Untitled Flashcards Set

So after World War II the United Nations was formed And there were five parts created to the United Nations To the five parts of the general assembly Security Council Secretariat International court of justice and the economic and social Council so the branch in the UN that allowed the vetoes was the security Council and the Nations that have the veto power was us Britain Russia France and China so basically after World War II there were lots of tensions between us and Russia because the US did not recognize the communist government until 1933 which was 16 years after they had declared themselves as communist and also even before the war stolen had that non-aggression packed with Hitler and the US was suspicious of the Soviet Union so after the trial for the Germans and Japanese as war criminals Germany was going to be split up into four zones so I was going to be split up between us Russia Britain and France which were the allies and Germany had to play reparations and they had to create democratic governments in Germany 

So this all went back to World War 1 or the Great War and this is when Russia had pulled out of World War I during the Bolshevik Revolution And what they did is they signed the Treaty of breslavox to get out of the war so Russia had to give up 25% of their land to Germany and after that the Russian Civil War had begun and it was between the Communist versus everybody else and originally the Western Nations did interfere because they didn't want to see Russia to come a communist Nation so the two sides were called the whites and the Reds and the Reds were communists the Reds were communist and the whites were everybody else so the Western Nations helped the whites with troops and money and they even sent 10,000 troops and this started tensions because it's something that the Communists will never forget because the Western nations were working against the Communist Party so this started the hostility roots of hostility but eventually the Reds won and they declared themselves as communist but the us only recognized that in 1933

 so now it comes to World War II and Stalin and Hitler were working together and the US didn't do anything they felt it was suspicious and they didn't like that stolen sound and non-aggression packed with them but when Hitler attacks the Soviet stolen has to go to the Western Nations or the Allies for help so they had to eventually Unite but even though they're United they didn't really like each other because of the like the roots of hostility that we talked about so after the war the two superpowers were what were the two Nations that were like and are you dumb yeah so it's Russia in the US so Russia wanted equality one party rule they wanted communism but the US wanted capitalism they wanted democracy and individualism so they had conflict over that

 it was at the Yalta Conference that they decided to open a joint operation in Germany and the people that were there were Churchill Roosevelt Stalin and they wanted a split Germany what Roosevelt is the president of the United States okay so what happens is that the US wants to remain there until Germany becomes economic and politically stable but the Soviets want to remain to create a buffer zone so that the Germans can never invade Russia again yeah

 now comes when Truman is President so I went Roosevelt and I'll Truman okay So it went Roosevelt then Truman so what happened is that now there's concerns about Russia creating like satellite nations do you know what satellite nations are the puppet states where they pretend that they were a democracy but they really weren't and they were really just using it to get what they wanted but the US still wanted to do what they wanted to do and remember their goal was to create economic and political stability right the US so they created something called the Marshall Plan in 1947 and this is where the US would give $17 billion dollars to Europe for economic recovery but they can only use that money to buy us products So the US thought that they were helping people but everyone else like Russia saw it as a way of like oh they're trying to increase you as economy because everyone's buying from us businesses so they didn't like that and they did this to prevent the spread of Communism too so the Soviets didn't like that so they came up with their own plan and this plan was called the molotov plan and what would happen is that they wouldn't allow Okay so the two conferences with the Yalta Conference and that was when they were splitting up Germany and the second conference was the Potsdam Conference and that was when they were talking about the Russian satellite States so the molotov plan was only for Eastern Europe and it wasn't as generous as the us but they wouldn't allow the Eastern Europe countries to accept loans from the US

 so what happened between the US and Russia was a Cold War and what that was was like the constant war of nerves between the US and Soviet Union and it also means they never fought directly it was fought like through other countries but it would have seen between the US and Russia no the definition of a cold war so what happens is the Cold War escalates when the zones are divided between the four groups so Berlin was also divided into four sectors and the reason why this was weird is because Berlin was in Russia's territory so not only were they like so Russia had to share can you not look like that bro inside Russia's territory there were allies and he didn't like that so Stalin didn't want to divide Berlin into zones because allies were going to be inside his own now the US and the Soviets disagreed about Germany's future the Soviets wanted Germany to pay 20 billion in reparations they wanted to push Germany but the US didn't want to do this the US wanted to establish a stable country and there's one thing that the US does that starts the Berlin blockade

