An Introduction to the Cold War in Europe

An Introduction to the Cold War in Europe The Cold War was a twentieth-century conflict between the United States of America (U.S.), the Soviet Union (USSR), and their respective allies over political, economic, and military issues, often described as a struggle between capitalism and communism- but the issues were actually far grayer than that. In Europe, this meant the US-led West and NATO on one side and Soviet-led East and the Warsaw Pact on the other. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Why Cold War? The war was cold because there was never a direct military engagement between the two leaders, the U.S. and the USSR, although shots were exchanged in the air during the Korean War. There were plenty of proxy wars around the world as states supported by either side fought, but in terms of the two leaders, and in terms of Europe, the two never fought a regular war. Origins of the Cold War in Europe The aftermath of World War II left the United States and Russia as the dominant military powers in the world, but they had very different forms of government and economy- the former a capitalist democracy, the latter a communist dictatorship. The two nations were rivals that feared each other, each ideologically opposed. The war also left Russia in control of large areas of Eastern Europe, and the US-led Allies in control of the West. While the Allies restored democracy in their regions, Russia began making Soviet satellites out of its liberated lands; the split between the two was dubbed the Iron Curtain. In reality, there had been no liberation, just a new conquest by the USSR. The West feared a communist invasion, physical and ideological, that would turn them into communist states with a Stalin-style leader- the worst possible option- and for many, it caused a fear over mainstream socialism, too. The U.S. countered with the Truman Doctrine, with its policy of containment to stop communism spreading- it also turned the world into a giant map of allies and enemies, with the US pledging to prevent the communists from extending their power, a process that led to the West supporting some terrible regimes- and the Marshall Plan, massive aid aimed at supporting collapsing economies that were letting communist sympathizers gain power. Military alliances were formed as the West grouped together as NATO, and the East banded together as the Warsaw Pact. By 1951, Europe was divided into two power blocs, American-led and Soviet-led, each with atomic weapons. A cold war followed, spreading globally and leading to a nuclear standoff. The Berlin Blockade The first time the former allies acted as certain enemies was the Berlin Blockade. Postwar Germany was divided into four parts and occupied by the former Allies; Berlin, situated in the Soviet zone, was also divided. In 1948, Stalin enforced a blockade of Berlin aimed at bluffing the Allies into renegotiating the division of Germany in his favor rather than invading. Supplies could not get through to a city, which relied on them, and the winter was a serious problem. The Allies responded with neither of the options Stalin thought he was giving them, but started the Berlin Airlift: for 11 months, supplies were flown into Berlin via Allied aircraft, bluffing that Stalin wouldn’t shoot them down and cause a hot war. He didn’t. The blockade was ended in May 1949 when Stalin gave up. Budapest Rising Stalin died in 1953, and hopes of a thaw were raised when new leader Nikita Khrushchev began a process of de-Stalinization. In May 1955, as well as forming the Warsaw Pact, he signed an agreement with the Allies to leave Austria and make it neutral. The thaw only lasted until the Budapest Rising in 1956: the communist government of Hungary, faced with internal calls for reform, collapsed and an uprising forced troops to leave Budapest. The Russian response was to have the Red Army occupy the city and put a new government in charge. The West was highly critical but, partly distracted by the Suez Crisis, did nothing to help except get frostier toward the Soviets. The Berlin Crisis and the V-2 Incident Fearing a reborn West Germany allied with  the U.S., Khrushchev offered concessions in return for a united, neutral Germany in 1958. A Paris summit for talks was derailed when Russia shot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane flying over its territory. Khrushchev pulled out of the summit and disarmament talks. The incident was a useful out for Khrushchev, who was under pressure from hardliners within Russia for giving away too much. Under pressure from the East German leader to stop refugees fleeing to the West, and with no progress on making Germany neutral, the Berlin Wall was built, a complete barrier between East and West Berlin. It became the physical representation of the Cold War. Cold War in Europe in the 60s and 70s Despite the tensions and fear of nuclear war, the Cold War division between East and West proved surprisingly stable after 1961, despite French anti-Americanism and Russia crushing the Prague Spring. There was instead conflict on the global stage, with the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. For much of the  60s and 70s, a program of dà ©tente was followed: a long series of talks that made some success in stabilizing the war and equalizing arms numbers. Germany negotiated with the East under a policy of Ostpolitik. The fear of mutually assured destruction helped prevent direct conflict- the belief that if you launched your missiles, you would be destroyed by your enemies, and it was better to not fire at all than to destroy everything. The 80s and the New Cold War By the 1980s, Russia appeared to be winning, with a more productive economy, better missiles, and a growing navy, even though the system was corrupt and built on propaganda. America, once again fearing Russian domination, moved to rearm and build up forces, including placing many new missiles in Europe (not without local opposition). US President Ronald Reagan increased defense spending vastly, starting the Strategic Defense Initiative to defend against nuclear attacks, an end to Mutually Assured Destruction. At the same time, Russian forces entered Afghanistan, a war they would ultimately lose. End of the Cold War in Europe Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and his successor, realizing change was needed in a crumbling Russia and its strained satellites, which they felt were losing a renewed arms race, promoted several reformers. One, Mikhail Gorbachev, rose to power in 1985 with policies of Glasnost and Perestroika and decided to end the cold war and give away the satellite empire to save Russia itself. After agreeing with the U.S. to reduce nuclear weapons, in 1988 he addressed the UN, explaining the end of the Cold War by renouncing the Brezhnev Doctrine, allowing political choice in the previously dictated-to satellite states of Eastern Europe, and pulling Russia out of the arms race. The speed of Gorbachev’s actions unsettled the West, and there were fears of violence, especially in East Germany where the leaders talked of their own Tiananmen Square type uprising. However, Poland negotiated free elections, Hungary opened its borders, and East German leader Honecker resigned when it became apparent the Soviets would not support him. The East German leadership withered away and the Berlin Wall fell ten days later. Romania overthrew its dictator and the Soviet satellites emerged from behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union itself was the next to fall. In 1991, communist hardliners attempted a coup against Gorbachev; they were defeated, and Boris Yeltsin became leader. He dissolved the USSR, instead creating the Russian Federation. The communist era, begun in 1917, was now over, and so was the Cold War. Conclusion Some books, although stressing the nuclear confrontation that came perilously close to destroying vast areas of the world, point out that this nuclear threat was most closely triggered in areas outside Europe, and that the continent, in fact, enjoyed 50 years of peace and stability, which were sorely lacking in the first half of the twentieth century. This view is probably best balanced by the fact that much of Eastern Europe was, in effect, subjugated for the whole period by Soviet Russia. The D-Day  landings, while often overstated in their importance to the downhill of Nazi Germany, were in many ways the key battle of the Cold War in Europe, enabling Allied forces to liberate much of Western Europe before Soviet forces got there instead. The conflict has often been described as a substitute for a final post–Second World War peace settlement that never came, and the Cold War deeply permeated life in the East and West, affecting culture and society as well as politics and the military. The Cold War has also often been described as a contest between democracy and communism while, in reality, the situation was more complicated, with the democratic side, led by the U.S., supporting some distinctly nondemocratic, brutally authoritarian regimes in order to keep countries from coming under the Soviet sphere of influence.

