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Post World War II HMW

Alternative Text to Ellis Esler By John Bickel with Editorial Assistance from Rhonda Nagao July 2009 Edition

Post World War II Outline: UNIT FIVE 1989 3/09 CHAPTER 30 I.

ERA: 1945-

Industrialized North Atlantic - How post WWII reconstruction occurred and new international power relations took shape. (Standard 1) United States: While Europe and Japan suffered tons of bombs exploding their buildings, roads, bridges, etc., the United States had little direct damage. Having factories in place and an occupying military force, the Americans had a competitive advantage in bringing their goods to market abroad. The Marshall Plan of President Truman helped the Europeans by providing $13 billion dollars to help them rebuild their economies. The improvement of the economies of Western Europe and Japan helped provide consumers for American goods. In line with this, Western Europeans and Japanese have an increased acceptance for American culture, i.e. American dress, music, entertainment, etc. (Standard 2 on the search for community, stability and peace is addressed below) Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill called their alliance of nations in World War II the United Nations. They used that term as the name for their international organization to replace the League of Nations. They both agreed on the importance of an
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A.

international organization to promote international peace. They also agreed on the importance of it having a Security Council with the ability to deploy troops. The Security Council has fifteen members; ten are chosen annually by the large group of member nations, the General Assembly. The other five are permanent members with the extra power of a veto, a negative vote that causes the proposal to die. The five permanent members are the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and Russia. While the Soviet Union saw the beginning of mutual dislike in 1918 when the United States, Britain, and France sent in troops to end the rule of Communists and put the Tsar back on the throne, the United States sees the beginning just after World War II. In particular 1947 is clearly a time when the two great super powers, the US and USSR, were hostile, a bad feeling as that of an enemy, but not fighting. The key difference of opinion begins at the post war conference at Yalta (south Russia in the Crimea) where Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill agreed that in the countries set up after liberation from the Axis powers, the occupying nations would hold "free elections." When the Americans held its "free elections" in Western Europe, the Soviets claimed the elections were not free because their interpretation of a "free election" is that where the Communists won. The Americans accused the Soviets of violating Yalta by holding elections of a Communist against a Communist, not free by its standards.

Tensions grew as Truman told Stalin in June of 1945 at Potsdam (right outside of Berlin) that the US had a super weapon to use against Japan. Also at Potsdam, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to unite the divided Germany and Austria. They agreed therefore to not have separate currencies for each section. Tensions continued as the United States offered its Marshall Plan money to Eastern Europe under the condition that they give up communist economic systems for capitalism. The separate currency issue flared into near war in 1948 when the United States violated the Potsdam agreement and set up the Deutsch Mark (German currency) for West Germany. The Soviet Union responded by blockading, cutting off, West Berlin from western contact. West Berlin was part of the Western nations' occupying zone but entirely within the Soviet zone. The United States responded with the Berlin Airlift, an almost hourly airlift of supplies into Berlin to keep it from starvation in the blockade. The Soviets eventually gave up their protest blockade. The economies of capitalist Western Europe prospered while those in the east did not. One factor helping the West was the set of free trade agreements begun in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome. Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg signed the Treaty of Rome creating free trade among them. This grew into the European Economic Community and with the 1992 Treaty of Maastrich, the European Union.

The heart of the tension, however, between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies was military. Each side kept a significant military force after the war--unlike the disarmament that took place after World War I. In 1949, the Western allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. Five years later the Soviet Union, by that time under Khrushchev, formed its alliance, the Warsaw Pact. The Cold War, or tensions without hot war shooting, erupted into hot wars twice. The first was the Korean War from 1950-1953 and the second was the Vietnam War from 1949-1974. Yet the height of Cold War tensions occurred under President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 over Cuba. Since a Communist, Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, the United States had been concerned about a Communist nation so near its south eastern border. In 1961 Americans gave the blessing to an invasion of former Cubans to try to overthrow Castro. It failed. When the Soviets installed nuclear missiles on the island in 1962, American President Kennedy demanded they be removed and put a "quarantine" or virtual blockade on the island until steps were taken to remove the missiles. This event is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tensions rose when two Soviet ships headed for the blockade on October 23, 1962. It was like a game of "Chicken." Khrushchev gave in and ordered the ships be turned around. An agreement was reached and tensions fell. Yet October 1961 remains the closest the world has seen to a nuclear war that in all likelihood
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would have ended human life on this plant. See Chapter 29 Section 1 for Cuban Missile Crisis graphic. In 1963 a nuclear test ban treaty was signed ending nuclear tests in the air and water. President Nixon ushered in an era of detent, or reduced tensions. Both sides signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties I and II limiting nuclear missile launchers and then nuclear warheads. That detent ended when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The north Atlantic industrialized world experienced general economic growth through the 1960s. The oil price hikes that resulted from the embargo of 1973 sent all these economies into stagflation, or a period of both economic slowdown with higher unemployment and a period of simultaneous inflation. Canada enjoyed general economic growth, but it also experienced some political tensions. The residents of Quebec, the Quebecois, increasingly demanded votes on the issue of Quebec seceding, or separating from, the rest of Canada. These votes narrowly failed and Canada remains with both French speakers and English speakers. See Chapter 33 Section 5 for graphic on Twentieth Century Scientific Milestones and on Global Food. (Standard 1 on how colonial empires broke up is addressed below.) B. Western Europe At the end of World War II, Great Britain held an election that replaced Winston Churchill's Conservative government with the government of Clement Atlee.
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Labour