 so what happens is that all the Allies they create like a new type of money but then stop they create a new type of money and the Soviets didn't like that and even though it wasn't a really big reasons So what happened is that the Soviets are trying to push the Americans out of West Berlin and the American response was that they didn't want to take down the Border because they were scared of World War III and that would basically lead to like a nuclear Holocaust because everyone had developed nuclear weapons at this point but they didn't want to appease Russia because that would be seen like as a repeat of World War II so what happened is that every single day they performed the Berlin airlift and what this looked like was that they basically send like planes with resources and food to the West Berlin people so they wouldn't start and basically this made the Soviet Union look like bullies so basically the Soviets reopen the roots in 1949 and this was the first victory in the Cold War so the Allies had won the first victory in the Cold War but then the arms race begins and this is sort of like what made everyone so scared of a new world war so the atomic bomb was first developed by the us and it was used in World War II with Hiroshima and Nagasaki so both sides were scared to engage in a war because they didn't want to both use the atomic bomb cuz that would be deadly but that was short-lived because the Soviets had developed in like another bomb called the A-bomb in 1949 and if they engaged in war this would lead to a nuclear war

 so to summarize what the US did is they did The Marshall Plan and they created NATO Russia did the molotov plan and they created the Warsaw Pact and that was basically just a pack between Eastern Europe and everyone was scared of World War 3 because of nuclear weapons and one thing that like one term that was used a lot during this war was mad and this was called neutral assured destruction and they were like any reasonable any reasonable person would realize that a nuclear war would kill too many so that's sort of like what's stopping and making everyone hesitate from going too far so they were living in a bipolar world where everybody had to choose a side 

Okay so now we're moving on to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis took place for about 13 days and this was with President Eisenhower so Truman is down now he's not in the presidency anymore and it's Eisenhower now wait no it's Kennedy now okay so basically what happens is what happened is that Castro seizes power in Cuba and he like nationalized the US Industries there and then President Eisenhower cut off relationships with Cuba so there's something called the Bay of Pigs invasion In the Bay of Pigs invasion was in operation that tried to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro but it was a failure and then that year the Berlin Wall was put up and that same year Castro declares himself a Marxist leninist which basically means he's communist now and then in 1962 the Americans send you two flights over Cuba and they find a nuclear missile site so what happens is that they fly over and they see it and yeah so finally in the end President Kennedy has to choose between doing an airstrike or an invasion of Cuba but they're scared to go in war cuz they don't want a nuclear war and they communicate with cruise Chef which is the secretary but they get two letters from Cruise chat so what happens is that the first letter says they would remove the missiles if they didn't invade Cuba but then the second letters says that the US has to remove its missiles from Turkey well are So why it matters is that they took the missiles away from Turkey is because turkey was our Ally But then we would be seen as abandoning our allies so a lot of people didn't want to do that because it was also seen as appeasement so what happens is So in the end what happens is that they ignore the second letter and pretend it wasn't sent and only respond to the first letter saying that they would not invade Cuba if they remove the missiles and cruise Chef agrees to it so that's how the Cuban Missile price ends 

