Research paper: Prompt 3

For people doing prompt 3, here are some examples of containment that you can write about.

The Korean War: In the Korean War, the U.S. decided to intervene between the North and the South. President Truman decided to send troops in Korea as the importance of keeping Korea increased. The Americans did not want to lose another factor in the cold war and felt that if they did not enter this war, the domino effect would happen and lead to the domination of communism.

The Berlin Wall: After the Americans were successful in their Berlin Airlift plan, a few years later, the Berlin Wall was built. While the Soviets demanded that U.S., Britain and France withdraw their troops from West Berlin with a 6 month deadline, the U.S. refused as they did not want communism to spread to West Berlin. Kennedy believed that not only was it a threat to the west, it was a threat to worldwide. The Americans decided to stand their ground and let their troops stay and prepare for a fight. Instead, the Soviets decided to build a wall making the Americans feel relieved. Though they protested the wall, the Americans were able to contain communism without having the military fight.

Other strategy of containment can be seen in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam war. In the Vietnam War, containment was not successful but in the Cuban Missile crisis it was.

Prompt 3: The Korean war

When Soviet Union and America decided to divide Korea at the 38th parallel, the Soviets got the North while the Americans got the South. In the South, anti-communist leader Nyngman Rhee created the Republic of Korea and communist Kim II sung created the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the North.  The agreement of the division was fine until the two separate leaders in Korea wanted to rule all of Korea instead. This lead to a civil war and allowed the UN to step in. While Korea was being used by the superpowers, they both rather not have Korea reunified as they did not want Korea to become communist or non communist and lose an ally. However, the UN declared the Republic of Korea to be the government in Korea.  This soon led to an all out war. The Soviet supplied the North with military weapons and soon after, The North invaded the South.  This invasion was to be quick so the U.S. could not intervene and it would not lead to a greater war. Even though Korea was not in America’s defense perimeter, the U.S. decided to intervene. But why did the U.S. decide intervene when officials have implied that the South was not at their interest?  This time, the Americans went to help the South because they feared that the soviets were dominating. From the success in the atomic bomb to the loss in china, the Americans feared for the Domino effect. They believed that if Korea became communism, the communist would take over Asia and eventually Europe. So, the Americans decided that containment in Korea was necessary to stop communism from dominating. This containment was both successful and unsuccessful. It was unsuccessful in the way that it contained war. With the military confrontation it led to deaths which defied the idea of not wanting to go to war. However it was also successful as the Americans were able to contain the North from spreading.

Hungarian Revolt

In October 1956, the Hungarian army joined protesters to overthrow Hungary's Soviet controlled government. They wanted to pick their own leader and have peace. Opposed to Poland's uprising, Hungary's revolt was more intense. Everyone had joined to revolt with Hungarian flags that had the communist hammer-and-sickle emblem cut out. This showed that Hungary was trying to leave the "Iron Curtain"and leave communism and that had upset the Soviets. Another way the Hungarians showed their dislike for communism was that they toppled a statue of Stalin. A Hungarian communist leader named Imre Nagy, promised free elections and demanded that the Soviet troops leave Hungary as he had formed a new government. Soviets tanks invaded Budapest with infantry units, Hungarians responded with pistols and bottles but the Soviets overpowered them. While fighting against the Soviets Hungary had asked the US for help, the US promised to come in 3 weeks as that would give time for the fight to burn out. But the US never came as they did not want to start a WW3. The Soviet invaders had executed Nagy and replaced the Hungarian government with pro Soviet leaders. This opened the eyes to the Soviets as they are understanding that communism is not working for everyone.