Labour gave Britain a cradle-to-grave welfare system, a system that provided a wide array of social insurance programs to make sure people were kept out of poverty. Labour also ushered in an era of decolonization. Britain set most of its colonies free to be independent states. It hung on to a few of its colonies. It did not give up Hong Kong until 1997 and continues to hold Northern Ireland, much to the opposition of many Irish Catholics. The Sinn Fein is the legal political party that pushes for the English to leave Northern Ireland. The illegal terrorist organization that pushes for the same agenda is the Irish Republican Army or the IRA. The Allies allowed Charles de Gaulle to lead the Free French in liberating Paris from the Nazis. However, de Gaulle did not like the constitution of the French Fourth Republic and retired from public life until the Algerian crisis of 1959. By that time France had given up French Indochina. (The United States took up the war against Ho Chi Minh.) By 1959 France was fighting to keep the colony of Algeria. Under a promise that he could rewrite the constitution, France called de Gaulle back to lead the country. Instead of fighting to "win" Algeria, de Gaulle pulled out creating peace with its former colony. De Gaulle and conservatives like him have ruled France since 1959 except for much of the 1980s when Socialist Francois Mitterand was
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President. One the average French week.

reform he made was to give worker a 35 hour work

Germany was divided between East and West, Communist and Capitalist. West Germany was led by Konrad Adenauer just after the war. With the help of the Marshall Plan, he led his country through a period known as the economic miracle as a country flattened by war became a strong economy with a dominant position in international trade. One factor helping the German economy was the low expenditures on defense. With the treaties ending World War II prohibiting an offensive military, West Germany's defense was provided for by the United States. Economic prosperity caused a need for workers. To provide labor for unskilled jobs, Germany imported "guest workers," many of who were from Turkey. When many of these workers decided to stay in Germany permanently, some Germans resented nonWhites living in their communities. German foreign policy was usually in line with the United States. In the early 1970s under Chancellor Willi Brandt Western Germany recognized East Germany leading the way to some communication between families split by the post World War II division. This policy was called ostpolitik. Germany did experience some terrorism in the 1970s with Palestinians attacking Israelis in the 1972 Olympics in Munich and with pro-communist actions of the Bader
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Meinhof Gang. Similar terrorists were active in Italy, especially the Red Brigade. It was responsible for assassinating Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Germany also had a generous social welfare program. This retreated a bit under the Chancellorship of Helmut Kohl in the 1980s. Kohl also was Chancellor as the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, beginning the process for the unification of Germany. Spain was ruled by Francisco Franco from the Civil War of the 1930s until his death in 1975. Upon his death, Spain transitioned from a dictatorship to a constitutional monarchy under the Bourbon Juan Carlos. Since then Spain has greatly increased its liberal policies to the point of legalizing same-sex marriage in 2005. Scandinavia was not as devastated by World War II as Germany was. Its economy recovered with relative ease. Most of its governments from World War II to 1989 were socialists that also provided a large welfare state similar to that of Great Britain. In addition to generous education and health care benefits, Scandinavians had some of the highest standards of living on earth.

