Unit 6: Cold War to the Present (Part 2) Vietnam to Iraq

Unit 6: Cold War to the Present

(Part 2)

Vietnam to Iraq

Vietnam

• Vietnam is part of a former French colony that in 1954 was divided into North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was run by a communist government headed by Ho Chi Minh. South Vietnam was run by a noncommunist government headed by Ngo Dinh Diem.

Vietnam

• The government of South Vietnam was corrupt and often repressive. However, the U.S. supported the government because it was anti-Communist, in fear that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all of Southeast Asia might follow.

Vietnam

• Throughout the early 1960s, communist-backed guerilla forces known as Vietcong fought against the South Vietnamese government. The U.S. sent aid and support to the government.

• By the summer of 1964, the U.S. had begun limited bombing of positions held by the Vietcong and supported limited commando raids on North Vietnam’s coast.

Vietnam

• In August, 1964, President Johnson reported that the North Vietnamese had attacked two American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. At the President’s request, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed the President to carry out a war against the Vietcong and North Vietnam.

• Johnson quickly began bombing military bases in North Vietnam. In February 1965, after the Vietcong attacked an American airbase in South Vietnam, Johnson ordered an escalation, or military expansion, of the war. In April 1965 he began sending U.S. troops to fight against the Vietcong.

Vietnam

• American troops encountered difficulties in fighting the communist rebels. Vietcong guerrillas used hit-and-run tactics and booby traps. They launched small-scale attacks and then disappeared into the jungles or friendly villages. To counter such tactics, American troops adopted a search-and-destroy strategy. The troops destroyed jungles and villages in an attempt to force the Vietcong out into open combat.

Vietnam

• The U.S. continued pouring troops into Vietnam. During the height of the conflict, more than 500,000 American soldiers were serving in the country. Despite the growing influx of U.S. troops and massive bombing of his country, Ho Chi Minh vowed to keep fighting, believing that his forces would outlast the U.S. in a war.

Vietnam

• Once the U.S. had escalated the fighting, there seemed to be no way of leaving without damaging its international prestige. Between 1965 and 1967, American officials estimated that some 2,000 attempts were made to open direct negotiations, all unsuccessful.

Vietnam

• By the end of 1967, U.S. military leaders assured the country that the end of the war was in sight.

Vietnam

• January 30, 1968, marked a turning point of the war. That day, the Vietcong launched surprise attacks on numerous towns and bases in South Vietnam. Occurring on Tet, the Vietnamese lunar New Year, these attacks became known as the Tet Offensive.

• These attacks were quickly repelled. However, the American people were shocked that an enemy was supposedly near defeat could launch such a large-scale attack. After Tet, many citizens began to believe that the U.S. could not win the war.

Vietnam

• In March, 1968, President Johnson announced that he would halt nearly all bombing of North Vietnam and try to begin negotiations. These peace negotiations proved fruitless, however, and the fighting continued.

Vietnam

• Gradually, as the U.S. moved deeper into the Vietnam War, opposition grew. Americans divided into two groups. Those who supported the war were called “hawks,” those who opposed the war were called “doves.”

Vietnam

• A - Many of those who opposed the war were students. The antiwar movement centered on college campuses.

• B - Many students protested the draft calling the system unfair because it offered a deferment to college students, which meant that a person who could not afford a higher education was more likely to be drafted. Many people protested the fact that Black Americans made up a disproportionately large number of American soldiers fighting overseas.

Vietnam

• C - Some protests turned violent. During a 1970 protest at Kent State University in Ohio, four students were killed when the Ohio National Guard fired on demonstrators. Two more students were killed by state police at Jackson State University in Mississippi.

Vietnam

• During this tumultuous period in the U.S., some young people rebelled against established values and searched for a new set of beliefs. These people made up what was known as the counterculture because their values and practices conflicted with those of established society.

Vietnam

• On the other side, a large number of conservative Americans were angered by riots, protests, and a war that seemed to be going nowhere. The deep anger these Americans felt against the protesters soon developed into a backlash against the anti-war movement.

Vietnam

• By 1968, American society had reached a turning point. As a result of the Tet Offensive and the continuing protests, polls showed that the majority of Americans had turned against the President’s handling of the war.

Vietnam

• A - The Democratic party also became split. Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, both of whom opposed the war, announced they would challenge Johnson for the presidential nomination. In March 1968, Johnson stunned the nation by announcing that he would not run for reelection.

• Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s Vice-President, became the administration candidate. As the election progressed, however, it appeared that Kennedy would gain the Democratic nomination. Then, Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968. In August, the Democrats nominated Humphrey for President.