Okay so now we're going on to communist China so what happens is that China becomes a communist country but that's not good because the US is trying to contain Communism so we have to start with World War II so in between 1911 and 1927 they're trying to figure out who would rain over China so there were two groups there was the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek and there was the Communist mouth tongue and the Americans were supporting the nationalists they were supporting Chiang Kai-shek so they had an army of 2.5 million the US gave 1.5 billion dollars in a and there was lots of corruption though so the supplies only ended up with a few officers and that's why the peasants didn't really like the nationalists and what the reason why it took so long for the Japanese to be pushed out of China is because these groups were saving up their strength to fight the Civil War afterwards so the Communist what they did is that they used gorilla Warfare to fight and they worked to win The Peasant support so after the world war ends Civil War breaks out and the US wanted a peaceful settlement but it doesn't work and they just resume fighting and eventually a side has to win so the US want to change his check to win because they didn't want the Communists to be empowered so chances check goes back to Taiwan and they support him but the popularity of the Communist grow from The Peasants and The Peasants wanted communist so in 1949 the People's Republic of China was formed under Mal and when Chang goes to Taiwan we give Taiwan China Sea in the UN which was originally held by Chiang Kai-shek but we give up the seat cuz we don't want a Communist party to have it so only in 1972 will the People's Republic of China like be allowed in the seat and they only in 1979 are the recognized as communists Okay so some things that we need to know is about like the history of China so the first thing that we learned was that fall of the dynastic China and basically this was after the British came and traded opium illegally the Emperors had heavy taxes on the peasants and eventually the soldiers rebelled under the Dynasty and they went under Sun yet sin who is a Critic of the dynasty then came the Communist Revolution and what happens is Chang defeats the Warlords and that's not good for the peasants and the Communists were under mouth so what happens was the Civil War but because Chang was so corrupted none of the peasants wanted Chang to be president so it was now who became it now is the influence of Soviet socialism so what happens is mouse that's troops in North Korea to defeat America and they turn to the Soviets so they start a 5-year plan similar to the USSR and in 1965 they actually rejected Soviet guidance because of their socialist values and they created their own government policy next was the Great Leap Forward and this is when Mal called for China to be an honest communist Nation and they wanted to LEAP ahead of Russia by 15 years so my required everyone to study every day but because of poor management and not correct records it actually failed and next came the economic reforms of dang Chow pain he wanted China to ride so he modernized he shifted power to the local government and peasants could actually sell their own crops after and he created the responsibility system which started the four modernization science Industry technology and defense and many Chinese workers actually liked state-run Enterprise more but then came the cultural revolution which took place after the Great Leap Forward and now wanted to increase the economy but he felt like it went against the social spirit so they needed a cleanse of the four olds like old ideas old culture old customs and old habits but many didn't agree because they wanted the economy to be high but milden degrees so what he did is that he created the red guards which were basically students and they destroyed western clothes books and culture but by 1967 it got completely out of control and now ordered the red guards to disband then we learn about tank man I'm not going to cover that because we learned so much about it and it's honestly impossible to forget it then comes Truman in the Korean War so we're going back to Truman and this is right after World War II and what happens is Korea was divided at the 38th parallel North Korea was Communist and South Korea was not and what happened is that in June honey 7th North Korea overran sold they went into South King close your legs they went into South Korea and Truman of started didn't want to send soldiers into the UN because he knew that most of the soldiers would be American but he eventually had to send the troops in because there was no progress made and the North Koreans were still in South Korea so the war was not going really great because Truman didn't want a lot of Defense because of the cuts into defense budget so many Americans were dying so what happens is that MacArthur comes in and MacArthur was a famous General in World War II and he To go ahead with the invasion of enchan and it was really dangerous because it was coming from the sea to the upper ground I forgot what type of thing that's called but it was like what was it the invasion of Gallipoli or something yeah those are the risks but this was like a specific operation I forgot what it's called No and basically he got in Santa fall in less than a day so what happened is that MacArthur is new like objective was to destroy all North Korean forces but then Truman was scared because he didn't want China to come into the war and Truman and MacArthur never got together well because Truman felt like MacArthur did too much but MacArthur said at the Wake Island meeting that this war would be over by Christmas so Truman trusted him can you please turn off your phone or you can just go okay but we're not doing that now so when China finally invaded North Korea MacArthur cut in handle it but finally there is a commander called Ridgeway who turned the time against Chinese and they were planning to surrender or how to negotiations but then MacArthur came in and he demanded the Chinese surrender to him and he made a letter criticizing the president so Truman fired MacArthur and the public thought MacArthur was a hero so they got mad at truman but Truman said that they would eventually realize what happened 