CHAPTER 31 II. Eastern Europe

A. U.S.S.R.: The Soviet Union suffered the greatest losses in World War II. In addition to losing 20 million men (19.5 million more than the United States,) the Russian cities of Leningrad and Stalingrad suffered severe damage. The Soviets took resources from the conquered territories and rebuilt their own economies. The Five Year Plans funneled resources into steel and infrastructure like roads, telephone lines, etc. It deemphasized consumer goods. People worked long hours to turn a devastated economy into a major industrial power. Stalin met secretly with Churchill during the war to divide up the spoils of Eastern Europe. Britain got an interest in Greece and the Middle East while Russia got Eastern Europe north of the Balkans. Stalin felt it was his right to control Eastern Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. In these states, Stalin created satellite states, or states that were controlled by Moscow. In 1955, after Stalin's death in 1953, these states became part of the Soviet alliance, the Warsaw Pact. Stalin was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev. He recognized the brutal nature of Stalin's regime. As Stalin executed pretty well anyone who was suspected of being disloyal, Khrushchev
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tried to lessen the harshness of the Soviet government. In his secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, he decried the "crimes of Stalin." His relations with the West included his belief in peaceful coexistence. Yet this policy of liberalization found its limits when Imry Nagy, the Communist leader of Hungary, tried to allow multi-party elections in 1956. Khrushchev sent in the tanks to Budapest and Nagy was executed. Khrushchev was open to Third World leaders unhappy with the United States. He aided Nehru, Nasser, and Castro. He built up the military technology of the Soviet Union to the point where they put the first artificial satellite into space, Sputnik. He was building nuclear missiles on Cuba in 1962 when Kennedy put up the quarantine/blockade. Khrushchev backed down, saving the world from the strong probability of nuclear war. The Politburo, the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, did not look kindly on the embarrassment suffered in this crisis. By 1964 Khrushchev was relieved of his duties and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. He brought back the harsh policies of Stalin. He suppressed dissidents, those who speak out against the government. His extreme control over the economy and high military spending resulted in economic stagnation. He did sign two treaties of
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arms limitation with the United States, Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT) I and II. SALT I limited missile silos from which missiles with nuclear warheads are dropped. SALT II limited the number of warheads because each side was developing missiles with multiple independently targeted warheads (MIRVs). Brezhnev also sent troops into Afghanistan to suppress Muslims who were opposing nonMuslim governments. As the Soviet Union was officially atheist, these Muslims were hostile to the Communist government of the U.S.S. R. Soviet troops could not outsmart and outfight the guerrilla rebels of Afghanistan. (guerrilla warfare is waged by those who look like civilians but commit acts of terror to antagonize the opposition and get them to over-react causing a rise in popular support.) When Brezhnev died in late 1982, the Soviet Union went through a mild succession crisis. Yuri Andropov took power for a little over a year until he died and was replaced by Konstantin Chernenko who died less than a year after that. Finally in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. He tried to reform the failing Soviet system. His policies included Perestroika, or a restructuring of the economy to increase economic incentives for growth and production, and Glasnost, a policy of openness to allow greater freedom in the flow of ideas and therefore innovation. He also allowed more independence by governments in Eastern Europe.
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Eastern Europe Under Control of Soviets: The people of the Warsaw Pact countries found directives from Moscow and Soviet troops dominating their lives. At a few points, they tried to test the Soviet resolve. In the mid 1950s, Wladyslaw Gomulka of Poland got some increased freedoms for his people-especially relating to the Roman Catholic religion so dear to many of his citizens. Imry Nagy of Hungary tried to go a step further and proposed multi-party elections in which one of the Parties stood for the withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. That was too much for Khrushchev. In 1956 Soviet troops entered Budapest and by the end of the crackdown Nagy was executed. The Five Year Plan system may have industrialized Russia, but it did little to promote strong economies in the Warsaw Pact bloc of countries. All of these countries had lower standards of living than Western European countries. The strongest Communist economy in Eastern Europe was that of East Germany. Under Brezhnev, Czechoslovakia and Poland tried to increase their freedoms. The Prague Spring was a liberalization program of Alexander Dubcek. The Soviets crushed his rebellion in 1969 and put him away. In 1980 Lech Walesa led an independent labor union in Poland called Solidarity. About a year after its formation, the pro-Soviet Polish General Jaruzelski
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B.

proclaimed martial law and arrested dissident leaders. Because the Pope at the time was the Polish John Paul II, the Soviets were shy about being too brutal against the Poles. So some underground Solidarity activity continued even after the crackdown. Not all of Eastern European countries were Warsaw Pact members. Yugoslavia led by Marshall Tito asserted its independence from Moscow by 1950. Albania was also a Communist country whose policies were independent of the Soviet sphere.

