Stalin’s paranoia was not unjustified: the US had stepped into WWI at the last minute to alter the peace process—and Stalin could see the same thing playing out again in 1944 and 1945. When Stalin insisted on occupying Bornholm at the end of the war, the Germans refused to surrender to anyone but the Western Allies. Stalin aggressively bombed Bornholm and then oversaw the invasion of a region that had largely been untouched by war violence up till then. This aggression on Stalin’s part in 1945 was rooted in his deep suspicion of the Western Allies taking the spoils for themselves—but this essentially what the Western Allies had in mind.
With the end of WWII, the Cold War began (and Stalin’s invasion of Denmark in 1945 could very well mark that moment). But it was not entirely born out of his paranoia. The Cold War was a continuation of the hot war that came to a close with the defeat of Germany and the submission of Japan, a new chapter based on the simmering conflict between the East and the West, a power play between the two dominant forces. Stalin’s paranoia did not wholly bring it about, though his paranoia increased with his recognition of the fact that the West was not going to play nice with Russia any longer. But just as a feedback loop will reintroduce new information into the old algorithm, Stalin’s behavior served as justification (in the eyes of the West) for more severe actions against the wartime ally. In other words, sanctions led to paranoia which led to more sanctions and so on. Nor was the paranoia all on Stalin’s side. Truman wanted to demonstrate his bravado by decimating two cities in Japan with the Bomb—an act of merciless cruelty that had as much to do with paranoia as anything. The effect, of course, was that with the introduction of this new destructive technology, no world power could feel safe unless it too possessed it. And so the arms race began.
Truman’s demonstration of ballistic force in Japan was just as much responsible for crumbling the Grand Alliance as any paranoia coming from Stalin. The creation of the CIA in 1947 and the establishment of spy bases across Europe and Asia also did not help the Alliance to stand. Radio Free Europe, for example, was a CIA front operation designed to monitor and agitate Communist forces in Eastern Europe and to oppose the ideology of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s paranoia in the 1940s could be argued to be said justified by the bellicosity of Truman and the rise of the military-industrial complex under Eisenhower, as well…
failed state is never able to sustain itself as a members of the international community (Helman & Rathner,1993).Rotberg (2002) pointed out that state failure can occur in various dimensions. These dimensions include security, political representation, economic prosperity as well as the distribution of income (Rotberg,2002,p.85).His argument is that nations that failure of states occurs as a result of their failure to deliver positive political gains to their citizens. These
Post War Iraq: A Paradox in the Making: Legitimacy vs. legality The regulations pertaining to the application of force in International Law has transformed greatly from the culmination of the Second World War, and again in the new circumstances confronting the world in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. Novel establishments have been formed, old ones have withered away and an equally enormous quantity of intellectual writing has
1950's Korean War, North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Korea) and South Korea (Republic Korea) Were Exploited by the Superpowers for Their Own Agendas The closing decade of the 20th century witnessed the end of the Cold War as the Soviet Union collapsed and its former Warsaw Pact allies flocked to join their former enemies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The end of the Cold War also resulted in the
(Harvey, 2003) the suspicion of the United States of the "Soviet Expansionist tendencies" had increased by the 1970s and Harvey states as well that "The pervasive mentality of Washington officials during these years was dominated by the communist domino theory which led many Washington politicians to believe that the Soviet Union sought to take over the entire world." (2003) the United States had always received a safeguard provided by
Why? Because, for the most part, LBJ ignored them. He would invite the leadership and even critics to the White House quite frequently and listen as they offered suggestions. Usually, however, he would end up lecturing them about the wisdom of the decisions he had already predetermined. It is interesting to note, that, throughout the war, LBJ actually received far more support from Republicans than he did his own party.
"Some Holocaust survivors have said that not only did the barbed-wire surrounding Auschwitz tremble and howl, but also the tortured earth itself moaned with the voices of the victims" (ISurvived.org). The first waves of prisoners arrived at Auschwitz in March, 1942, and from there on trains filled with people arrived on a regular basis, with the last years of the war seeing tens of thousands of prisoners arriving every day.