They're So next came to Vietnamese War and the Vietnamese War what happened is that when during World War II Japan to power they took Indochina but France wanted Indochina back and they appealed to the US for help but the US did not help them because the Vietnamese were led by ho chinmen and they were a communist even though they were a patriot first the us only viewed them as a communist so the US supports France and they supported France because they wanted to contain Communism and that's what their policy was Containment because they didn't want communism to keep spreading so they thought that Ho Chi Minh was just like a communist puppet So eventually France was defeated because the Vietnamese had many much experience against the Japanese in the war and then came to Geneva accords which basically ends the conflict so France had to leave Vietnam Vietnam and it was divided into two regions and it was the north was Communist in the South was not so the north was under Ho Chi Minh and the South was under DM and DM had the US support and in two years a national election would take place so Eisenhower was the president at this time and he was scared that everyone would fall to Communism and he called us the dominant Theory so the US did whatever that they could to support the South to make them win the election but eventually they called off the election claiming that it was raid but it was probably not rigged because they knew that DM probably would have lost anyways and what happened is Kennedy the president at the time he provided lots of US military advisers and they had about 16,000 and 1963 but eventually DM was assassinated in 1963 I already said that I did so then three days like 3 weeks after Kennedy dies too so then came the new president and this was Johnson so Johnson didn't want to appear soft on Connie communism so what happened is that he took any incident that he could and turn it into something big and the big incident was the Gulf of Tonkin incident and what happens is that they claimed that the SS Maddox was fired upon by the North Vietnamese Patrol ports and they said this was unwarranted so what LBJ did is that he took this to Congress and he called us the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and what he wanted is that he wanted to take any necessary action to defend the nation against southeast Asia so this was basically like a blank check because it was so Broad and what this like gave LBJ the power to do was to declare war without Congress approving it and what they did is use this to begin bombing but what was crazy about all of this is that the Gulf of Tonkin incident actually had evidence proving that the attack never happened because what happened that night was that it was really stormy and apparently the person looking at like the radar was really unexperienced and didn't realize that the stuff on the radar was actually the storm not being fired upon so Johnson escalates the war by bombing North Vietnam and he sent many American troops into combat 

In 1956 Hungary decided to go against Soviet Union and they wanted to Rebel but then the Soviets crushed them

📘 Cold War Study Guide (Filled Out)

🔍 Key Concepts and Definitions

• Cold War: A period of political tension and military rivalry between the U.S. and the USSR from 1945 to 1991, without direct warfare between them. It was driven by ideological differences: capitalism vs. communism.
  
  

• Containment: U.S. strategy to stop the spread of communism, introduced by George Kennan. Example: Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Truman Doctrine.
  
  

• Command Economy: An economic system where the government controls all production and distribution. Common in communist states like the USSR.
  
  

• Domino Theory: The belief that if one country fell to communism, nearby countries would too (like dominoes). It was used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
  
  

• Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD): The idea that if either the U.S. or USSR launched nuclear weapons, both would be destroyed, creating a deterrent to war.
  
  

📅 Important Events and Conferences

• Yalta Conference (Feb 1945): Attended by Churchill (UK), Roosevelt (US), and Stalin (USSR). They discussed post-WWII Europe, the division of Germany, and plans for the United Nations.
  
  

• Potsdam Conference (July 1945): Truman (US), Stalin (USSR), and Attlee (UK) met to finalize Germany’s fate. Tensions rose as the U.S. had successfully tested the atomic bomb.
  
  

• Berlin Blockade and Airlift (1948–1949): Stalin blocked West Berlin. The U.S. and UK flew in supplies for almost a year until Stalin lifted the blockade.
  
  

• Hungarian Uprising (1956): A revolt against Soviet control. It was crushed by Soviet tanks, showing how the USSR would not tolerate dissent in Eastern Europe.
  
  

• Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): A 13-day standoff between the U.S. and USSR after the Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. Ended with the USSR withdrawing missiles and the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba.
  
  

• Berlin Wall (Built 1961): Built by East Germany to stop citizens from fleeing to West Berlin. Symbolized communist repression. Fell in 1989.
  
  

• Détente: A period of eased tensions between the U.S. and USSR in the 1970s. Included treaties like SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks).
  
  

• Tiananmen Square Protests (1989): Chinese students demanded democratic reforms. The government violently cracked down, resulting in many deaths and global condemnation.
  