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CHAPTER 32 III. Middle East

(Standard 1 on how colonial empires broke up is addressed below.) After the liberation of Germany from the Nazis, the troops discovered the full extent of the Holocaust. The severity of the atrocities, horrible events, persuaded many including American President Harry Truman that the Jews deserved their own sovereign, selfgoverning, state. In 1947 the United Nations partitioned, divided up, the area of Palestine to authorize the creation of the state of Israel as was done in 1948. David Ben-Gurion was its first Prime Minister. The presence of a Jewish state on formerly Arab land created anger and war from the Arab neighbors. Israel fought and won against its neighbors in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. See Chapter 31 Section 3 for two pages on Israel- Palestinian Conflict. The first war was over its creation. In 1956 England, France, and Israel invaded Egypt because its leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, took control over the Suez Canal. When the United States denied Nasser funding for the Aswan Dam, he got Soviet help with the condition that he take full control over the canal. Egypt was spared invasion when the Khrushchev threatened nuclear war to persuade the allies to halt their attack. In 1967 Israel attacked its neighbors to pre-empt, or prevent, an attack by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. With American military technology, Israel defeated its
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neighbors in six days. The Arabs were using Soviet made weapons. The war is called the Six Day War. From the war, Israel took the Sinai desert and the Gaza strip from Egypt, the West Bank of the Jordan River from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. As Israel attacked first and took land beyond the United Nations given borders of 1948, much of world opinion was unfavorable to Israel. Under Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1973, Israel did not attack first. Instead Egypt and Syria attacked and were repelled within a month. This war began on the eve of the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur; so it is called the Yom Kippur War. The war confirmed Israeli control over the occupied territories gained from the Six Day War. The Sinai Desert was given back to Egypt in 1979 under an agreement at Camp David, (in Maryland) brokered by American President Jimmy Carter. Carter brought Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat together with Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. It was the first peace between an Arab nation and Israel since Israel's creation. Egyptian Muslims were not so happy. Sadat cracked down on them; they assassinated him for it in 1981. Sadat was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak. The second major Camp David agreement occurred when in 1993 President Bill Clinton brought Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin together with Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat to agree to some level of self-determination for Palestinians to end the Intifada or Palestinian uprising. Unfortunately Rabin was assassinated after this and the agreements were never fully implemented. See

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Chapter 30 Section 1 for graphics on the Middle East including a map. Sadat's friendship with Israel cost him some popular support in his own country. The organization Muslim Brotherhood opposed Sadat and promoted an Islamist agenda, which followed policies that put the government more strictly in line with conservative Muslim teaching. Sadat cracked down on this organization and other Islamists. In 1981 Sadat was assassinated by an Islamist under direction of Omar Abdel-Rahman who in 1983 organized an attempted bombing of the World Trade Center. The United States arrested Rahman and imprisoned him for his part in this crime. After the death of Sadat , Hosni Mubarak came to power. He has shied from appearing too close to the West. After World War II, Persia became Iran. It was a democracy and an oil rich country. When Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadiq took control of the oil industry in 1953, the United States engineered a coup d'tat, forceful takeover, that killed Mossadiq and placed all power in a dictator, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who guaranteed the profits of American oil companies. The Shah increasingly ruled with an iron fist. His secret police often tortured its victims. By 1979 the rise of Islamist forces, those who believe the state should be controlled by the Islamic church, rose to the point of a revolution overthrowing the Shah and installing Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini was antiAmerican and allowed students to take hostages of Americans in their embassy in Tehran and keep them

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for 444 days until President Jimmy Carter negotiated their release on his last day in office. Khomeini's revolution of 1979 ended a wave of openness to modernization and mildly westernized ideas such as some separation of Islamic clerics and the state. Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Atturk began much of this movement. Turkey remains a highly secularized and westernized Islamic society. Leaders such as Nasser in Egypt, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Assad in Syria also represented this movement. They often also attempted to remain neutral in the Cold War. Nasser of Egypt joined Nehru of India to create the Non-Aligned Movement to help this neutrality. Yet in the tensions of the Cold War, it failed as the United States demanded greater loyalty than these nations would give. Therefore India, Egypt, and a number of Third World, underdeveloped, nations found themselves doing more business with the Soviet Union than with the United States. Arab nations had one source of power; they controlled a lot of oil. They used this power to form a cartel, an organization to limit production of something in order to raise its price. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, included states as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Mexico. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, they embargoed, or stopped sale of, oil to Western nations. This caused a quick rise in the price of oil. It demonstrated their economic power as many nations such as the United States fell into stagflation or a period of inflationary price hikes at the same time there was a slowing economy causing much unemployment.
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The 1979 rise of Khomeini in Iran went hand-in-hand with the rise of Islamists in Afghanistan and even the southernmost parts of the Soviet Union. To quell this, the Soviets under Brezhnev sent troops into Afghanistan where they set up a puppet Communist government. To retaliate for this, the United States trained Islamic fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets. These fundamentalists later formed the Taliban. IV. South Asia (Standard 1 on how colonial empires broke up is addressed below.) With World War II finished, England began taking the process of decolonization seriously. The jewel of its empire was India. It gained independence in 1947 and was partitioned to give independence to the Muslim sections of the old colony, Pakistan. Mohandas Gandhi led much of the protests giving India its independence, but he was extremely unhappy at the division of the country. Congress Party leader, Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister. A war with Pakistan over Kashmir in the Himalaya Mountains erupted. Kashmir had a Hindu prince and Muslim majority population when India split with Pakistan. After the Hindu prince died, Pakistan tried to take it back. It remains a sore point between the two states. After his death in 1964, his daughter Indira Gandhi took control of the Party and the government. She was assassinated by a Sikh nationalist in 1984. Her son
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Rajiv Tamil

took over the Party and was assassinated by a nationalist. See Chapter 30 Section 1 for map.

