Conflictos después de la Segunda Guerra mundial

INTRODUCTION
Before WWII started the world was divided in some groups of countries, ones that were democratic, with
USA at the head, others that were communists, with the USSR leading them, the nationalists, with Hitler and
Mussolini as examples, and the neutrals ones, as the British; that were the country after USSR and US
economically superior, and that was the one that equilibrated the balance of power among the other blocs of
powers. After WWII, the extreme difference of ideologies, by one side communism and by the other
capitalism (nationalism had almost completely disappear after the fell of Germany) started a new kind of
conflict, one in which the people didn't play a big role, one in which the threat of a nuclear war mean the
whole destruction of the world. This conflict was called Cold War and principally was played by two
superpowers USSR (communist) and USA (capitalist).
These countries could have used their potential allies' territories to fight their ideological war.
A NONSOLVED CONFLICT
With the end of WWII, not all finished, Europe was almost devastated and US was still fighting in Asia
against Japan to maintain the balance of power in the Pacific, where the Japanese troops were attacking all the
islands that they believed they could get. In this moment, US asked for help to their allies during the WWII
principally USSR, to attack Japan by other side opening another front in the West, the condition to do that was
that all the land that the Soviets gave freedom would be retained for them. The US agreed although they didn't
trust in the Soviets.
When Japan was encircled, the US gave them the chance to surrender but the Japanese were not going to
accept that, they were the descendants of the traditional samurais; they couldn't surrender they would fight
until death, so the US President Harry S. Truman took the horrific decision to drop the first atomic bomb,
made by scientists refugees from the WWII as Einstein. This decision was taken twice, once in Hiroshima and
other in Nagasaki, but finally with the demonstration of power the Japanese government surrender. The drop
of these bombs doesn't only mean that the war was ended, it also meant that the US had the most powerful
weapon ever seen, so they became the World Power.
The US left some troops in Japan to prevent a conflict and to installed democracy as the way of government in
the island.
As they didn't trust in the USSR they made a couple of important decisions. One was the Truman Doctrine;
created to stop the spread of communism; and the other was the Marshal Plan created to recover Europe
economically. At the same time they put the Europeans in the capitalist side because as the people in Europe
was poor, physically or mentally sick, and didn't have mood to rebuild Europe, the US help would put them in
Americans side.
THE KOREAN WAR
The Japanese took Korea when they were attacking this zone and with the end of their control, when they
surrender to the Allies after the drops of the Atomic bombs, they became divided by the 38th parallel. The
North called Popular Democratic Republic of Korea was communist and was under the rule of Kim II Sung
and the South, Republic of Korea, under Syngman Rhee.
The conflict derived from the fight stabilised South of the parallel and the growing opposition to the Korean
president that made Kim II believed that he could get South Korea appearing as the liberator and unifier of
both Koreas.
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Kim II tried to convinced Stalin to support him by saying that this war was going to be so fast that the US
could not have enough time to became involved, from the beginning, Stalin didn't want to help N. Korea, but
something made him change his mind. Why did him change his mind??
The different possibilities are those:
• Stalin believed that after the U.S.A. deserted Chiang Kaishek to his own fortunes in the internal
Chinese conflict they would not risk a participation in a Korean−Korean war as well.
• The Soviet Union had declared the creation of its own nuclear bomb, which according to Stalin's
calculations deprived Americans of their nuclear monopoly and of their ability to use the nuclear card
in the confrontation with the Soviet Union.
• Stalin perceived weakness of Washington's position and of its will to get involved militarily in Asia.
The war started on June the 25th 1950 when the North Korean Army passed the 38th parallel and invaded
South Korea. US immediately sent supplies to South Korea and soon it increased its implication in the war.
On June 27th, the Security Council of the UN, with the volunteer miss of USSR passed a resolution presented
by US that imposed military sanctions to North Korea. Three days later President Truman ordered that the
troops left in Japan moved to Korea. The US, South Korean, Australian, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canadian,
Colombian, Ethiopian, French, British, Greeks, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippine, South African,
Thailand, and Turks troops with medical assistance from Denmark, India and Sweden were under the
direction of the US general Douglas McArthur.
Although the UN sent those troops, the war was in North Korean side, their troops had reached Seoul and the
US and South Korean troops had been moved from the perimeter of the port city of Pusan, at South. The UN
army broke up this perimeter using the invasion of General McArthur in the city on Inchon, and the moved the
North Koreans to the 38th parallel.
Feeling a chance, not only to stop communism also to eliminate it, President Truman passed orders so the UN
forces cross the parallel and move the enemy toward the Chinese frontier. Although the Chinese had warned
that they would enter the war if the US troops crossed Yalu River, the UN troops crossed to North Korean
territory in October 7th and conquered Pyongyang, its capital. On October 25th some UN troops reached Yalu
River where they met with Chinese troops that had crossed the frontier. The communist recovered the capital
on December 5th and took Seoul on January 4th 1951.