Field trip- river restoration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Field trip- river restoration - Essay Example As a function of understanding this, this particular course has analyzed a great many human development projects and the varying degree that they have affected upon the surrounding ecology and environment as a whole. In much the same way, this particular essay will consider the case of the Bellefonte dam and subsequent ecological and environmental factors that many decades of variable types of industrialization has affected on the region and the environment. Furthermore, as a means of highlighting the long-term nature of what unthoughtful human development can affect on a given region over a period of time, the analysis will highlight the negative factors that human development have affected within the given environmental and ecological models that Many times we are tempted to believe that even though humanity and economic projects can alter the course of nature that there is some type of corrective mechanism that the environment is able to employ that over time will correct the mist akes that humans have made. Although it is true that the environment can eventually, if given long enough, ameliorate many of the negative factors that inattentive human development has affected, there is no mechanisms whereby nature can rapidly or quickly undue the destruction and changes that human development have wrought on it.1 A good example of this can be found in the way that the Bellefonte sight has been developed over a period of the past 230 years. Beginning as early as 1790, water powered industry began to spring up along the Bellefonte site as hydro power was utilized to drive what was then the very first vestiges of industrialization in the United States. However, the changes did not end there as the development of industry led to the site being utilized for steel and iron smelting and production. With the presence of such industry and the construction of a dam to regulate water rates and flow, several key ecological issues have since developed. Although this site has been in use perhaps longer than any other site that this course has discussed thus far this semester with regards to the impact that humans have on the environment and the way that the ecological landscape develops, the fact of the matter is that the ecological impacts that have been affected have been notably and demonstrably proven to be for the long term. For instance, the first and most pressing is with regards to the migration of natural species that the dam itself retards and/or prevents. As trout can no longer have any approachable means to reach the upper regions of the watershed or river system, a whole host of issues surrounding spawning, food chain management, and the diversity of species with a given region are affected. Other concerns regard the buildup of sediment at the base of the dam, the regulation of an otherwise variable flood plain that had existed prior to the construction of the dam as well as a litany of other issues, as well as the existence of a powerful wh irlpool at the base of the dam which acts to collect garbage. Of course such situations as have been illustrated only serve to highlight the importance that environmental and ecological remediation and planning must be taken into account prior to affecting any major changes within a region. Although it is within the realm of possibility and human ability to work to remediate some of the