Pakistan was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the former leader of the Muslim League in the colony of India. Pakistan included land on the east and west sides of India. The east section split off to become the country of Bangladesh. Pakistan has alternated between democratic and military governments. One democratic leader was Zulfikar Bhutto. He was executed by the military dictator who succeeded him. His daughter was later elected Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. She was elected twice and was moving toward a third election when she was assassinated in 2007.

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V.

East Asia

With American aid, Japan prospered. The government was controlled by the Liberal Democratic Party. It used the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to promote its electronic and automobile products abroad. Through mercantilist policies, it came to dominate many of these industries. In China Mao Zedong won the Civil War establishing the People's Republic of China. Jiang Jieshi fled to Taiwan where he led the Republic of China. Mao's government survived its participation in the Korean War shortly after it took power. Mao also took over Tibet throwing out the Dalai Lama and establishing his own government- controlled Buddhist religion in Tibet. Mao succeeded at ending massive opium addiction and giving much greater equality to women. China ended foot binding under Mao. It went on to try various failed programs such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Great Leap attempted to industrialize China through small communal operations. After its failure Mao attempted political purging through the Cultural Revolution. It stopped education and replaced many experienced professionals with inexperienced ones. Again China found itself mired in failure. When Mao died in 1976, there was a period of unrest until Deng Xiaoping took over. He made reforms in industry, science, and the military. His economic policies introduced some free market forces that unleashed great economic growth for China.
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The entrance of the Soviet Union into the Pacific Theater of World War II in August of 1945 allowed their troops to enter Manchuria and northern Korea. Like Germany, Korea was divided between a Communist part (The Democratic Republic of Korea in the North) and capitalist part (The Republic of Korea in the South). Kim Il Sung led the North and Syngman Rhee led the South. In June of 1950, Kim's forces invaded the South beginning a war lasting until the Armistice of 1954. Truman did not make it an American war, but instead used the Security Council of the United Nations to enforce a "police action.' The forces were led by American General Douglas MacArthur of World War II fame. After the forces provoked China into entering the war, MacArthur was relieved of his duties. The two nations are legally still at war as no peace treaty has been signed. See Chapter 29 Section 3 for Korea War graphic. VI. South East Asia The Cold War tensions also caused a hot war in Southeast Asia. At the end of World War II, French Indochina was given back to France. The United States encouraged them to fight the forces for independence led by Ho Chi Minh. After the French lost a battle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, they pulled out. Accords signed at Geneva called for democratic elections to unite an independent Vietnam. The United States refused and instead installed a dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem. With strong nationalist feelings on their side, the Vietnamese refused to surrender. Their will to fight was
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demonstrated early in 1969 with the Tet Offensive. The United States withdrew in 1974. See Chapter 29 Section 4 for Vietnam War graphic and Chapter 30 Section 2 for graphic on religious diversity in the region. Once Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1974, its neighbors Laos and Cambodia also fell. Cambodia came under the control of Chinese supported dictator Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. He cracked down on dissidents to the point of millions of people being killed. During World War II, Ho Chi Minh actually supported the United States against the Vietnamese. Sukarno supported the Japanese in the war. Yet at the end of the war, the United States deemed that he was sufficiently anti- Communist and supported his rule as the first president of an independent Indonesia. Sukarno also joined the non- aligned movement, but Indonesia remained closer to the United States in the Cold War--especially under Sukarno's successor, Suharto. Both were authoritarian dictators and not democratically elected. The Philippines also gained its independence after World War II. It was a democracy until Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law after he claimed the democracy was threatened by Communist rebels. Democratic resistance was led from abroad by Benigno Aquino until he was invited back to the Philippines by Marcos in 1983. Upon arrival he was shot by a guard before even got into the airport. The backlash against Marcos was so great even the United States withdrew its support and arranged for Marcos
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to live in exile in Honolulu where he died in 1989. Benigno's widow, Corazon, led the People's Revolution that restored democracy to the country. VII. Latin America Mexican politics was dominated by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional or PRI since 1929. Its large production of oil gave it wealth when the price of oil was high as in the 1970s. Yet the vast majority of citizens did not see this wealth and remained poor. Many desired to immigrate to the United States to find better paying jobs. Further south in Central America, the Cold War also polarized people between the poor and farmers who often found favor with Communists and Socialists and the wealthy elites who supported pro-American military dictators such as Arbenz in Guatemala and the Somozas in Nicaragua. The latter overthrown by the pro-democracy group names for a 1920s hero, Sandino. These Sandinistas were led by Daniel Ortega and brought land reform and democracy to the country. It also encouraged more revolts in neighboring El Salvador. There the Catholic Archbishop, Oscar Romero became a follower of the ideas of Liberation Theology, the belief that it is the duty of Christians to bring betterment to the poor on this earth and not just wait for the next. The Caribbean was also a battleground for the Cold War. The hottest point was Cuba where Fidel Castro
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took power in January of 1959. After failing to get aid from the United States, he became close to the Soviet Union. The United States supported Cuban exiles, or those who have left their country, when they attempted to invade Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs. The invasion failed. With the Soviet missiles very inaccurate at hitting intercontinental targets, they built nuclear missiles on Cuba. American President Kennedy quarantined Cuba forcing a showdown. This Cuban Missile Crisis further hardened the relations between Cuba and the United States. To this day there are no regular diplomatic relations between the two countries. Haiti had a series of military coups until 1957 when Dr. Francois Duvalier was elected. Known as Papa Doc, he soon turned the democracy into a dictatorship with his Volunteers for National Security. He used political murders, beatings, and intimidation to stay in power. After his death in 1971, power passed to his nineteen year old son, Jean Claude Duvalier, nicknamed Baby Doc. Conditions got worse and even Pope John Paul II condemned the regime in 1983. By 1986 he was ousted. In 1990 democratic elections were held electing a liberal Catholic priest, JeanBertrand Aristide as President. With at least tacit support of the American government, a military coup overthrew Aristide in 1991. After Bill Clinton came to the White House, he pressured the military leaders to leave power and allow Aristide to return as President in 1994. In 1996 Aristide voluntarily left the government at the end of his term. He was elected again in 2000 but his term was cut short when another American supported military coup threw him out in 2004.

