23. Korean War, the birth of Nato, the War in Vietnam, crisis over Cuba.

The birth of NATO

In the years after 1945 the non- communist governments

of Western Europe looked uneasily at the

huge Russian amucs grouped j ust behind the

barbed-wire fences of the Iron Cur tain. Th ey

feared that Stalin might order his soldiers to overrun

them. In February 1948, their fears increased.

With Russian support a communist gove rnment

took control in Czechoslovakia. Then, in June,

Stalin started the blockade of Berlin .

These events convinced President Truman tha t

Western Europe needed more than economic aid .

In 1949 he invited most of its nation s to j oin the

United States in setting up the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO). This was an alliance

of nat ions who agreed to suppo rt one another

against threats from the Russians and set up

combined armed forces to do this.

The North Atlantic T reaty was signed III Washingron

in April 1949. The following September

Americans hear d the news that the Russians, too,

cou ld now make atomic bo mbs. T his persuaded

Congress to vote million s of dollars to equip

NATO 's armed forces. In 19S1 General Eisenhower,

one o f th e United States' best known

generals of the Second World War, was placed in

command of these forces . Soon thous ands of

Amer ican soldiers were in Europe once more.

The Korean War (25 June 1950 – armistice signed 27 July 1953) was a military conflict between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China (PRC), with military material aid from the Soviet Union. The war was a result of the physical division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II.

The Korean peninsula was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of Japan in 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th Parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troops occupying the northern part.

The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides, and the North established a Communist government. The 38th Parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas. Although reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war, tension intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.

The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of South Korea in repelling the invasion. A rapid UN counter-offensive drove the North Koreans past the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, and the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered the war on the side of the North. The Chinese launched a counter-offensive that pushed the United Nations forces back across the 38th Parallel. The Soviet Union materially aided the North Korean and Chinese armies. In 1953, the war ceased with an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. Minor outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day.

With both North and South Korea sponsored by external powers, the Korean War was a proxy war. From a military science perspective, it combined strategies and tactics of World War I and World War II: it began with a mobile campaign of swift infantry attacks followed by air bombing raids, but became a static trench war by July 1951.

Causes of the Korean war The Korean War took place between two opposing Korean regimes. From the 7th century Korea existed as a single country. After the war between China and Japan in 1894-1895, certain parts of Korea were occupied by Japan. The Japanese conquered the entire Korea in August 1910. Towards the conclusion of World War II both the United States and the Soviet Union occupied the Korean peninsula. The United States approached the United Nations to resolve the issue of a divided Korea. A United Nations Commission decided to hold elections in Korea. The communists in North Korea refused to allow the election. The communists in South Korea boycotted it. The government in South Korea was formed by the anti-communist Syngman Rhee. The Soviet Union put Kim ll-Sung as head of North Korea. The North Korean Army invaded South Korea on June 25 1950. The Chinese entered the war for acquiring strategic depth. They wanted to use North Korea as a buffer against possible US invasion. The United States wanted to stop the spread of communism. The Soviet Union wanted to spread communism to as many countries as possible. The armistice of 27 July 1953 ended the fighting in Korea. The armistice was a temporary cease-fire and not a treaty of peace. It reflected the realization by all the involved parties that neither side had either the means or the will to compel the other to submit to its political agenda. The conflict has remained, despite border clashes and sporadic incidents, for more than half a century. Effects of the war There were several casualties on both sides though the exact figure may never be known.The Korean War created more friction between the United States and the Soviet Union. The war demonstrated the will of the United States to do everything possible to prevent the proliferation of communism. A feeling of enmity developed between China and the United States that would last for decades. Families were split with relatives on either sides of the border. This war created a fear in the United States of the domino effects of communism. The United States intervened in Vietnam to avoid another North Korea. South Korea became an important US military base with thousands of American troops stationed there. The Korean War never ended. The inability of the two sides to resolve their differences has meant that the two Koreas and their allies have had to remain on a battle ready state along the border ever since. Today South Korea has become a major economic and technological power. North Korea is a poverty-stricken, heavily militarized nation. It is hoped that one day the two Koreas will become one. On October 4 2007 the South Korean Leader Roh Moo-Hyun and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il signed an eight-point peace agreement on issues of permanent peace, economic cooperation, high-level talks, renewal of highway, air travel and train services. North Korea has carried out a controversial nuclear test and several ballistic missile tests. A nuclear North Korea is a threat to both Japan and South Korea.