Vietnam

• B - Meanwhile, the Republicans chose Richard Nixon as their candidate. During the campaign, Nixon promised to bring order to the nation and end the war in Vietnam. Nixon won a close victory and thus became President.

Vietnam

• To help him handle foreign policy matters, Nixon appointed Henry Kissinger, a brilliant political scientist, as his national security adviser and later his secretary of state. Wanting to be remembered as a peacemaker, Nixon proclaimed a policy of détente, or relaxation of tensions between the United States and the communist block.

Vietnam

• He also visited Moscow and began arms limitation talks with the Soviets that led to agreements by both sides to ban biological warfare and limit the growth of nuclear weapons. Nixon also worked to improve relations with China, lifting trade and travel restrictions, and in February 1972, he visited the country.

Vietnam

• Despite a campaign promise to end the war in Vietnam, Nixon moved slowly. He did not want to withdraw U.S. troops without a peace agreement and thus become the nation’s first President to lose a war.

• In June 1971, the New York Times published a secret defense department study known as the Pentagon Papers, which indicated that the nation’s various administrations had misled Congress and the public about the war in Vietnam. The documents angered many Americans and increased protests against the war.

Vietnam

• To quiet opposition to the war, Nixon announced a policy of “Vietnamization.” The policy consisted of withdrawing U.S. troops and replacing them with South Vietnamese soldiers. Nixon hoped that Vietnamization, combined with saturation bombing of North Vietnam, would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the war “with honor.”

Vietnam

• In January 1973, the warring sides signed a cease-fire agreement ending the military presence of the United States in Vietnam. The war, however, continued. In 1975, Congress refused President Ford’s request for funds to aid South Vietnam in its continuing war. In January 1975, North Vietnam launched a major offensive against the South. In a few months, the communists conquered South Vietnam and united the country under communist rule.

Vietnam Myths & Facts:

– Myth: The U.S. soldiers were very young and poorly educated.

– Fact: The average age was 23, and 79% of our troops were high school graduates.


- Myth: The soldiers were mostly poor and from minorities.

– Fact: While 30% of the 58,000 killed came from the lowest third in income, 26% came from the highest third; 12.5% were black.


- Myth: Many were jailed for draft-evasion during the Vietnam war.

– Fact: Though 500,000 did dodge the draft, only 9000 were convicted.

Latin America

Latin America

• Shortly after taking office, Kennedy implemented a program of aid to Latin America called the Alliance of Progress. Its purpose was to develop long-term economic growth among Latin American nations in order to prevent communist revolutions.

Middle East

The Middle East

• When war broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the U.S. supported Israel. The Soviet Union backed and armed the Arab states. Israel quickly won the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.

The Middle East

• In 1973, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a surprise attack against Israel in an attempt to regain land lost to Israel during a previous conflict. The U.S. supported Israel, while the Soviet Union aided the Arab states. The two superpowers, however, also worked to end the conflict. The combatants eventually agreed to a cease-fire

The Middle East

• After the war, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger worked with Israel and Egypt to reduce tensions in the Middle East. He engaged in shuttle diplomacy-flying back and forth between the capitals of the two nations in an attempt to produce a lasting peace. Kissinger’s efforts resulted in improved relations between Egypt and Israel

The Middle East

• On the world stage, President Jimmy Carter attempted to promote a foreign policy based on morality and truth rather than military or economic considerations. (When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Carter imposed a grain embargo on the Soviets and kept the United States out of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.)

The Middle East

• Carter’s greatest foreign policy triumph and his greatest failure involved the Middle East. – Carter helped to broker peace between long-

time enemies Egypt and Israel. The two sides signed a peace agreement known as the Camp David Accords in 1979

The Middle East

– The Iranian hostage crisis-Also in 1979, an Islamic revolution toppled the monarchy in Iran. A group of rebels, angry over U.S. ties with the former rulers, seized the American embassy in November 1979 and took hostage more than 50 Americans. Throughout 1980, Carter worked to win the hostages’ release. Negotiations failed, however, as did a military rescue in which eight Americans died in a helicopter crash.

The Middle East

• Election of 1980-pitted Democrat Jimmy Carter against Republican and former actor and governor Ronald Reagan of California. Reagan hammered at Carter’s lack of leadership and of his failure to obtain release of the hostages sealed his defeat. On Election Day, Reagan won handily. On January 20, 1981, just after Reagan was sworn in, Iran released the American hostages after 444 days in captivity.