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During World War II the caudillo, military strongman, Juan Peron came to power in Argentina. His politics did not follow traditional lines as he gained support from both the military and the workers as he organized their unions. He married a popular movie star, Eva or Evita. After she died, Jaun's popularity began to decline. He lost power in 1955 and was ruled by both democratic and undemocratic leaders until Peron himself was elected in 1973. He died in 1974 and was succeeded by his second wife, Isabel. She ruled in the 1970s. In the 1980s the more militaristic government that replaced her government led a period known as the Dirty War where many dissidents were taken away and eliminated by secret government forces. The government tried to enhance its popularity by invading the Falkland Islands. The British under Thatcher responded with a short but decisive war in which the Argentineans lost. Brazil pulled itself out of the Great Depression during World War II and established a democracy until 1964. One of the democratic leaders was the Brazilian version of Peron, Getulio Vargas. Brazil was a dictatorship until 1985. In the 1980s they elected da Collor who used conservative economic policies of lower government spending and tight money. In Chile democratic elections brought Socialist Salvador Allende to power. The American government under Nixon opposed it and sent in the Central Intelligence Agency to help with a military coup that executed Allende in 1973 and brought brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet to power. He ruled until 1990 when civilians took back the government.
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VIII. Africa After World War II Britain and France moved to give up their colonies. Britain faced hostile independence movements from Nkrumah in Ghana and Kenyatta in Kenya. After some fighting, the British granted them independence. The French were more reluctant to give up Algeria in the 1950s until de Gaulle came back to power and granted it its independence. Some new countries were mired in tribal tensions. In Nigeria these tribal tensions between Yoruba and the Ibo were exacerbated by religions divisions between Christian Yoruba and the Muslim Ibo. It broke out into a Civil War in the early 1970s as the province of Biafra tried to split from the rest of Nigeria. After the war devastated the economy, Biafra was rejoined to Nigeria. American Cold War interests put it on the side of human- rights abusing dictators such as Mobutu Seso Seko and the racist white regime in South Africa. Nelson Mandela and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu struggled for the rights of Blacks in South Africa. After some international pressure including boycotts, the white government of de Klerk passed power to black Mandela in 1994. See Chapter 30 Section 3 for map of Africa and page on Nkrumah and one on Kenyatta. See Chapter 31 Section 2 for page on Mandela.