MAD

What is MAD? MAD stands for mutual assured destruction. The concept of MAD is the only way to have stable deterrence in the world is for both sides to be able to kill 25% to 50% of the others population. It seems silly now to have nuclear stable power but back then both sides needed to be confident to deter each other or MAD wouldn't have worked. In simpler terms if one side were to attack the other side, that side would be able to retaliate with equal or greater force. This led to more technology being built, the Soviets had built the ABMs which countered missiles that were coming to them. This troubled the US as they themselves were trying to make ABMs but were unsuccessful. Instead the US invented the MIRVs which were a warhead that included multiple missiles that countered the ABMs. I think MAD in a way complicated things for both sides but at the end made it that a nuclear war didn't happen. It made things complicated because both sides had to keep building missiles just to feel safe. They lost a lot of money as $30 million dollars was spent on making air missiles for each side. Both governments were stressing out because no one knew how many missiles each side had or if and when they would be attacked, it was just a problem of trusting each other. If both sides would have worked together, the war could of been over earlier. It seems weird to think but in a way MAD kept the peace.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile crisis was the closest the US and the Soviets got to a nuclear war in the Cold War. In a span of two weeks, both countries were stressed and overwhelmed with the idea of starting a nuclear war, the US was 6-7 hours away from possibly starting one. What started this? In 1959, Fidel Castro was the new leader brought up by a revolution in Cuba. Castro butted heads with America by nationalizing industries that cost American companies billions of dollars. That caused the US to stop trade with Cuba, only to have Castro adopt communism and become allies with the U.S.S.R. In Cuba the Soviets helped Castro with military aid and brought along medium range nuclear missiles, which gave the U.S.S.R the first strike capability. At this point I think the U.S.S.R was thinking more for themselves rather than actually helping Cuba out. The war has been going on for years and if the Soviets have missiles only 90 miles away from America they have a huge advantage. It also helps that if the US responds to their missiles most of the damage would be done to Cuba. The U.S.S.R was lucky to be allies with Cuba but took advantage of a new born naive communist country. The US did not know what to do, invading Cuba or plan an airstrike on them could lead to war. On the other side the U.S.S.R didn't want to back down because they would look bad, and Cuba did not want America to invade as it could lead to nuclear war on their land. I think another reason the Soviets didn't want to attack was they knew that the US had more missiles than them and that would lead to more damage to the U.S.S.R. Looking at the big picture the Soviets could only do partial damage while the US can do major damage. Finally Khrushchev decided to back down and remove the missiles, later he was replaced as he appeared weak to back down. The U.S.S.R had it all except enough missiles but if they did I think they would have started the war first. To have the first strike capability was a huge advantage and they didn't want to lose it. If everything was on their side they would have started the nuclear war. Do you think the Soviets took advantage of Cuba? If the U.S.S.R had the same amount of weapons as the US would they have attacked first?

Social Psychology Experiments

the social psychology experiments were a series of experiments for example there was one experiment that had smoke seeping under a door with a person on the side of the door with the smoke coming through and he was sitting at a desk taking a test and he saw the smoke and went and got help. When this same exact setting came into place again just with three people the experiment was to find out if you are more likely to run and get help if you are alone or with other people and when the was more than one person in the room know one did anything because if one person keeps there cool everyone else will and visa versa. Another experiment was there was a box with different voltages on it and the voltages went all the way up to 400, there would be a person in a different room hooked up to this box and a person in the next room controlling the box what would happen in the psychologist would ask a question and if the person controlling the box got it wrong he would click the voltage lever and it would go up by 10 volts and every question wrong he would go up, the thing about this experiment is that the guy in the next room was actually a recording and the recording would make sound effect that a real man would make when shocked with these voltages for example at one point it would scream and the person controlling it would want to stop but would not because a man telling him to do it was in a uniform and thats what people grew up to obey is people in uniforms.

In class activity

        In the in class activity there was six groups and these groups would have a part of a flashlight, the flashlight resembled a nuke so during the activity there was rounds and during the rounds u would make trades with other groups but sometimes there was a spy in your group you would know this cause in the beginning of the class there was a card on your desk that had an O or and X and if you had and x you were a spy and an O meant that you were not when you finished trading and had all of the parts to your flashlight (nuke) you would test it which meant that you would sit it on your desk and flash it then after Mr stewart said we could we would shine the light (nuke) a different group and you could do this three times with one flashlight.