The Vietnam Warwas a Cold War era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The Viet Cong, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and airstrikes.

The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.

U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (See: Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than one millionto more than three million. Some 200,000–300,000Cambodians, 20,000–200,000Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.

Among the reasons/causes of the Vietnam War:

• As for why the US got involved, Americans feared the "domino theory" of expanding communist empires. The Truman doctrine stated that America would assist governments resisting communism.

• French rule was harsh: only the government was allowed to produce/sell alcohol & salt; rice was exported from huge French-owned plantations while many Vietnamese did not have enough to eat; workers in mines and rubber plantations could be jailed if they tried to leave their jobs; and taxes of every kind multiplied. Then during WW2, the French shared control of Vietnam with the Japanese.

• In 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam a free and independent country. However, the British and Chinese helped the French to return and the USA did nothing to stop them.

• In 1954, after a massive Viet Minh victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu, peace talks were held in Geneva and Vietnam was divided at the 38th parallel. Elections were planned for 1956 but the South Vietnamese leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to hold these.

Consequences. The USA was worried about the spread of Communist power in Asia and Ho Chi Minh was a member of the French Communist Party.

The Vietnam War had far-reaching consequences for the United States. It led Congress to replace the military draft with an all-volunteer force and the country to reduce the voting age to 18. It also inspired Congress to attack the "imperial" presidency through the War Powers Act, restricting a president's ability to send American forces into combat without explicit Congressional approval. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees have helped restore blighted urban neighborhoods.

The Vietnam War severely damaged the U.S. economy. Unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the war, President Johnson unleashed a cycle of inflation.

The war also weakened U.S. military morale and undermined, for a time, the U.S. commitment to internationalism. The public was convinced that the Pentagon had inflated enemy casualty figures, disguising the fact that the country was engaged in a military stalemate. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States was wary of getting involved anywhere else in the world out of fear of another Vietnam. Since then, the public's aversion to casualties inspired strict guidelines for the commitment of forces abroad and a heavy reliance on air power to project American military power.

The war in Vietnam deeply split the Democratic Party. As late as 1964, over 60 percent of those surveyed identified themselves in opinion polls as Democrats. The party had won seven of the previous nine presidential elections. But the prosecution of the war alienated many blue-collar Democrats, many of whom became political independents or Republicans. To be sure, other issues--such as urban riots, affirmative action, and inflation--also weakened the Democratic Party. Many former party supporters viewed the party as dominated by its anti-war faction, weak in the area of foreign policy, and uncertain about America's proper role in the world.

Equally important, the war undermined liberal reform and made many Americans deeply suspicious of government. President Johnson's Great Society programs competed with the war for scarce resources, and constituencies who might have supported liberal social programs turned against the president as a result of the war. The war also made Americans, especially the baby boomer generation, more cynical and less trusting of government and of authority.

Today, decades after the war ended, the American people remain deeply divided over the conflict's meaning. A Gallup Poll found that 53 percent of those surveyed believe that the war was "a well intentioned mistake," while 43 percent believe it was "fundamentally wrong and immoral."

The Cuban Missile Crisis (known as The October Crisis in Cuba or Russian: Карибский кризис Caribbean Crisis in Russia) was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War. In September 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the U.S. to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose), the Cuban and Soviet governments secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. This action followed the 1958 deployment of Thor IRBMs in the UK (Project Emily) and Jupiter IRBMs to Italy and Turkey in 1961 – more than 100 U.S.-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads. On October 14, 1962, a United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photoreconnaissance mission captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.

The ensuing crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict. It also marks the first documented instance of the threat of mutual assured destruction (MAD) being discussed as a determining factor in a major international arms agreement.

The United States considered attacking Cuba via air and sea, and settled on a military "quarantine" of Cuba. The U.S. announced that it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the Soviets dismantle the missile bases already under construction or completed in Cuba and remove all offensive weapons. The Kennedy administration held only a slim hope that the Kremlin would agree to their demands, and expected a military confrontation. On the Soviet side, Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote in a letter to Kennedy that his quarantine of "navigation in international waters and air space" constituted "an act of aggression propelling humankind into the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war."