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ERA 1989- present CHAPTER 33 (Some of Standard 3 on Major Global Trends is addressed below) I. Industrialized North Atlantic

The industrialized world increased free trade agreements. This transferred manufacturing from the developed to the less developed world, especially China and India. In North America, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) reduced manufacturing in the United States and increased the factories in Mexico. This was not enough to raise wages of Mexicans significantly. It did reduce the price of some consumer goods. The trend increased globalization, a process where all parts of the world are interdependent. With increased clearing of forests in South America and Southeast Asia and increased industrial waste from China, the world became more aware of how their activities have caused an increase of carbon monoxide and how that increase has caused global warming. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 called for reductions in output of greenhouse gases. Yet under George W. Bush, the United States pulled out. Economic unity in North America was paralleled by increased economic unity in Europe. By 2001 most of western continental Europe was using a single currency, the Euro. This was followed by a failed
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attempt to create a united constitution for a United States of Europe. The European Union remains confederate organization of European states. (They have joined together only on issues where they voluntarily agree.) NATO continued even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has expanded to include some formerly Communist eastern European states such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. NATO was deployed in Serbia in 1997 to end the civil war that had begun in 1992 between Serbs and Muslim Bosnians and Albanians as the Serb leader, Slovoban Milosovic, was attempting ethnic cleansing, a type of genocide. The United Nations stepped in and sent Milosovic to the Hague to be put on trial. He died in custody before the trial was completed. See Chapter 31 Section 1 for Yugoslavia graphic. II. Eastern Europe A. U.S.S.R.

Soviet Defense Minister Yazov and Soviet Vice President Yanayev could not tolerate the liberal reforms of Gorbachev--especially the prospect of multi-party elections. While Gorbachev was on vacation in the South of the Soviet Union, they imprisoned him and attempted a take over of the government. The wily tactics of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and mutiny on the part of some Soviet troops foiled their coup. See Chapter 29 between Sections 4 and 5 for relevant graphic.
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Yeltsin served as the President of the new Russian Federation from 1991 - 1999. He dismantled much of the Soviet state-dominated economic structure selling off certain key industries such as the oil business to private investors. Some of these investors quickly became millionaires. Many Russians on fixed incomes suffered as inflation soared. Yeltsin also had to deal with rebels in Chechnya who wanted to separate from Russia. In 1999 Russia elected Vladimir Putin to the presidency. He stabilized some of the economy and gave Russian foreign policy both a level of cooperation with the United States and some independence as evidenced by his opposition to the American war in Iraq in 2003. Putin's government still controlled much of the media and the level of democracy was clearly compromised under him. Eastern European states lost their strong connection to Russian economy. With increased trade with the West, many local manufacturers went out of business and import businesses rose. Many of these economies struggled to build industries that would help balance their trade. The weak economies left many of these countries with unstable governments, often democratic but with few political parties winning reelection as the level of dissatisfaction remained high. Even Lech Walesa, a hero in the battle to overthrow Soviet power in Eastern Europe, failed to win a significant percentage of the vote after his first successes.

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speech.

See Chapter 29 Section 5 for Vaclav Havel

III.

Middle East

Israel continued illegal Jewish Settlements on the West Bank. The promises to give more autonomy to the Palestinians were also not implemented as the more radical Hamas was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority. They defeated the more moderate Fatah, previously led by Yasir Arafat. With Fatah's willingness to cooperate with the Israelis came decreased popularity with Palestinians angry at perceived Israeli injustices. While Israeli actions against Palestinians continued to anger many Arabs, the rise of Islamist foreign policy by Iran turned much attention eastward. After an Israeli attack on Lebanon in 1983, Iran used the anger to create and fund an organization called Hezbollah primarily in Lebanon to oppose those who are not conservative Islamists. When Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States under President George H.W. Bush went to the United Nations to get it to declare a police action to remove Iraq from Kuwait. With support from many Muslim nations, the U.N. action was quickly successful.

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As mentioned in the Cold War period, the United States trained Muslim rebels in Afghanistan to overthrow Soviet rule. Some of these including Osama bin Laden continued their opposition to nonMuslim states after the demise of the Soviet empire. The Islamist group, the Taliban, took control of Afghanistan after Gorbachev gave up on it. They used revenue from their products including honey and heroin to fund terrorists such as Al Qaeda. On September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda operatives hi-jacked civilian airplanes to crash them into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. Approximately 2,752 people were killed in the attacks. President Bush used this as reason to attack and take out the Taliban government of Afghanistan. He also incorrectly stated that Saddam Hussein of Iraq was responsible for supporting Al Qaeda. Along with an erroneous claim that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the United States declared war on Iraq in 2003. The war in Iraq along with the lack of improvements in the facilities in Iran have caused OPEC production of oil to level off in the face of increased demand from developing nations--especially China. The rise of demand and stable production has caused a significant rise in the price of oil from less than $30 a barrel in the 1990s to $140 a barrel by 2008. See Chapter 33 Section 2 for oil graphic and 33:4 for weapons of mass destruction world map. IV. South Asia Nehru's Dynasty in the Congress Party failed to win re- election for Indira Gandhi after free elections were
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held following a period of national emergency declared by Gandhi. During this time elections were suspended due to claims of national security issues. By 1976 India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gained power and moved India toward less religious tolerance. It lost power after five years and then gained power for a term again later in the 1980s. India has developed a stronger two-party system. While India has become more democratic, Pakistan has become a dictatorship under the American supported Musharaf. After Benazir Bhutto came back to move toward free elections, she was assassinated in December of 2007. V. East & Southeast Asia

