Cuba
The whole relevance of Cuba originates with the Cold War, surrounding an event called the Cuban Missile Crisis. On October 16th, 1962, President John F. Kennedy received word that "the Soviet Union had installed surface-to-surface nuclear missiles in Cuba, less than 100 miles from the United States". Soviet backing of Cuba had begun in 1959 when communist leader Fidel Castro rose to power. The U.S. posed as a threat to Castro, and did not hide efforts to overthrow him in the least. When the Kennedy received word of the missiles, he attempted to "keep the developments in Cuba secret for as long as possible". The missiles that were planted reportedly had a range of 1,174 miles, thus able to reach the majority of the East Coast, including Washington D.C. For the time being, the U.S. was safe, relatively-- once the warheads were attached to the missiles, they would be ready for fire within hours.
“the Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we’d be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine.” -Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union (1958-1964) when speaking of placing missiles in Cuba
(Wagner, Heather Lehr. The Cuban Missile Crisis: Cold War Confrontation. E-book,Chelsea House. Milestones in American History. "
(Wagner, Heather Lehr. The Cuban Missile Crisis: Cold War Confrontation. E-book,Chelsea House. Milestones in American History. "
The Vietnam War
A short video containing some stats about the US presence in Vietnam, content ranging from casualties to life as a soldier.
"Vietnam War." History.com, 2009, www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/ vietnam-war-history. from the beginning the U.S. government lied to its citizens about the war. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon privately confided that the conflict could not be won, yet publicly pretended otherwise. In a time when faith in government was still something widely and gratefully felt, that betrayal condemned hundreds of thousands of people to their graves, including 58,000 Americans." |
Post World Wars, there was a generation of baby boomers, of most of whom had parents who had fought in the war in some way. They grew up hearing stories, war was part of their culture. As this generation came of age, some of them got antsy, as did the US Government. A quarter of a century prior, the Allies had defeated a common enemy, the fascism and tyranny of the Third Reich. During the World Wars, the public of the United States watched as people had to succumb under the thumb of poor rule, and post-war, the U.S. Government turned the attention to another corrupt system, that of Communism, primarily illustrated with the Soviets. There was a sweeping fear across the nation that communism would spread around the world, eventually creeping into the "American" way of life. One area in which this was pressing was in Vietnam, where the Northern Communist Government was at war with the Southern Government. The U.S. Allied itself with the South Vietnam for the War of Communism by 1955 under Dwight D. Eisenhower. A whole generation was being sent into a war that was supposedly being won, however all the media ever depicted were the atrocities and horrors of Vietnam. (Cite: History.com)
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The Cold War
Almost anyone raised in the US knows that the Cold War is, making it one of the best known wars that never happened, at least not in its fullest sense. Post World Wars, there was a lot of fear, addressed in the "Vietnam War" section. What resulted was essentially an American crusade against communism, and at its focus, the Soviet Union. This crusade manifested itself as something called the Cold War, which is most commonly known for its scariest piece; the arms race. The arms race consisted of both the world superpowers accumulating massive amount of Nuclear Weapons; in the event that one country had declared war, the world would scarcely resemble the one we live in today.
"Measures to Weaken the Soviet Economy, 1982
The goal: force the Soviet Union to increase defense spending. " Excerpt explaining primary US action against Soviets to weaken economy in order to prevent further accumulation of Nuclear Weaponry Kasantsev, S. V. "Anti-Russian Sanctions: Then and Now." Problems of EconomicTransition, vol. 59, nos. 1-3. EBSCO Mega File, eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/Accessed Sept. 2017. |
Depiction U.S. President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Soviet leader Leonid Breznehev that appeared on the cover of Time in 1974
Testing Detente. Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, www.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.78.TC129. Slightly straying from the post-war timeframe, anti-soviet actions of the 80's under Reagan are still very relevant, as many of them were used as a template somewhat when creating anti-Russian sanctions in 2014, most of the actions of the past were mirrored in one way or another in the recent sanctions.
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Israel/Palestine
In May of 1948, the State of Israel was established. For hundreds of years leading up to this point, the area today known as the "Holy Land" was vied for by each of the three major monotheistic faiths; Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. After WWII, there was a lot of international guilt for what happened to Jewish culture during the war. Anti-semitism raged in many different parts of the world, and Jews felt unsafe, they were a minority wherever they went. Thus, as a result of historical connection to the land, post-war guilt (headed by the U.S), and fear from Jewish people everywhere, Israel was born. However, the land newly known as Israel was occupied primarily by Muslim Arabs, it wasn't just a wasteland. (Cited: Marrar)
To ensure fair division of the land between resident Arabs and emigrated Jews, the United Nations (UN) set up a partition plan, splitting the land up for each group, ultimately giving the Jewish people more acreage. Jerusalem, one of the most sacred cities for both backgrounds, was essentially neutral, and there was a U.N. Presence there.
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Image of what the division between Israel and Palestine legally looked like when first established by the UN in 1947 post WWII
UNPartitionPlan.Wikimedia,upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/UN_Partition_Plan_For_Palestine_1947.png |