The Soviets publicly balked at the U.S. demands, but in secret back-channel communications initiated a proposal to resolve the crisis. The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached a public and secret agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a U.S. public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. Secretly, the U.S. agreed that it would dismantle all U.S.-built Thor and Jupiter IRBMs deployed in Europe and Turkey.

Only two weeks after the agreement, the Soviets had removed the missile systems and their support equipment, loading them onto eight Soviet ships from November 5–9. A month later, on December 5 and 6, the Soviet Il-28 bombers were loaded onto three Soviet ships and shipped back to Russia. The quarantine was formally ended at 6:45 pm EDT on November 20, 1962. Eleven months after the agreement, all American weapons were deactivated (by September 1963). An additional outcome of the negotiations was the creation of the Hotline Agreement and the Moscow–Washington hotline, a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington, D C.

Crisis over Cuba

Cuba is an island nation only nin ety miles from

rhccoast ofthe United States. In 1951J a revolutionary

reformer named Fidel Castro took over its

government. Cuba's ban ks, railroads and many

other businesses were owned by Americans at rlus

rime. So, too, were many of its big sugar

plantations.

Castro needed money to make changes III Cuba.

To obtain ir he began to take over Americanowned

businesses. In the op inion of rhc United

States government this was stealing American

propt'rry. Not only this, but Castro seemed to be

organizing a com mun ist state right on the doorstep

of the United States.

In 1960 President Eisenhower agreed to give

weapons an d ships to refugees from Cuba who

wanted to overthrow Cas tro . Whl'n Eisenhower

retired in J anuary. IlJ61, the plan was supported

also by the new President, Joh n F. Kennedy.

On April 17, 1961, a fo rce of lAW ant i-Castro

Cubans landed at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba's sou th

coast. Castro had ranks and 20,000 men waiting,

Within days the invaders we re all captured or

killed. But Castro believed [hat Kennedy would

attack again, so he asked the Sevier Union for

help. Khrushchev sent him shiploads of rifles,

ranks, and aircratr. Kennedy grew worried and

o rdered a dose watch to be kept on Cuba.

On Sunday, October 1..1-, 1962, an American U-2

spy plane flew high over the island raking photographs

. They showed Russian missile launching

sites being bui lt. What had happ ened was this :

Ever since th e U-2 incident of 1%0 Khrushchev

had been making threats agains t the United Stares.

T hese had alarmed Kenned y. Although the

Americans already had mo re long-range missiles

[han the Russians, Kennedy ordered nearly a

thousand more. T he new missiles tipped [he

"balance ofterror" strongly In favor ofthe United

Scates. When Castro asked for help, Khr ushchev

saw a cha nce to level up the balance of [error. lie

would rhrearcn the United States from miss ile

bases on its own doorstep- Cuba.

Kenn edy was shocked by the U-2 photographs.

"This IS the week I better earn my salary," he said

grimly. Some adv isers wanted him to send bombers

to destro y the missile bases. He also thou ght

about sending American soldiers to captu re them .

But instea d he ordered Amcrican ships and aircra ft

to set up a blockade. They we re to stop any Soviet

ships carrying more missile equipment ro Cuba.

Kenned y then told Khrushchev to take away the

Soviet missiles and destroy the bases. He warned

that any missile fared from Cuba would be treated

as a direct Soviet attack on the United States and

o rdered 156 lon g-r ange missiles aimed at th e

Soviet Union to be made ready [Q fa re,

For tell terrifying da ys in O ctober 1<)62, the world

trembled on the edge o f nucl ear war. People

wai ted in fear fo r the next news flash on their

rad ios and televisions.. Finally Khru shchev ordered

his technicians in Cuba to destroy the launching

sires and retu rn rhe missiles ro the Soviet Unio n.

In return, Kennedy called off rhe blockade and

promised to leave Cuba alone. Privately. he also

ag reed to .rcmovc American missiles sited on the

bo rder of the Soviet Union in T urkey, The mo st

dangerous crisis of the Cold War was over.

12J.C.