Afraid of a war against China and the USSR, President Truman forgot his objective of unify using the
weapons Korea and remember his original objective, stop the communist aggression in Korea.
The UN forces recaptured again Seoul on March 14th and on April 22nd they had positions near the 38th
parallel. While, General McArthur had been embossed because he defended from the beginning a direct attack
on China, his successor was General Matthew Ridgway.
On June 1951 the Soviet advisor in the UN proposed that the belligerents started Peace Conversations to stop
the war. On July 10th 1951, in Keason (North Korea) these conversations started and continued for two years.
These conversations broke up on October 1952 and didn't restart until April 1953; the reason was the anti
communist feel to give the war prisoners back to their country if they didn't want.
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Soldiers waiting for Lte. General Walton Walte orders
Finally on July 1953, the Peace Treaty was signed in Panmunjom. The Korean War supposed the lost of more
than 4 million of deaths in more than three years and that left after it a huge economic and social hurt.
The sides of this war were the communists countries as China and USSR supporting North Korea, helping it
to conquer the South and spread in this area their ideology, and the UN forces with US heading them helping
South Korea to maintain its independence. The final winner of this war apart of the South Koreans, that kept
their independence, was US, because they felt that they won USSR a battle in the first years of the Cold War.
That's the reason this war was so relevant in the History, because developing countries with a common past
were fighting. One was trying to unify both under a communist regime, and the other trying to stay
democratic. So this war hadn't become as popular as it had without the intervention of the others. And these
others intervene to show which one was the powerful, in this case the winner was the capitalist system, but in
the previous one, China, the winner was the communist.
THE VIETNAM WAR
During 1900's, all Indochina's area was under French control, but when Japan started its conquers some years
before the WWII started, they took it. In the zone of Vietnam, a guerrilla, the Vietminh of communist
tendency created and headed by Ho Chi Minh was fighting to achieve independence. They first sent out the
Japanese, after their surrender, the Vietminh took Hanoi and forced emperor Bao−Dai to abdicate; the new
country was called Democratic Republic of Vietnam. First the French accepted it, but then economic and
political problems made a confrontation among the North with the French, and with the French help, Bao−Dai
created the Kingdom of Vietnam (South) and chose Saigon as capital.
Meanwhile the French were fighting against the North Koreans, the US sent military advisors to the South and
they forced the march of the emperor. They put in the head of the country Ngô Dinh Diêm, a catholic closer to
the US ideology; this movement put a big part of the population, the Buddhists, against him.
A Buddhist burned himself.
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Some people that had moved to the North started to come back to South Vietnam, and some of them created
the Vietcong (Vietnam Congnam, meaning Vietnam Red), when that was happening, the French had already
moved away from Vietnam. The Vietcong started to attack US military installations and in 1959 they started
to attack the government. They also formed the National Liberation Front (NFL) with the goal of
overthrowing Diêm and reuniting Vietnam. With the increase of Vietcong's attacks, the Americans also sent
more help and in 1961 US signed a friendship treaty with South Vietnam in which they said that they would
help them to maintain their independence, and a year later 11.200 US soldiers were in Vietnam. In 1963 the
South Vietnamese government was overthrow by a coup d'état, the political stability didn't appear until 1965
with a Council leaded by two generals Nguyên Van Thieu and Nguyên Cao Ky. In the 1960's the violence
increased as well as the supplies sent by Soviets and Chinese by the Ho Chi Minh's trail. The American
bombardment started after the confrontation of Tokin Gulf, when North Vietnamese torpedoes attacked US
destroyers. President Johnson sent planes to drop bombs in North Vietnam as reprisal.
B−52 bombing North Vietnam
During the next years the droppings were stopped trying to start peace conversations among the implicated but
the North Vietnamese refused all kind of negotiation. The war continued and the humans and economics lose
made the public opinion started to be against this war.
With the end of the Presidency of Johnson, and began the era of Nixon, it began a process of Vietnamization.
In which the US started to give all the war control to the South Vietnamese. All this process started not only
because the American people were asking for an end of the war, but also because the US knew that they
couldn't win the war and they moved away trying to defend their honour in the world. At the end of March
1973 all the American troops had left Vietnam. With the fugue of the US troops, the South Vietnamese stayed
under North Vietnam and Vietcong mercy that helped by the Soviets and by the Chinese had surrender on
April 30th, 1975. Vietnam proclaimed its unification on July 2nd 1976 under the name of Socialist Republic
of Vietnam.
The third confrontation among the capitalists and the communists ended again with communist victory, and
the reason why the US had entered this war, stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, didn't work at
all, Vietnam's neighbours, Laos and Cambodia, fell on communism too.