The strong Japanese economy of the 1960s and 70s weakened in the late 1970s as the price of oil went up. Japan recovered in the 1980s but found banking problems and a general decline in Asian economies bringing it into a slower period. The economy is yet to rise to the level of domination it was experiencing in the 1980s. China has achieved such dominance in international trade. Many companies prefer to manufacture their products in China where wages are low and environmental regulations are seldom enforced. While China liberalized its economy, the Communist Party continues a monopoly on political power. That was demonstrated most clearly on June 3, 1989, when protestors on Tiananmen square were forcibly removed by government troops and tanks. China also continues to face protest--particularly abroad--over its continued occupation of Tibet.

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The growth of the Chinese economy has greatly affected the rest of the world. With a population of 1.3 billion people, China's growth has increased demand for food and resources. Much of the rise in the price of oil and the rise in prices of food products can be traced to increased demand from China. China after the mid 1990s followed the economic tigers of Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea were previously. Their economies boomed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Overproduction and general economic decline in 1991 reversed their growth and began a period of slower economic growth for them. While their economies have advanced, their governments have an irregular record of democracy. Singapore has held elections but is still dominated by the same political faction. Taiwan and South Korea have done more to develop multi-party democracies. As China has liberalized its economy and not its political system, Vietnam has done the same. Under President Clinton, the United States has normalized relations with its former enemy paving the way for increased trade and economic growth. The Philippine economy lags behind due to overpopulation. Its politics also include a concern for Islamists in the southern part of the Philippine archipelago. Many of these same Islamists have some connection to Al Qaeda and have connection in the largest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia. VI. Latin America

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After years of corrupt rule, the PRI of Mexico, failed in their continued attempts to rig the elections. The opposition won power in 2000 and Vicente Fox became President. There were hopes that less government control would improve the economy. The reforms in combination with NAFTA failed to make enough difference to stem the tide of people trying to immigrate to the United States. NAFTA also involved American government support for zones in Mexico and Central America where foreign manufacturers could build factories and get cheap labor and little regulation. These areas are called maquiladoras. Although the maquiladoras pay very low wages and often treat the workers poorly, the alternatives for the poor workers is starvation from having no job at all. The conservative policies of de Collor in Brazil in the 1980s angered the poor. In 2002 they elected a leftist populist, Lula da Silva. Along with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Silva has been a critic of the United States. Chavez, in particular, seems to have stepped forward as the chief critic of the United States, a position often held in the past by Fidel Castro who recently stepped aside in favor of his brother, Raul. See Chapter 32 Section 4 for Latin American Economic Activity graphic and a graphics on Lula da Silva and Mario Vargas Llosa. VII. Africa
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The end of the Cold War resulted in less support for some dictators in Africa who had been put up as a result of Cold War tensions. One of these is Mobutu Seso Seko of Zaire. The 1990s saw a reduction in the tensions over groups in which the US or USSR had intervened, but it left Africa to face many of its other problems. AIDS spread rapidly in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Many nations had borrowed money from industrialized countries to attempt to rebuild their economies, but the payment of interest for those loans often ate up most of the economic gain from the investments. Ethnic tensions often remained high. The worst case was Rwanda in 1994 where the Hutus and the Tutsis engaged in a civil war. The Hutu radicals killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The United Nations did not intervene. President Clinton believed it was an African problem and should be solved by other African nations, but none had the extra resources necessary to prevent the catastrophe. See Chapter 32 Section 1 for graphic on endangered species. See Chapter 33 Section 3 for Health of the World Today graphic. Since 2003 the Darfur region of Africa has suffered another attempted genocide by the Arabic Sudanese against the Black Sudanese. The government has privately supported the genocidal actions of the Arabs.

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Bibliography Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor and Anthony Esler. World History. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. 2009 Kagan, Donald, Steven Ozment, and Frank M. Turner. The Western Heritage Since 1300 Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. 8th Ed. 2004. Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1996

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