Countries-Influence

Ben Decker Julia Anastos Korea influenced the world in more ways than one. After the second world war, Korea was divided into North Korea, and South Korea. It was divided at 38º north latitude which is also called the 38th parallel. The Russian-educated leader of North Korea, Kim II Sung, was planning on making North Korea communist, and he was fully equipped for a war if need be. Yet American-educated South Korea leader, Syngman Rhee, had little to no military equipment, and would surely lose if a fight was to be fought. Harry Truman, the then president of the U.S., was trying to enforce his policy of containing communism. So the U.S.A. started sending troops and supplies, and waged undeclared war on North Korea to stop them from their continuing invasion on South Korea. The Cold War, was turning more and more hot. At first, it seemed that we were losing, but then, we took the lead. We kept pushing North Korea farther and farther back out of South Korea, and into their own territory. General Douglas MacArthur, was in charge over in Korea, and he took his efforts a little to far. He wouldn’t listen to President Truman, and though he was a great general, he wouldn’t obey to his orders. So even though he was told to stay in South Korea, and not invade into North Korea’s territory, he did anyway. And because of these reckless actions, China entered into the war helping fight with North Korea. With all the new fresh fighters and equipment from the Chinese, the North Korean’s quickly started to dominate the war. One policy that both sides of the war used, was total war. Which means that they burned villages, tore down homes, and did everything to ruin whatever place they were passing through. This devastated Korea after the war, and left lots of places in ruins. Meanwhile, everyone in the U.S.A was worrying about World War III beginning, and communism spreading to other parts of the world. Nobody in America wanted anything to do with communism, Russia, or North Korea. Yet the Americans knew they didn’t have a choice. They knew that they needed to fight back against communism, which is exactly what they did.
 * North Korea and South Korea:**

Post World War Two Europe was not a pretty place. Nations all over struggled with poverty, and rebellion, and some sort of stabilization was needed. From his experience with the civil war President Truman knew that our victory was useless unless we assisted these struggling countries, and we encouraged Russia to do the same. Soon, we inhabited much of Europe, helping our damaged foes, and even our allies to their feet. After their stability was made sure of, America left. There was no more work to be done, and the last thing that we wanted was to enforce our rule. Russia thought differently. They had lost 23 million of their bravest citizens, and as far as they were concerned, they deserved to do whatever they wanted. What Winston Churchill called “the iron curtain” was soon cast over Europe. Russia remained within Europe’s broken nation’s, and enforced communism. Joseph Stalin vowed to kill anyone who attempted to escape from his rule, and there was virtually nothing that America could do. Russia’s communist ideas soon began to spread. We became paranoid. What if communism spread across the world? What if dictators such as Joseph Stalin held rule over everyone? We needed to prove democracy’s worth. Soon we were fighting communism in Korea, and then Vietnam after that, but even that wasn’t enough. In science, Russia was far more advanced than us. They launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. They even launched a living dog into space. Heads began turning towards Russia. People came to the conclusion that they had to be doing something right. Maybe it was communism. And so the space race began. Both America and Russia worked tirelessly in an effort to put the first man in space, but it was more than that. It wasn’t a matter of America and Russia, it was a matter of democracy and communism. It was in our success that the future of our world lay. It was believed that throughout the Cold War, The Soviet Union threatened the entire world with their communist ideas.
 * The Soviet Union:**

The United States of America was booming in the post-war times. With almost everyone owning a television set, and a car, we were doing as well as anyone could’ve hoped for in a post-war time. Yet, through all of this happiness wealth, we were scared. Scared of a nuclear third world war, communism, Russia, and what would become of our country. With Truman in office after FDR, we were actually doing very well considering the circumstances of just fighting a war, and entering into another. With all of our great advances in the past years, one issue kept us stuck running in place. Civil rights. While America was looked at as a land of opportunities, black americans received endless discrimination across the country. In the south, many were beaten and harassed for just sitting in the same diner as whites, or for more serious things, like trying to register to vote. With many leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., trying to lead our country through the civil rights movement, it still took us many years to finally accept blacks into our society as equals. Later on, while we dug deeper and deeper into the Cold War with Russia and other communist countries, John F. Kennedy tried very hard to get a civil rights bill passed, but did not get it passed before he was assassinated in 1963. Yet while we wrapped up the war in Korea, things started to get heated in Vietnam. North Vietnam, who was communist, was trying to takeover South Vietnam. And by the Truman Doctrine, the U.S.A would help any country trying to resist being taken over by communist power. So we sent money, supplies, and troops to help the war effort in Vietnam. The U.S. did this because we feared the “domino” affect in communism spreading. They didn’t want to have communism spread from country to country, and slowly over rule democracy and capitalism. Another part of the Cold War between Russia and the U.S.A. was the space race. The space race was Russia and the U.S. trying to get the first satellite in space, the first man on the moon, and other space related conflicts. While Russia was first to successfully put their satellite, Sputnik II, into orbit, we were first to put man on the moon in 1969 during Richard Nixon’s presidency. The United States, being the power house country that it was, influenced the world with countless ways, for the good, and for the bad.
 * United States of America:**

