U.S. and the World

Is United States and Empire?

Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”

Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden! Have done with childish days-- The lightly-proffered laurel, The easy ungrudged praise: Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers.

“The White Man’s Burden,” Judge, 1890s

President William McKinley “civilizing” Filipinos

Economy and the Cold War

• 1930s: dominance of heavy industry—labor-intensive, isolationist, in favor of tariff barriers

• 1940s: growth of producers of consumer goods—capital-intensive, in favor of free trade, access to markets

• US production doubled, 1946-56

Bretton-Woods Conference, New Hampshire, July 1944

• International Monetary Fund (IMF)• International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

(World Bank)• General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) • Bretton Woods system of exchange rates• US dollar replaces the British pound as the main currency

for international transactions• Dollar value is set at $35 per gold ounce - brings back the

gold standard abandoned in the 1930s

The United Nations

• 1944, near Washington, DC: structure established• General Assembly - each member has equal voice• Security Council: six rotating members, Britain, China,

France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, each with veto power

• June 1945, San Francisco: 51 countries adopt US charter• July 1945: US Senate endorsed• Tensions because of colonialism: Mahatma Ghandi to

FDR: the idea that “the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for freedom of the individual and for democracy seems hollow, so long as India, and for that matter, Africa, are exploited by Great Britain, and America has the Negro problem in her own home.”

Winston Churchill, Fulton, Missouri, March 1946

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Soviet Threat to the World

Ideologies and First Steps of the Cold War

• 1947 Great Britain can no longer provide military and financial aid to Greece (under threat of communist rebellion) and Turkey (pressured by the Soviet Union for control of the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterannean)

• Truman Doctrine: US would support free peoples threatened by outside power

• George Kennan: policy of containment toward Soviet Union• The Marshall Plan• Korean War• National Security Council (NSC), Central Intelligence

Agency (CIA)• Military-Industrial Complex

George Kennan’s “strategy of containment,” 1946-1947

[The Soviet Union’s] main concern is to make sure that it has filled every nook and cranny available to it in the basin of world power.

These considerations make Soviet diplomacy at once easier and more difficult to deal with than the diplomacy of individual aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler. On the one hand it is more sensitive to contrary force, more ready to yield on individual sectors of the diplomatic front when that force is felt to be too strong, and thus more rational in the logic of rhetoric of power. On the other hand it cannot be easily defeated or discouraged by a single victory on the part of its opponents. And the patient persistence by which it is animated means that it can be effectively countered not by sporadic acts which represent the momentary whims of democratic opinion but only by intelligent long-range policies on the part of Russia's adversaries -- policies no less steady in their purpose, and no less variegated and resourceful in their application, than those of the Soviet Union itself.

In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.

George Kennan’s argumentsEvidence: “… ideological concepts: … (b) that the capitalist system of production is a nefarious one which inevitably leads to the exploitation of the working class by the capital-owning class…”(true)

“the Communists represented only a tiny minority of the Russian people.” (false)

“… the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home.” (false)

“Stalin, and those whom he led in the struggle for succession to Lenin’s position of leadership, were not the men to tolerate rival political forces in the sphere of power which they coveted… In 1924 Stalin specifically defended the retention of the ‘organs of suppression,’ meaning, among others, the army and the secret police.” (true)

Rhetoric:“Their particular brand of fanaticism, unmodified by any of the Anglo-Saxon traditions of compromise, was too fierce and too jealous to envisage any permanent sharing of power. From the Russian-Asiatic world out of which they had emerged they carried with them a skepticism as to the possibilities of permanent and peaceful coexistence of rival forces.”

Harry Truman address, joint session of Congress, March 12, 1947

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

Dollar Gap Crisis

• 1947: Europe faced $12 billion trade deficit with US• US plant to rebuilt European economy through American

aid

The Marshall Plan

• 1947: Reconstruction plan laid out for western Europe—US spent $13 billion on economic assistance for countries that joined the Organization for European Economic Co-operation

• 1948: Soviet blockade and Berlin Airlift• Extremely successful: by the 1950s production in Western

Europe exceeded prewar levels; Japan recovered and had a stable democratic government

• General Douglas MacArthur “supreme commander in Japan until 1948 in charge of implementation

• But part of the strategy of containment - used to discredit the power of communist parties in Italy and France

Cold War Europe, 1956

Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949

• US, Britain, and France introduced separate currency in their Zones in Berlin

• The Soviets cut road and rail traffic to the sectors• Airlift to supply fuel and food• Stalin lifted the blockade - major victory for Truman

Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949

Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

• Signed on July, 1949• Long-term means of preventing Soviet expansion• Ten nations promise to provide collective security• Warsaw Pact, signed in May 1955

Truman and the Military

• 1949: victory of Communists (Mao) against Nationalists (Kuomintang) in China

• Soviets tested atomic bomb in Pacific• April 15, 1950: Truman approved NSC-68 (National

Security Council Report 68)—characterized USSR as expansionist power bent on world domination, US needed to protect free peoples against Soviet aggression

• Likely price tag of $30-50 billion/yr.

