Increasing Cold War tensions

what gave the basis to Mcarthy’s ability to create macrthysim?

by 1950, the USSR had a bomb and the Chinese had become communist as well as the creation of NCS-68 which all in all created a global fear of communism

What was the house of Un American activty?

it was created in 1945 but it soon became a stable part of the government and there job was to look for comunism

Alger Hiss?

1948

he had been involved in the government since pre-war and was accused of communism and was prosecuted for it

Dean Acheson continued to support him which fueled the fear that there was communism within the US government

who else did mcarthy attack?

he also attacked teachers calling them ‘reducators’

he attacked the army in 1954 and that was the end of him as they asked if he had no honour and shame he was voted as being guilty in having brought that body into disrepute which was the end for him

what was the influence of macarthy in goverment policy

asia first approach - if Asia was not taken care of then they would be in a bad position and that shifted the policy in the US to be more concerned with the with Asia and global alliances

how did the US dominate in the UN through allyship?

From 1945-55 the members of the UN did not really change

out of the 50 members - 20 were from the US and South America

the middle eastern and Western Europe countries were all allies to the West (dominance)

in the mid-50s most countries were still under European empires and that meant that they were absent from the UN and that absence stopped them from allying with the Soviets

His only ally was the polish

the dominance was only further enhanced once the Chinese were refused to be taken into the UN and Taiwan’s regime was given the space - the potential challenge to US dominance was excluded on the basis that they were aggressors

the united nations - how did it work and the power of veto?

there was a security council of 5 permanent members who had executive decision-making power

* china
* USSR
* Britain
* France
* USA

the power of the Veto was to stop a decision being passed

by 1955 china used it once, France used it twice, usa none, Britain none and the USSR 75! times

* power of veto reduced the dominance of the US in the UN

The global policeman?

The US wanted to be a global policeman not through the UN but through US influenced regional alliances

Eisenhower took the view that communism was a global threat and needed a global response to deal with it

isolation of china?

it had to be done- influenced by McCarthyism

it was seen that if Truman did not try to balance power in the civil war then communism would have not one and now to combat that they had to show a lot more support to Taiwan

the Korean war isolated the Chinese even more.