What is more important national security or individual rights? This question has been posed many times throughout our nation’s history. One of the most memorable times when this became an issue was the McCarthy era. Did Communism threaten America’s internal security in the 1940’s and early 1950’s or did Joseph McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee create a Red Scare and abuse their powers? The answer to this question is yes to both parts. After World War II, it was obvious that the three world powers were the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States. Even before the War ended, Joseph Stalin was attempting both to become the most superior power and to possibly spread Communism through espionage. Soviet spies had infiltrated into the American government and established a liable threat to our national security. In reaction to this, Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC promoted a sense of political fear throughout the United States and threatened to destroy the balance between national security and individual freedom. Soviet espionage threatened national security and brought about the second Red Scare in which McCarthy not only destroyed the lives and careers of many Americans but also the innocent image of the country. Continue Reading »

During their expedition, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark Met and Encountered many different Indian tribes. Since Lewis and Clark met so many tribes they decided that they would greet every Indian tribe the same way. Some of the tribes greeted them with gifts, while others greeted them with immediate violence.

Lewis and Clark met with the Arikara Indians on October 8,1804. When they met the Arikara Indians, only a small population of their tribe had existed. They found three Arikara villages, where most of the people lived in earth lodges. There were about 2,000 people in all of these villages combined. “Arikara men wore buffalo robes, leggings and moccasins, and many warriors wielded guns that they had acquired in trade. Women were clad in fringed antelope dresses.” Most of the Arikara were farmers. When crops did not grow well they resorted to shooting buffalo. Continue Reading »

“If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth The Japanese city was a wasteland of scattered ashes. a few chimneys survived, standing upright. Trees were bare; mounds of bicycles lay crumpled and warped. On that bright and cloudless morning an uranium bomb as innocent sounding as “Little Boy” hit this town. After a great-blinding flash, 70,000 people were literally burned to death. The dark, ominous mushroom cloud stood as a symbol for destruction. Hiroshima became the first act of nuclear warfare and this topic remains a passionate debate today, from both a moral and strategic viewpoint. Continue Reading »

America’s decision to declare independence form Great Britain was both due the change of economic policies and to the development of refining life and liberty. After driving the French out, with help from the Indians and British troops, colonist began to quarrel with Parliament’s insistence of testing the limits of their power in North America. Their control was made difficult when residents decided to smuggle and boycott goods. Eventually, the colonies resistance and loss of patience would lead them directly to independence.

The Proclamation of 1763 was the first to anger the colonist. In order to assure the Indians that settlers would not invade tribal lands, Britain emphasized colonist not to expand to the westward region. Shortly after, the use of writs of assistance, which allowed customs to search anywhere without the used of a warrant, placed a major infringement upon colonial natural rights. Continue Reading »

How is it possible that Napoleon Bonaparte, the most feared man in Europe, ruler of France, the most powerful nation in Europe in the early 1800’s, could ever possibly be defeated? The answer lies not so much the in battles that he lost, but rather in the many internal struggles Napoleon faced. The Quadruple Alliance was a unified effort with allied nations against Napoleon: Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. These four nations agreed to put an end to existing revolutions in Europe. This force of nations coming together to defeat Napoleon did not make things any easier for the French emperor, but by this time, Napoleon was already in decline. Throughout history, it is clear that a huge empire will eventually have many forces working against it. An example of this is nepotism, which was present throughout countries that Napoleon controlled, which led to weak rulers. Continue Reading »

The Vietnam Conflict is a dark shadow in America’s glorious history. By the end of the conflict 57,605 Americans had been killed, over 300,000 thousand U.S. military officials had been wounded, and America had spent approximately $165 billion (“Vietnam War” 4). The majority of Americans sought after peace indispensably. “Washington’s struggle to bring the fighting to a close inevitably shifted the U.S. role in the conflict from ally and combatant to mediator between Hanoi and Saigon” (“The Shape of Peace” 15). The struggle would payoff on “January 27, 1973; various representatives signed the Paris Accords. America’s war in Vietnam was over” (Detzer 137). The Paris Accords encompassed “Four main points to the pact: withdrawal of all U.S. forces from South Vietnam; release of all prisoners of war; an international 1,160-man peace keeping force; and recognition of the right of the South Vietnamese people to determine their own future (“Vietnam War” 4). Continue Reading »

When looking at the Cold War in general or in relation to Asia, it is important to understand that a conflict lasting a long period may go through changes, especially in cases of Cold War. This is true of the Cold War, as Hot Wars broke out other states became more powerful, and others diminished. A bipolar conflict was evident during the Cold War in two ways. First the balance of power was divided between two coalitions headed by the United States and the Soviet Union, secondly the struggle over the conflicting ideologies of Capitalism and Communism. However when looking at the Cold War in specific relation to Asia, at different points in time China became an influential player tipping the balance of power. This would suggest that there were times when the conflict in Asia assumed tripolarity. Continue Reading »

The Soviet Union has always been an Imperialist country, in it constant quest for supreme power. The Cold War period steadily increased this quest to find a balance of power technologically, economically, militarily and territorially. Cuba was once annexed by the United States, after the American-Spanish war of 1898 and American business flourished under the (1933) Batista government (Harris, 2002). After great tension, Batista claimed dictatorship which Fidel Castro challenged legally, leading a group of rebels led by Castro to overthrow the corrupt Batista government. Cuba was then open to become a super-client of the Soviet Union.

It can be assumed that through the aide of Soviet Imperialism, Cuba vastly improved its political might. Therefore without Soviet backing, Cuba would not have the material strength to pursue its own imperialistic tendencies. Continue Reading »

Though Stalinist Russia and Hitlerian Germany had different rhetoric, they were both totalitarian dictatorships that sought to attain total power for both leaders. Both evidenced a singleness of goal combined with complete tactical flexibility and shared a passion to dominate all around them. Appeal to the lowest classes ensured that the masses supported their rule, as both realised that one of the central ideas to attaining power was through the lower classes. Both used government to control and exercise power; Hitler, by legalising his actions, and Stalin, by using force. Propaganda and secret police ensured that, if indoctrination failed, then terror would reign supreme, instilling fear into the people and ensuring their control.

Part of elevating themselves to total power was their appeal to the lower classes. Because lower and middle classes made up the majority of Germany, and basically all of Russia, Continue Reading »

The Lend-Lease scheme was certainly a political act of unexampled generosity.  Churchill’s description to Parliament of the plan as a “most unsordid act” recognized the rarity in human affairs of such far-seeing and imaginative action.  R.S.Sayers (1956) in one of the British official histories of the Second World War described it as “a story, above all else, of unprecedented generosity on the part of the American nation” (p.375).  Of course, in political decisions altruism is unlikely to be the sole motive, and no secret was ever made of the vital importance to the United States of the survival of Britain, and indeed of the fighting capacity of the Soviet Union.  Indeed, it was this consideration that Roosevelt used to persuade a traditionally, even instinctively, isolationist American public to support his plan.  In aiding the British “we are following… hard-headed self-interest,” he said (Dallek, 1981, p.252). If Britain fell, he said, the United States would be in real peril.  “Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now” (ibid, 256).  Similarly, Roosevelt was prepared to aid the Soviet Union, braving the strong anti-communism of most Americans, because he “saw a substantial quid pro quo in some 280 Russian divisions fighting a like number of German troops” (ibid, 295-6).  Continue Reading »