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Modern world history world war 2
The United States' entry into and role during WWII
America's involvement in WW2
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1. Sourcing: Who was Winston Churchill? Why would Americans trust what he has to say about the Soviet Union?
• Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Americans would trust what he has to say about the Soviet Union because he was the leader of an allied country during WWII. He worked close with Roosevelt and was a strategist in the Allied war.
2. Close reading: What does Churchill claim that the Soviet Union wanted?
• Churchill claims the Soviet Union wanted the fruits of war the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.
Truman Doctrine
1. Close reading: Why did Truman believe Greece needed American aid in 1947?
2. Context: What does Truman mean when he claims, “Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far
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Sourcing: Who was Nicholas Novikov? When did he write this telegram?
Nicholas Novikov was a Soviet Ambassador.
2. Close reading: How does Novikov describe the United States? What evidence does he use to support his description?
Novikov describes the United States as a world leading diplomacy. He supports this by saying through diplomacy the American military extends beyond the borders of the United States and in the arms the race, they are creating newer weapons. He also says they have enlisted foreign policy.
3. Context: What does Novikov claim the United States planned during the Second World War?
Novikov states that by entering the war at the last minute the United States was able to affect the outcome, ensuring its own interests
Henry Wallace Letter
1. Sourcing: Who was Henry Wallace? When did he write this letter?
Henry Wallace was the Secretary of Commerce and former Vice President to President Harry Truman. He wrote his letter July 23, 1946.
2. Close Reading: What is Wallace’s main argument?
Wallace’s main argument is he feels the United States is good at talking about peace when they are at the conference table, but are still making
1. What conclusions can you draw about Kennan’s assessment of the Soviet threat to American interests around the world? What can you infer about his opinion of this larger threat, based on his description of the factors motivating Soviet aggression?
This quote shows that The Soviet Union started to agree to the terms of The United States and Great Britain. The Soviet Union agreed to a lot before the Yalta conference ended, but afterward they went back on their word. Instead of allowing free elections they said they would do, The Soviet Union did nothing completely ignoring Great Britain and The United States. The United States began to get bothered by that but tried to iit to focus on the main goal, defeating the Nazis. Once the main goal was achieved, they began to realize why they were never allies
The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...
The Monroe Doctrine reflected the concerns and ambitions of a fledgling nation that was brave enough to declare its sovereignty on the world stage. The Doctrine, in stating that European powers ought not to intervene in America’s affairs, established the US as a world power, although one that had inadequate, hemispheric aspirations. However, these aspirations would extend, and in future years the Doctrine would substantiate its usefulness for interventionists, as well as protectionists. Being conceivably the most distinguishable and the most revered as regards principles of diplomacy, the doctrine’s influence on the popular imagination was so great that it described the limits of standard decisions on policy, in turn influencing the choice of preferences that US Presidents had for most of the last two centuries.
Therefore, establishing anti-Bolshevism in the United States was Robert F. Kelley’s mission. Kelley an Irish Catholic trained by Russian refugees ran the Eastern European Affairs division in the State Department (Leffler, The Specter of Communism, 19). Kelley’s intense dislike for the Bolsheviks demands that his aides join actively in his views. One of his service officers is George F. Kennan who joins in the close observation of Bolshevik destabilizing and expansionist activities that cause unrest in Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Spain and Greece (Leffler, The Specter of Communism, 19). Was Kennan’s containment strategy thinking set off with Kelley’s training? Was Kennan’s awareness of the ongoing Russian Communist activities the basis for his ideas? History proves that George Kennan’s ideas on containment were the basis of NSC-68 and...