Factors Affecting Presidential Leadership Essay

Factors Affecting Presidential Leadership - Essay Example Presidential leadership can be affected by the personal capacity of the individual for leadership (Patterson 338). This is especially the case where the nation is facing a crisis and it needs the leadership of the president to see it through. The personal leadership capacity of a president often proves to be a decisive factor in the exercise of executive power because it determines whether or not his leadership is a success. The current expectation of presidential leadership in the United State is for the president to be very assertive in his actions because it can be considered to be a show of strength. This was especially the case where after the 9/11 attacks, President George Bush took the decisive action to launch the war on terror and go after al Qaeda by invading Afghanistan (Patterson 342). Therefore, the exercise of presidential power can be considered to rely heavily on the president’s personal leadership as well as how he conducts himself in diverse situations that a rise.National and international conditions have a significant effect on presidential leadership (Patterson 361). This is especially the case considering that the United States has become the most powerful country in the world and that it has to show leadership in order to not only serve its own national interests, but also those of its allies. In times of crises, both national and international, the president of the United States is often expected to display leadership and to chart the way towards finding a solution.

REFLECTION paper on Bilingualism, American Style (will fax chapter) Essay

REFLECTION paper on Bilingualism, American Style (will fax chapter) - Essay Example da who were already fluent in English; now immigration has steadily increased to include many diverse countries in which English may not be spoken at all. Data shows that in successive generation of non-English speaking immigrants, the tendency to embrace English as the primary language used has increased. Several factors are cited for this trend, including the fact that society has placed a stigma on the use of any language except for English; this is only combated when immigrant families maintain their heritage language at home and when specific cultural groups occupy their own neighborhoods (for example, Chinatowns). Where a few decades ago schools in the United States did not have any real need to include secondary English language classes or primary foreign language classes into their curriculum, now 1 in 5 students in America is either a foreign-language immigrant or the child of one. This means that the call for updated language classes is much more demanding, particularly when English remains the only official language used in the United States. In 1968 the Bilingual Education Act focused on Native American groups and other minority language groups like the Chinese; these reforms were minimal, however, and the modern classroom finds them very lacking. Half of the country’s population growth in the 1990’s came from non-English speaking immigrants or their children, and while such groups traditionally have held onto their cultural and language differences while living in America, now we are seeing that more and more of them feel the need to take on English as the functional language of their country of business. While non-English speaking immigrants and Native groups that reside in rural areas of the United States tend to hold onto their own languages more stubbornly that their counterparts in urban areas and cities, all of them have increasingly made an effort to integrate in terms of language. According to demographic and linguistic data

Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey into Night Essay -- Long Days Jou

Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" As the fog descends around the Tyrone’s summer home, another fog falls on the family within. This fog is that of substance abuse, in which each of the four main characters of Eugene O’Neill’s play, Long Day’s Journey into Night face by the end of Act IV. Long Day's Journey into Night is a metaphoric representation of the path from normalcy to demise by showing the general effects of substance abuse on human psychology and family dysfunctions through the characters Mary, Jamie, Edmund and Tyrone. Mary Tyrone makes the transition most clearly throughout the entire play. In Act I, her hands move restlessly, and she seems to be quite nervous. When she appears in Act II â€Å"one notices no change except that she appears to be less nervous, †¦ but then one becomes aware that her eyes are brighter and there is a peculiar detachment in her voice and manner† (O’Neill 58). These subtle signs of her relapse back to chemical dependency continue until the final scene, where she is most obviously under the influences of a chemical substance. The morphine seems to make her reminiscent of the past. In Act III, she talked about her two childhood dreams of becoming a concert pianist or a nun. By Act IV, she has dragged her old wedding dress from the attic and attempted to play the piano again. This presents a psychological reasoning for her relapses. She considers herself to be growing old and ugly, and often refers to the how she was at one time young and beautiful. †Å"To her, the ugliness of the hands is the ugliness of what she has become over the last twenty-five years, which is why she uses the pain of the rheumatism in them as her reason for the morphine† (Chabrowe 181). Thus, it can be correlated that at one time she used the morphine to escape pain, and when she realized that it made her feel youthful again she became addicted. Her failure to desist is also connected with her interfamily relationships. When she was accused of relapsing she said, â€Å"It would serve all of you right if it was true† (O’Neill 47)! This suggests that she is seeking justification to continue her drug addiction by using her family’s suspicions as a reason to relapse (Bloom 163). Not only are her actions influenced by her family, but they also influence the men, namely Edmund. He is quite aware of his diminishing health, and suspects that he ... ...with a sense of what the future holds for the Tyrone family, the book tends to be repetitive. Thus, one can assume that the play marks one day, one relapse for Mary, one trip for Jamie to the whorehouse, one more drink Edmund takes to forget the past, and one more drink that Tyrone takes to help himself cope. Yet, it will not be the first, or the last. It will be just one more. Night will journey into morning and it will all happen again. Such is tragedy. Works Cited American Lung Association. â€Å"Who Get’s It.† Tuberculosis (TB.) On-line. Internet. 1 March 2001. Available: <a href="http://www.lungusa.org/diseases/lungtb.html">http://www.lungusa.org/diseases/lungtb.html Chabrowe, Leonard. â€Å"Rituals and Pathos: The Theatre of O’Neill.† Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Bloom, Steven F. â€Å"Empty Bottles, Empty Dreams: O’Neill’s Use of Drinking and Alcoholism in Long Day’s Journey Into Night.† Critical Essays on Eugene O’Neill. 1984 ed. Collins, R. Lorraine, Kenneth E. Leonard, and John S. Searles. Alcohol and the Family. New York, London: The Guilford Press, 1974. Hinden, Michael. Long Day’s Journey into Night: Native Eloquence. Boston: Twane Publishers, 1990.

Comparison of High Involvement Consumer Decision Making with Love Involvement Decision Making Essay

Consumers don’t necessarily go through all the buying stages when they’re considering purchasing product. They have probably think about many products they want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, they probably look at dozens of products, compare them, and then decided not to purchase any. They sometimes can even skip stages 1 through 3 and buy products on impulse. Purchasing a product with no planning or forethought is called impulse buying. Impulse buying brings up a concept called level of involvement—that is, how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product. For example, you might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one. Or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry. These are items you need, but they are low-involvement products. Low-involvement products aren’t necessarily purchased on impulse, although they can be. Low-involvement products are, however, inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if she makes a mistake by purchasing them. Consumers often engage in routine response behavior when they buy low-involvement products—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. If you’re served a Diet Coke at lunchtime, and it’s flat, oh well. It’s not the end of the world. By contrast, high-involvement products carry a high risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving, where they spend a lot of time comparing the features of the products, prices, warrantees, and so forth. High-involvement products can cause buyers a great deal of postpurchase dissonance if they are unsure about their purchases. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware of that postpurchase dissonance can be a problem. Frequently they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Limited problem solving falls somewhere in the middle. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a bit more information. Brand names can be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement product—say purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you â€Å"search time† and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting. When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brands or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality, buyers joked that a car that’s â€Å"not Jap (Japanese made), is crap. † The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the makers of high-involvement products can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

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