries become known as Allies. But allies changed in the war many times. The war divided Europe into two armed camps. On one side was the Triple Alliance made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, and their enemy was the Triple Entente of France, Russia and Great Britain. As other countries began to join sides, the Triple Alliance became known as the Central Powers...
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...Why did the USA get involved in Asia in 1950? (30) After the end of the Second World War, the two war time allies the USA and Soviet Union became involved in a war of ideologies, the cold war. The US saw communism as a threat to democracy and capitalism. Therefore the US set out a new foreign policy, the policy of containment, in the Truman doctrine. There were however other reasons for the USA’s involvement such as their military confidence, UN agreement, domestic pressure which called for Truman to be more tough on communism and their economic interest in Japan which led to the US government’s decision to intervene in the Korean War. One of the main reasons for the US’s involvement was due to the ‘Policy of Containment’. The aim was for the USA to work with its allies to contain the spread of communism in eastern Europe and Asia using political, economic and if necessary military pressure to prevent the spread of the every growing ideology of communism. The US’s main worry was the communism would spread as most of the eastern European countries were devastated by the war were weak and communism could easily spread through these weakened countries such as Hungary. Europe was divided by ‘an Iron curtain’, the west with capitalism views, and the east with growing communism views. Furthermore, China had fallen to Communism under Mao, which may have been a huge wake up call for President Truman. In addition, Mao had signed the treaty of friendship with Stalin; therefore the spread...
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...World War II through the 1970s Renita Moody Professor James Adams History 105 June 2, 2013 Americans at first tried to stay out of the war, but this became less feasible as Hitler’s aggression continued. In the United States, the Great Depression had provoked a strong drift toward isolationism. The trend was already manifested in the American rejection of League of Nations following World War I, but during the depression many Americans remained preoccupied by domestic affairs. For more reasons why many Americans resisted involvement in European affairs. Their memories of the First world war made many Americans leery to get involved in European affairs. In 1914, Americans watched as a dizzying series of alliances led one nation into battle with another, without any apparent justification. The brutality of the first World War further made Americans shy away from any involvement in European affairs (Shultz, 2012) The Great Depression was a second reason why Americans favored isolationism before the second World war. The Great Depression deepened this isolationism most Americans were simply to focused on improving life in the United States to advocate getting involved in diplomatic disputes abroad. Respect for Hitler was the third reason why American favored isolationism, Adolf Hitler who had plucked Germany from its own economic depression in record time. By the late 1930s, American icons like the aviator Charles Lindbergh argued that...
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