The Middle East

• Reagan adopted a “hands-off” attitude toward the day-to-day operations of the presidency, giving more responsibility to his staff. This practice aided what would become known as the Iran-Contra affair, a damaging scandal.

• In 1986, several of Reagan’s national security advisors arranged to sell weapons to Iranians in exchange for American hostages, then secretly used the profits to support anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua in violation of a congressional ban on such financing.

The Middle East

• Although investigators cleared Reagan of responsibility for the scheme, they faulted him for allowing aides to make policy decisions without his knowledge.

Improved Relations with the Soviet Union


• In 1983, President Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed “Star Wars.” The project involved creating a shield of new weapons designed to intercept and destroy nuclear missiles. In addition to Star Wars, Reagan promoted a giant military buildup costing about $1 trillion. This increased the debt and left less money for housing, education, and environmental programs. Congress responded in 1985 by passing the Gramm-Rudman Act, which put pressure on Congress and the President to reduce the deficit and balance the budget.


• Reagan’s desire for a strong defense was based on his belief that the Soviet Union was still a threat to the United States. U.S.-Soviet relations improved, however, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the new Soviet premier. Gorbachev opened up Soviet society (glasnost) and instituted democratic reforms (perestroika).


• In 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan met to discuss reducing their nuclear arsenals. They eventually signed a treaty calling for the removal of all intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe. The cold war was slowly coming to an end.


• After winning the election of 1988, President George H.W. Bush was confronted with a tidal wave of change around the world. Gorbachev’s new reform policies in the Soviet Union created even greater demands for freedom and independence in Eastern Europe. In 1989, several Eastern European nations overthrew their communist rulers and forced democratic elections.


• Demands for democracy then erupted in the Soviet Union itself. A failed coup left the power to govern in the hands of Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Republic, and Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president.

• By December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. In its place was a loose federation of self-governing nations made up of former Soviet republics, including Russia, known as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).


• All the former Soviet and communist block states forced serious economic troubles as they attempted to convert state-run economies to capitalist systems.

• Shortages of essential goods such as food, fuel, medicine, and housing created severe hardships for large numbers of people. Ethnic rivalries flared in the newly independent nations, complicating their transition to self-government.


• On January 1, 2000, Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as the new president of Russia, succeeding Boris Yeltsin. While Russia is now an ally of the United States, there are still areas of major disagreement.

• In December of 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that the United States will withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty mid-2002 in order to build up defensive weapons. Russia disagrees that this is the right thing to do.

COLD WAR IS OVER

The Persian Gulf War


• In August 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s troops seized control of Kuwait, Iraq’s oil-rich neighbor. Following the invasion, Iraq controlled 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves. President Bush, with cooperation from more than 25 other nations, assembled a U.S.-led military coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein, however, remained a threat to the region’s peace and stability.


• Observers feared that Iraq was working to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. The Persian Gulf War caused Americans to rethink the military role of the nation. Some leaders called for scaling down U.S. military forces, arguing that the real source of power in the “new world order” would be economic.


• Other experts warned that the U.S. must maintain a strong military to guard against several remaining hostile and potentially dangerous nations. Recently, it is feared that Iraq is involved in sponsoring terrorism around the world, thus, some speculate that there will be more conflict between Iraq and the United States, among other nations of the west.

Other ethnic conflicts

• Despite the decline of communism, wars arising from ethnic hatreds, political boundaries, and religion plagued nearly every world region throughout the 1990’s.

Other Ethnic Conflicts


• The first crisis to confront the administration of President Bill Clinton was civil war in the East African nation of Somalia. When Clinton took office, thousands of U.S. troops already were in Somalia protecting deliveries of food to those left starving by the war. As the U.S. troops became more involved in the conflict, President Clinton pulled them out in 1995 rather than risk American casualties.


• The U.S. and its allies also confronted violence in Europe’s Balkan region. In 1991, the multinational state of Yugoslavia disintegrated as several of the country’s ethnic groups broke away and claimed independence. Ethnic hatreds and renewed feelings of nationalism after decades of totalitarian rule fueled the wars in the Balkan region.


– Serbia, the region’s largest republic, fought against Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Macedonian Independence, and the region descended into years of war. As reports of Serb atrocities against various ethnic groups mounted, Western nations took action.

• The U.S. and its NATO allies bombed Serb military sites in the first NATO military offensive ever. In 1995, the warring sides agreed to a cease-fire and signed an agreement known as the Dayton peace accords.


– In 1999, violence flared up again in the Balkans, as Kosovo, a province of Serbia, sought its independence. To put down the rebellion, Serbs marched into Kosovo, where again reports surfaced of atrocities against ethnic Albanians.

