Old wars vs New wars

Cuban missile crisis - North Korean missile test

Wars never ended, the world could not live in peace, nowadays there are less wars than time ago, but situations of battle and comfrontations still appearing on our daily life. In relation with the present, there are many fights between countries but to compare the event of the Cuban missile crisis may be use the newest event about The North Korean missile test of 2017.

Firstly, the Cuban missile crisis was a confrontation between Usa (Kennedy) - Soviet Union and Cuba (Castro). Usa was involved in Cuban islands since they owned most of their businesses and they had naval bases there. But Castro wanted to run Cuba without interference and he was negotiating with the Soviet Union who supplied arms and other escential things to Castro so Usa broke off their diplomatic relationship. The conflict started there and the drop that overflowed the glass was the Bay of Pigs invasion in wich Usa failed disastrously. Cuba with helped had the best-equipped army in Latin America and Americans watched all this with great alarm and Kennedy was ready to used whatever might be neccesay, saying that he was not scared of using nuclear missiles. Days after, an American U2 spy plane flew over Cuba and found that they were equipped with nuclear missiles and many ships so as to attack. On october 1962, Kennedy formed the Ex Comm organisation were they talk about five tactical ideas but they finished with a blockade in Cuba telling them to withdraw their missiles and arms.





Secondly, the North Korean missile test was a confrontation between Usa (Trump) - North Korea (Kim jong-un). Usa was infiltrated in the surrounders of Korea and political conflicts broke up North Korean president's patience so he threatened Usa with new nuclear missiles that could damage the heart of United States so Trump said that he should often send them "Gift packages" so they won´t be too bored. Korean president was penalized by the UN because of the violations of a ban nuclear missile tests. Usa had hoped North Korea would stop short of developing a long-range missiles, but with the time we will know it. The main reason why Korea develops this nuclear programme is as she felts threatened by the USA, South Korea and Japan since the Korean Peninsula was interfering by these countries.



North Korean army:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO-2M13UbKY


In one hand, this two cases had many similarities since both appeared nuclear bases with nuclear arms-missiles. Both were rivarly in the way of Communism versus Capitalism. Usa presidents tries to solved both problems with the US opinion and respecting the law and the diplomatic relationships.

On the other hand, the two cases had also many differences, in the case of Cuba, they were helped with by the Soviet Union and the Korean Missile test not at all. Usa did not have to investigate about the Korean's plans and if they were using missiles and not obeying the law because their president announced it himself, whereas in the case of Cuba, Kennedy had to send secret U2 spy planes so as to investigate if they were using or not.

To conclude, there are many cases that have a lot of difference and similarities like this example because war never ended and humans could not live in peace, they want always something more and I think that is late to change this.

Bibliography:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-icbm.html

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South Vietnam

1.       Describe American involvement in South Vietnam between 1854 and 1963

In 1954 the US applied a different rule: it prevented elections from taking place because it feared that the Communists would win. The Americans thought that China and the USSR were planning to spread Communism, and if Vietnam fell, many other countries (Laos, Thailand, etc.) would fall with it, and Americans were determined to resist the spread. In 1955, US helped the extremely corrupt president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, to set up the Republic of South Vietnam (set up in December 1960), as he was anti-Communist and prepared to exile Communists. By 1962, President Kennedy was sending military personnel to fight the Viet Cong, arms and soldiers that were called “Advisers”. In 1963 and 1964, tension between North and South Vietnam increased and so did American involvement. However, Kennedy said he was determined that the US would not “blunder into war, unclear about aims or how to get out again”.  On March 1965, America was at war in Vietnam.

2.   Cuba was important to Usa since they were allies and negotiate together. Also Usa owned most of the businesses of Cuba and they had a huge naval base in the Cuba Island. Between 1959-61 Castro took over all this business and he wanted to run Cuba without interference, so Usa broke of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The invasion of USA  in the Island suggest that the USA was unwilling to get directly involved in Cuba. The soviet leader, Krushchev was scroful of Kennedy’s pathetic attempt to remove Communism from Cuba. Soviets was helping Cuba and Americans watched all this with great alarm, so Kennedy asked himself what he could do (Invade, Do nothing, Surgial Air Attack, Blockade, Diplomatic pressures).

3.       The US was involved in the Vietnam War from 1954 to 1973, when they retired all of their forces from the country. Many historians claim that this was due to military failure, but, how far is that true?

To begin with, the war was very different from how the Americans had imagined it. They thought their soldiers would win it easily, as they had largely superior technology and firepower, but the guerrilla tactics implemented by the Viet Cong fighters made this practically impossible. There were also other incidents, as the My Lay massacre and the Tet Offensive, that undermined the USA’s involvement in Vietnam. After the Tet offensive, President Johnson came to the conclusion that the war could not be won militarily.

There were also other factors that contributed to the end of the American involvement in Vietnam. A very important one of them were the huge peace demonstrations in universities and public spaces, in which people complained about the war in Vietnam. These were mainly because the USA was not only spending enormous amounts of money in the war, but also because they were sending hundreds of thousands of young men to fight a war that was not theirs. Moreover, many people were horrified when the My Lai massacre came to light. President Nixon (the one who pulled the USA out of Vietnam) was also involved in the Watergate Scandal.

In conclusion, military failure was an important cause for ending the USA involvement in Vietnam war, but there were also other reasons that made this happen.

4.       Why did the unity of allies break down by 1945 and 1947?

The unit of allies between USA and USSR break down by 1945 and 1947, because they had different thoughts and wanted different things, Truman didn’t trust Stalin. Stalin was not respecting the agreement.