In 1959, Cuban dictator Fulgencia Batista was overthrown by a young revolutionary by the name of Fidel Castro. America and the rest of the world thought little of this, and were pleased when Castro announced to us that he and his Army were “not Communists”. To us, it seemed a wonderful birth of democracy in a very much communist world. Little did we know that, Castro’s view of “not Communism” was skewed. He slaughtered all who were in opposition to his rule, and nationalized everything privately owned. Fidel Castro, even forced religion out of Cuba on account of the fact that he was atheist. He ruled his nation in accordance to what he wanted, and his views were far from democratic. Soon, Cuban refugees began arriving on American soil. The CIA took charge of this group, training them in military tactics, and preparing them for an assault on Castro. In 1961, shortly after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, this group of now highly trained refugees attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The assault was a failure, and America was embarrassed. Our new president took full blame for the failure, and there was an almost weighted feeling of doubt across the nation. Was JFK really fit to lead us? Was he too weak? Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was convinced that our president couldn’t handle potential war, that this was his chance to shatter the states to pieces. So he tried something dangerous, he created a friendship with Fidel Castro, and used it to gain permission to place Soviet missiles on Cuba. The United States were shocked. For years they had considered themselves immune to Europe’s problems. The Monroe Document, which even the Soviets had signed, stated that no European power would interfere with the Western Hemisphere. This was not only a direct violation of the doctrine, but it was a giant threat to America. President Kennedy didn’t have an astounding number of options, in fact he really only had two; bomb Cuba, or don’t. The last thing that our world needed was a third, bloody war, and JFK refused to even consider dropping bombs. Instead, he threatened to invade the island if the missiles were used. As far as Fidel Castro was concerned, the Soviets should have launched the missiles right then and there, but Nikita Khrushchev had a bit more common sense, he didn’t want war either. President Kennedy gave the Soviet Premier time to consider his options, and in secret, Kennedy even agreed to remove American missiles from Turkey. After 13 days of torturous wait, Khrushchev removed his missiles, and retreated to Russia. This is the closest that the world has ever come to nuclear war. After this, Cuba continued in its communist ways, and still does today, but discontinued its involvement in the Cold War.
 * Cuba:**

**Vietnam:** In 1859, the French began their occupation of Vietnam. file:///Users/student/Desktop/3207829.jpgThey ruled rather peacefully and caused no trouble, but to most of the Vietnamese people, foreign rule just wouldn’t do. They wanted to be free, so in 1941, Ho Chi Minh led his communist army, the Viet Minh, to battle against the French. During World War Two, the Germans took France early on. For Vietnam this meant becoming axis supporters. During these years, the Japanese aided the French in Vietnam, and held ultimate power there. In 1945, over 1 million North Vietnamese people died of famine due to Japanese exploitation. Following Japan’s unconditional surrender in World War Two, Ho Chi Minh came to power. But it was decided amongst the allies that the tiny island nation still belonged to the French. It stood as a problem that France had no ships, or guns, and were generally weak following their release from German hands. So the British decided to help. They took much of South vietnam, while Nationalist Chinese troops took North Vietnam. The Viet Minh didn’t like this a bit, so with Ho Chi Minh at their lead, they rebelled. Things didn’t seem all that promising for Minh until 1949 when Mao Zedong and his fellow communists took control of China, and were free to aid the Vietnamese with weapons. The French had difficulty containing what was now a well armed Vietnamese army, and they let out a plea for arms. America listened, and by 1954, they were carrying 80 percent of war costs. Soon pressure was being placed upon us to join in the fighting, but President Eisenhower had seen the horrors of war, and refused to do any such thing. Following a horrific defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, in 1954, the French had had enough. At the Geneva Conference, a ceasefire was negotiated, and freedom was granted to the Vietnamese. America was not pleased with this. We believed that under the Domino Theory, a country controlled by communism could influence any number of other nations to become like them. We feared that Vietnam would do exactly this, and when John F. Kennedy took control in 1961, he took immediate action. Kennedy’s plan was to provide aid to the South Vietnamese so that they could essentially defeat Ho Chi Minh on their own, but Kennedy knew little of the corruption and stupidity of the South Vietnamese government. The troops did no good, and the South Vietnamese were consistently defeated. In 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson took control, and seemed very little concerned about the war. He spent most of his time concentrating on his Great Society. Upon increased pressure to expand the war, though, Johnson looked for an excuse to make it look as if he was provoked to do so. He found this excuse in 1964. A United States ship on an intelligence mission off of the Gulf of Tonkin was shot at with a round of torpedoes. It was said that the ship was shot at a second time, while it really wasn’t. Johnson painted the picture that a United States ship was attacked twice, unprovoked, and used it as his excuse. Soon the war was escalated to new heights. Huge numbers of troops were sent to fight, but they were unprepared. The soldiers weren’t ready for guerilla warfare, and they suffered because of it. For five years, United States troops had difficulty. All that we seemed capable of doing was raiding small villages, and suppressing the people. Lyndon Johnson refused to withdraw our troops, and it wasn’t until Nixon’s presidency, after the Mai Lai massacre, and a horrendous defeat at Saigon that we pulled our troops out completely.

In the 1950’s, through the early 1980’s, the Soviet Union was at its high point. They seemed to be doing great under communistic rule, which of course we now know to be false, and was just false propaganda sent out by Russian media, but still, we looked at them as equals, if not above us as the United States. One reason for all of Russia’s power, was all the land they obtained. Many small countries had been taken over and invaded after World War II. These countries include almost all of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union had taken over all this land after World War II. They did this because they wanted to be more powerful, and it was very easy to become imperialistic and take over the small weak countries after the war. The United States, having solid beliefs in trying not be imperialistic, tried to stop the Soviet Union from doing this, but failed in the beginning. Later on, when the Soviet Union fell, the countries were released back into their own rule, but they split into different countries then before they were taken over. So while these countries had to endure being taken over by Russia, and being under communistic rule by Russia, most are now thriving as European countries.
 * Countries Overtaken by the USSR:**