• Serb forces rounded up and executed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys. After diplomatic relations failed, NATO launched air strikes against Serbia, which eventually agreed to remove its forces and permit NATO troops to restore order in Kosovo.


– Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was forced from power in 2000 and was deemed a war criminal by Western leaders and the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands. Prosecutors say Milosevic held ultimate responsibility for at least 900 ethnic Albanians and the eviction of 800,000 civilians from their homes.


• The United States played the role of peacemaker in Northern Ireland. For many years, sectarian violence between the Protestant majority and Roman Catholic minority had torn Northern Ireland apart.

• Roman Catholics wanted to reunite with the predominantly Catholic, Irish Republic. Protestants insisted that Northern Ireland remain part of Great Britain. In 1997, the U.S. persuaded both sides to disarm and accept a cease-fire. A year later, Catholics and Protestants agreed to a peace plan.


• The U.S. also worked to end years of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, an Arab people living under Israeli rule. Under a peace agreement reached in 1995, Israel agreed to significant Palestinian self-rule and the removal of Israeli forces from other Palestinian areas. Implementation of the plan, however, went slowly.


• In 1998, with Clinton’s help, both sides signed the Wye River Memorandum, which detailed the steps needed to implement the peace agreement. Unfortunately, a new round of conflict developed in 2000 and the two sides have never been more divided.

Conflict with China

Conflict with China

• In April of 2001, China held 24 Americans for a short period of time after a mid-air collision between a U.S. Air Force jet and a Chinese jet. The Chinese jet crashed killing the pilot and the Americans made an emergency landing on Chinese soil. Although the Chinese blamed the U.S. for the collision, the U.S. government has strongly rejected responsibility for the incident.

Conflict with China

• President George W. Bush has been given credit for decisive leadership in the quick release of the Americans. Bush also pledged military aid for Taiwan in the event of aggressive force from China. Many suggest the Cold War continues between the U.S. and China.

Peacemaker

• As 2000 began the United Nations was directing peacekeeping operations in 17 countries from Africa to the Middle East to Asia, at an estimated cost of around $900 million. Why is the United States, more than other countries, playing the role of peacemaker around the world? The U.S. is widely seen as the only remaining superpower, and as such, has the respect and authority needed to negotiate peace agreements.

America’s War on Terror

America’s New War on Terror; 9-11-2001

• On the beautiful morning of September 11, 2001, 4 planes left 3 major airports to begin what would be the deadliest single day in modern American history. At 7:59 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 with 92 people left Boston’s Logan Airport for Los Angeles; at 8:01 a.m., United Flight 93 with 45 people left Newark Airport for San Francisco; at 8:10 a.m., American Flight 77 with 64 people left Washington’s Dulles Airport for Los Angeles; and, at 8:14 a.m., United Flight 175 with 65 people left Boston for L.A.

• The next day, Attorney General John Ashcroft would say the planes “were hijacked by between three and six individuals per plane, using knives and box cutters, and in some cases making bomb threats.” He also says a number of suspected hijackers were trained as pilots in the United States.

• January 29, 2002-In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush in a vital act of world leadership declared a declaration against the “axis of evil” referring to 3 nations where there are weapons of mass destruction in hostile hands.

Iraq

• After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, dictator Saddam Hussein was discovered to be only months away from producing an atomic bomb and had already done tests on a radiological “dirty bomb.” His program was closed, but “his pool of trained scientists remained, and he might have a nuclear device within a few years.” When United Nations weapons inspectors were banished, they were convinced that Saddam had hidden an arsenal of VX nerve gas and “a whole range of biological agents and toxins.”

Iran

• According to the Monterey Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Iran, under the leadership of Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, had an arsenal of chemical weapons and, according to the U.S. government, had been secretly producing biological weapons. It is getting Russian help on nuclear power and assistance on missiles from Russia and China.

North Korea

• Caught in 1992 producing more plutonium than it admitted to making, North Korean president Kim Jong II agreed in 1994 to stop producing it in exchange for Western nations’ help with less-dangerous nuclear technology. But it blocked implementation of the agreement. North Korea has large stocks of chemical weapons and a well-developed biological weapons program. It is also developing a missile capable of reaching the United States.

• The three countries don’t constitute a cooperative “axis” as Germany, Italy, and Japan did in World War II, but there is no question that they are “evil.” They have a history of menacing their own people.

Documents

Unit 6: Cold War to the Present (Part 2) Vietnam to Iraq