  

🧱 Organizations and Alliances

• NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization): Formed in 1949, a military alliance of Western nations to defend against Soviet aggression.
  
  

• Warsaw Pact (1955): A Soviet-led alliance of Eastern European communist countries in response to NATO.
  
  

• United Nations—Security Council: Body of 5 permanent members (U.S., USSR/Russia, UK, China, France) that tried to maintain international peace. Often gridlocked during the Cold War.
  
  

• Iron Curtain: Term by Winston Churchill describing the division between democratic Western Europe and communist Eastern Europe.
  
  

• Buffer Zone: Eastern European countries occupied by the USSR after WWII that served as a protective zone against Western invasion.
  
  

🇨🇳 China

• Chinese Civil War (1927–1949): Fought between Mao Zedong’s communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists. Mao won; Chiang fled to Taiwan.
  
  

• Mao Zedong: Communist leader of China. Launched the Great Leap Forward (economic disaster) and the Cultural Revolution (purge of political enemies).
  
  

• Chiang Kai-shek: Leader of the Nationalist Party. Defeated in 1949, fled to Taiwan where he continued to lead the "Republic of China."
  
  

• Deng Xiaoping: Introduced capitalist economic reforms in the 1980s but kept strict political control. Ordered the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
  
  

• Relationship between USSR and China (1960s): Tense and competitive. Despite both being communist, they had ideological and border conflicts.
  
  

• First U.S. President to visit Communist China: Richard Nixon in 1972. This visit helped open diplomatic relations (called "Ping Pong Diplomacy").
  
  

• Falun Gong: A spiritual movement in China suppressed by the government starting in the late 1990s.
  
  

• “Grey Culture”: Refers to underground or unofficial media/culture that challenged Chinese Communist orthodoxy.
  
  

• Hu Jintao: President of China from 2002–2012. Known for economic growth and maintaining tight control over political expression.
  
  

🇷🇺 Soviet Union

• Russian Satellites: Countries in Eastern Europe (like Poland, Hungary, East Germany) under Soviet control after WWII.
  
  

• Soviet A-bomb: Successfully tested in 1949, ending U.S. nuclear monopoly.
  
  

• Glasnost ("Openness"): Policy by Gorbachev encouraging more transparency and freedom of speech.
  
  

• Perestroika ("Restructuring"): Gorbachev’s policy to reform the Soviet economy with limited market-like reforms.
  
  

🇰🇷 Korean War (1950–1953)

• North Korea (communist) invaded South Korea. The U.S. and UN intervened to defend South Korea.
  
  

• General MacArthur led UN forces but was fired by Truman for insubordination.
  
  

• War ended in a stalemate at the 38th parallel (still divided today).
  
  

🇻🇳 Vietnam War

• Ho Chi Minh: Communist leader of North Vietnam.
  
  

• Ngo Dinh Diem: U.S.-backed leader of South Vietnam; unpopular and eventually assassinated.
  
  

• Viet Minh: Nationalist-communist group led by Ho Chi Minh during the fight against France.
  
  

• Viet Cong: Communist insurgents in South Vietnam supported by the North.
  
  

• Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964): Alleged attack on U.S. ships by North Vietnam. Led to U.S. escalation via the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving Johnson broad war powers.
  
  

• Tet Offensive (1968): Major surprise attack by the Viet Cong. Military failure for them, but turned American public opinion against the war.
  
  

• Vietnamization: Nixon’s plan to gradually withdraw U.S. troops and turn the war over to South Vietnamese forces.
  
  

🗺 Colonial Background

• France fought to recolonize Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) from 1946–1954, but lost at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
  
  

🧔🏽‍♂️ U.S. Presidents and Vietnam

• Truman: Began U.S. aid to the French in Vietnam.
  
  

• Eisenhower: Supported South Vietnam under the domino theory.
  
  

• Kennedy: Increased U.S. advisors in Vietnam.
  
  

• Johnson: Escalated the war with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and sent combat troops.
  
  

• Nixon: Expanded the war to Cambodia, started Vietnamization, and eventually withdrew U.S. forces.