Despite the appearance of goodwill exhibited in Khrushchev’s speeches, a Western leader would be inherently skeptical of the Stalin crony as he attempts to gain and maintain power over the Soviet Union and his own party. An obvious politician, Khrushchev’s “peaceful coexistence” and “Secret Speech” in February 1956 served to distance him from the unpopular and failing Stalinist approach of communist control. His rhetoric, however, remains no less expansionist than his predecessor. Specifically, in his comments on “peaceful coexistence”, Khrushchev emphasized the ultimate triumph of the socialist system, but concedes that military intervention alone will not achieve such a victory (Judge & Langdon, 339). Rhetoric aside, one must consider Khrushchev’s
Discussions of the causes of the Cold War are often divisive, creating disparate ideological camps that focus the blame in different directions depending on the academic’s political disposition. One popular argument places the blame largely on the American people, whose emphasis on “strength over compromise” and their deployment of the atomic bomb in the Second World War’s Pacific theatre apparently functioned as two key catalysts to the conflict between US and Soviet powers. This revisionist approach minimizes Stalin’s forceful approach and history of violent leadership throughout World War 2, and focuses instead on President Harry Truman’s apparent insensitivity to “reasonable Soviet security anxieties” in his quest to impose “American interests on the world.” Revisionist historians depict President Truman as a “Cold War monger,” whose unjustified political use of the atomic bomb and ornery diplomatic style forced Russia into the Cold War to oppose the spread of a looming capitalist democratic monopoly. In reality, Truman’s responsibility for the Cold War and the atomic bomb drop should be minimized.
During 1945 and early in 1946, the Soviet Union cut off nearly all contacts between the West and the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. In March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" of Europe. He made popular the phrase Iron Curtain to refer to Soviet barriers against the West (Kennedy 1034). Behind these barriers, the U.S.S.R. steadily expanded its power. In 1946, the U.S.S.R. organized Communist governments in Bulgaria and Romania. In 1947, Communists took control of Hungary and Poland. Communists seized full power in Czechoslovakia early in 1948. These countries became Soviet satellite nations controlled by the U.S.S.R. Albania already had turned to Communism. Yugoslavia also joined the Communist bloc. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia had helped drive out the Germans near the end of the war. Communists led by Josip Broz Tito then took over the government (Cold War). East and West opposed each other in the United Nations. In 1946, the U.S.S.R. rejected a U.S. proposal for an international agency to control nuclear energy production and research. The Soviet Union believed the United States had a lead in nuclear weapons and would have a monopoly if controls were approved. The Soviet Union pictured itself as a defender of peace and accused the United States of planning a third world war.
Gaddis, John Lewis. “We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History.” Taking Sides: Clashing Views On Controversial Issues in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle. 14th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 302-308.
completely different from the one I mentioned. The USA believed that the Soviets wanted to expand communism across the globe. They were concerned that having beat Germany, they were now going to get a new dictatorship. In 1945, Stalin was anxious to build a buffer zone, against any more. German invasions.
Communist influence - However, the Soviet Union is not completely seen as an enemy as Churchill acknowledges the fact that the USSR is not inclined to a war. Churchill also does not challenge the idea of collaboration between the Soviets and the Western powers. No concrete policy against the USSR yet. ...
In 1945 the United States saw the Soviet Union as its principal ally. By 1947, it saw the Soviet Union as its principal opponent. The United States misunderstood the Soviet regime. .Despite much pretence, national security had not been a major concern of US planners and elected officials. historical records reveal this clearly. Few serious analysts took issue with George Kennan's position that "it is not Russian military power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power" ; or with President Eisenhower's consistent view that the Russians intended no military conquest of Western Europe and that the major role of NATO was to "convey a feeling of confidence to exposed populations, which was suposed to make them sturdier, politically, in their opposition to Communist inroads."
...e belligerent, especially when the Cold War almost turned into an actual war, he was a man of many words that could sway the opinions of many. One speech could turn an entire country’s perspective in the exact opposite direction and with this skill, Britain emerged as a world leader in the preceding half of the twentieth-century. Sir Winston Churchill lived a full and complete life. Though his death may have been sullen, his message was clear, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it” (Dell 259) and so was the case.
54-84 4LaFeber Walter, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2002, Boston, 2004, pp.1-31.
Taubman, William. Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War. New York: Norton, 1982. Print.