This war not only showed the poor strategy that the US used to fight against the guerrilla, but also that some
of their actions showed the quality of some of their officers. As the incident that happened in the city of My
Lai, where the US soldiers killed all the people among them, old people, women and children, the excuse that
they put was that they believe that those people were communists from North Vietnam, is that a good excuse?
, Is the murderer of hundred of people were or not communist fair? this city was not the only way that the US
leaders showed their personality for example when they exaggerated the use of napalm that mutilated and
killed thousands of civilians and using defoliants, used to eliminate the vegetation, that devastated the
environment of a country essentially agricultural. So maybe we should ask some of the soldiers that
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fortunately are alive nowadays that are living confortable in their houses. But what about the generations that
are now in Vietnam trying to survive in the poverty of a land destroyed not only physically but also in a land
that is hurt mentally with the atrocities that were committed during that horrific part of its history?
Not only the US have the fault of what happened in Vietnam, also the Soviets that were supporting North
Vietnamese troops by sending them supplies are the guilty of this war.
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
When on January 1st of 1959 the guerrilla commanded by Fidel Castro, ended with the dictatorship of
Fulgencio Batista and created a system with socialist tendency, the American administration of Kennedy
made some attempts to end with this regime in the close island. When the landed known as Bay of Pigs
invasion failed the US put an economic block that still is working. Seeing that, Castro radicalised his policy
and refuge in USSR arms.
Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev
In 1962 the CIA discovered the build of rocket's silo and the trip of Soviet cargo−boat with missiles going to
the island. With these missiles the East Coast of US could be erased in minutes. So Kennedy ordered the
block, this decision was the elected of the group that a special commission had proposed to the President;
others decisions were the direct attack or the bombardment, he also ordered the dismantled of the silos.
The tension in this moment make think that the Nuclear War was near, the direct confrontation of the US and
USSR, Khrushchev still was keeping his order to the ships, they still must reach the Cuban coast. But some
calls and different conferences made Khrushchev ordered the stop of the ships .US and USSR took the final
decision. The pact that had been made was the stop of the Soviets ships in change with a promise of don't
invade of Cuba from US and don't install missiles in the US base in Turkey.
The Cuban missile crisis had been the nearest fact that could have make the begin of a nuclear war in which
not only those countries would lose something, the whole world would be destroyed only because two
countries couldn't solve their ideological differences. This crisis also shows that the superpowers were using
the territory of potential allies, in this case Cuba as USSR ally, to develop their battles.
The consequences of this crisis were more notable in USSR, where Nikita Khrushchev the ruler, lost his post
because he was accused of cowardice against the Americans in the Cuban crisis. Kennedy conserved his post
and continues his Presidency until he was killed in Dallas.
CONCLUSION
I really shouldn't say anything to prove my thesis, because the History already proves it. Where, why, how, etc
is clear, in Asia, in Europe, in America Wherever the US went, the USSR went but in the other side, if US
would help North Korea, USSR would help South Korea. These countries considered, the superpowers of
these times showed their weakness of leadership when they involved other countries in wars, for example the
US involved the UN forces in Korea where the problem was only between the people of the that territory.
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Vietnam. Cuba, Korea are only some examples, the problems that emerged in Berlin (Germany), Angola,
Hungary and a big number of countries in all the world with different ideologies in ones the communist was
fighting against the democracy, and in others it was the democracy the one that wanted to survive against the
communism, but in all these conflicts, two countries were involved US and USSR. But did a conflict ever
happen in their territory?? NO, never, they gave their support to the countries where they believed they could
spread their own ideas, without allowing the own countries to develop their ideologies.
All the wars that happened during the period named as Cold War ended with the physical and mental
destruction of the country implicated in. But the countries that went there to prove the power of their new
bombs, or to prove the training that their men had received ended with economic and human loses. I'm not
saying that this is a little thing, the human loses never are little things, but they can grow up new generations
in the better conditions while the countries where the war evolved had to grow up in poverty and misery. The
only advantage that we can have of the involvement of these countries in others affairs is that, that keep them
occupied and avoided a direct confrontation, the feared Nuclear War.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• World History. People & Nations. Modern World. Holt, Rinehart and Winston US. 2000.
• Internet
• Enciclopedia Microsoft Encarta 2000
• Atlas de la Historia Universal. Clarín. Argentina. 1994
• Gaddis, John L. Estrategias de la contención. Editorial GEL. Madrid 1989
• Morgenthau, Hans J. Política en las Naciones. Editorial Planeta. Barcelona 1992
• Kissinger, Henry. La Diplomacia. Editorial Espasa. Sevilla 1994
Internet
Atlas de la Historia Universal. Clarín. Argentina. 1994
World History. People & Nations. Modern World. Holt, Rinehart and Winston US. 2000. Page 521
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