Korean War, 1950-53

• Korea was occupied by Japan during the War• The Soviets ousted the Japanese• Divided into Soviet North and capitalist South in 1945 at

38th parallel • 1950: North Korean invaded South Korea, encouraged by

Soviets• US secured UN resolution to intervene in Korea—Truman

committed troops to Korea—viewed war as necessary stand against Soviet aggression

• War ended in 1953, boundary preserved, with over 100,000 American casualties

Dwight Eisenhower on D-Day

Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower with Richard Nixon

Dwight Eisenhower and Sputnik, New Statesman, Oct 19, 1957

Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations -- corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

Military-Industrial Complex

• Military budget ranged from $30 billion to $53 billion in 1950s

• 1929: military spending accounted for less than 1% of GNP—increased to 20% by 1960s

• 1970: Pentagon had more assets than nation’s top 75 companies

Cold War and the World

• 1920-1944: Multipolar system of diplomacy• Destruction of infrastructure during World War II• Decolonization in Asia and Middle East following war

Map: Colonial Affiliations before 1945

Decolonization

• 1945 Ho Chi Mihn proclamation of Vietnamese nationhood is based on US declaration of independence

• 1947 India and Pakistan achieve independence from Great Britain; Jawaharlal Nehru favors socialism as route for independence

• 1949 Indonesia achieves independence from the Netherlands• 1955 Bandung Conference of 29 Asian and African nations in Indonesia• 1957 Ghana achieves independence from Greate Britain; African-American

leaders serve as advisers to Kwame Nkrumah, who also favors socialism• 1964 Tanzania formed as an independent state; becomes center of black

nationalist movement• 1966 Black Panther Party founded in the US; establishes ties to Tanzania• 1973 Paris peace agreement ends war in Vietnam for America• 1975 Mozambique and Angola independent from Portugal

US Activities in the Middle East

• Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil company

• 1953 CIA aided coup d'état in Iran and installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi which ruled until 1979 Islamic Revolution

• 1956 Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal• 1956 Israel, France, and Britain invade Egypt; Eisenhower forces them to

abandon the invasion; US replaces Britain as a major power in the region• 1957 Eisenhower doctrine: US will defend the Middle Eastern

governments from communism and Arab nationalism• 1958 Eisenhower sends 5,000 troops to Lebanon to protest pro-Western

Christian government against Nasser

“Save the Holy Places,” cartoon, 1948

Shah Pahlavi receives an honorary degree from Columbia University, 1953

US Activities in Guatemala

• Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán announces plans to nationalize United Fruit Company

• 1954 CIA coup d’etat in Guatemala overthrows Guzman and installs a military dictatorship

• 200,000 die in repressions in the following years• 1993 CIA helps restore democratic government in Guatemala

Military junta entering Guatemala City in a jeep driven by CIA agent Carlos Castillo Armas

Dizzy Gillespie in Zagreb, Yugoslavia on 1956 State Department-funded tour of Southern Europe, the Middle East and South Asia

Woody Herman in Santiago, Chile, 1958

Louis Armstrong meets Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Nigerian Region in Kaduna, Nigeria, 1960

Benny Goodman in Moscow, 1962

Duke Ellington in New Delhi, 1963

W. E. B. DuBois on his 95th birthday in Ghana, with Kwame Nkrumah

John F. Kennedy’s Foreign Policy

• 1959 Cuban Revolution; US declares trade boycott when Castro starts nationalizing US assets

• Kennedy narrowly wins presidential election, promises to close “missile gap”

• January 1961 inaugural address: “ Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

• Peace Corps: by 1966, over 15,000 served• Promised to land man on the moon (accomplished in 1969)• Alliance for Progress in Latin America - financial aid controlled by elites• April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba - failed, 1,400 invaders, 100

killed, 1,100 captured• August 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis - success, Kruscheev agreed to

withdraw the missiles, US would not invade Cuba and would remove weapons from Turkey

• 1963 speech at American University - calls for cooperation with the Soviets: “No government or social system is so eil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.”

• 1963 Nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviets• 1963 Kennedy assasinated, Lyndon Johnson President

Kennedy on Cuban Missile Crisis

Che Guevara on Bay of Pigs Invasion

Nuclear Arms Race

• Kennedy administration builds up conventional and nuclear arms• Cuban missile crisis• Robern McNamara: “mutual assured destruction”• 1963 U.S.-Soviet treaty banning atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons• 1964 France successfully tested its first nuclear weapon• 1967 China’s first successful nuclear test• 1969, the nuclear non-proliferation agreement signed by the U.S. and the

Soviets

Dr. Strangelove (1964) - “the doomsday gap”

New York Times photograph made after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination

Dallas TV on assassination and Abraham Zapruder film

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

New Yorkers react to Kennedy’s Assassination

Soviet theories about Kennedy’s Assassination

The Onion on Kennedy assassination

The Onion on Kennedy assassination

Oliver Stone on Kennedy assassination, JFK the movie

Jerry Seinfeld parody of Oliver Stone on Kennedy assassination