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Book NATO Before the Korean War

Download or read book NATO Before the Korean War written by Lawrence S. Kaplan and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reexamination of the formative years of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Conventional wisdom has the Korean War putting the "O" in NATO. Prior to that time, from the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, to the North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, the Treaty allies were just going through the motions of establishing an organization. Historian Lawrence Kaplan argues that this is a mistaken view, and he fills significant blanks in the record of 1949 and 1950, which NATO officials and analysts alike have largely ignored. When the Treaty was signed, the United States hailed the end of its isolationist tradition, as it recognized the necessity of devising new means to cope with the menace of Soviet-led Communism. It was interested in creating a new order in the Old World that would open the way to a united Europe. Toward this end, the allies crafted a transatlantic bargain. In its simplest form, the bargain involved a U.S. commitment to rebuild, economically and militarily, a Western Europe devastated by World War II. In exchange for America's abandonment of its customary abstention from Europe, the Western allies would take steps to end Europe's traditional divisions and integrate its resources on every level. The sheer magnitude of the mutual obligations received widespread attention on both sides of the Atlantic as well as within the Communist bloc. The Korean War's impact on the development of the organization marginalized the prewar history of NATO. Kaplan asserts that the Korean War was not needed to convert the alliance into an organization, as it was already in place on June 25, 1950. The progress of NATO's development was often improvised and untidy, and "the first crude tools of the organization," as Dean Acheson noted, had been cast by the end of the London meeting of the North Atlantic Council in May 1950. The seeds of major changes took the form of the supreme allied commanders, and a civilian coordinating body could be found in negotiations conducted during the winter and spring of 1950. The origins of the "O" in NATO are found in the text of the North Atlantic Treaty, in Article 9, under whose auspices new responsibilities were justified.

Book The United States and NATO

Download or read book The United States and NATO written by Lawrence S. Kaplan and published by Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1984 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this analysis of NATO's formation and early years, Kaplan describes how the Alliance began as a response to European perceptions and initiatives and ultimately led the U.S. to abandon its cherished tradition of non-entanglement. He examines the tortuous negotiations between Europeans and Americans and the bargaining among individuals, factions, and institutions in the United States to show how anguished the American decision to join Europe in a military alliance was. He also describes the early organizational developments and the impact of the Korean War on NATO. He concludes that though several problems that were not settled in the formative years and still plague NATO, it remains a primary means of bringing about a rational organization of international life. ISBN 0-8131-0159-X (pbk.) : $12.00.

Book Fearing the Worst

    Book Details:
  • Author : Samuel F. Wells Jr.
  • Publisher : Columbia University Press
  • Release : 2019-11-26
  • ISBN : 0231549946
  • Pages : 518 pages

Download or read book Fearing the Worst written by Samuel F. Wells Jr. and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, the escalating tensions of the Cold War shaped the international system. Fearing the Worst explains how the Korean War fundamentally changed postwar competition between the United States and the Soviet Union into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Samuel F. Wells Jr. examines how military and political events interacted to escalate the conflict. Decisions made by the Truman administration in the first six months of the Korean War drove both superpowers to intensify their defense buildup. American leaders feared the worst-case scenario—that Stalin was prepared to start World War III—and raced to build up strategic arms, resulting in a struggle they did not seek out or intend. Their decisions stemmed from incomplete interpretations of Soviet and Chinese goals, especially the belief that China was a Kremlin puppet. Yet Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung all had their own agendas, about which the United States lacked reliable intelligence. Drawing on newly available documents and memoirs—including previously restricted archives in Russia, China, and North Korea—Wells analyzes the key decision points that changed the course of the war. He also provides vivid profiles of the central actors as well as important but lesser known figures. Bringing together studies of military policy and diplomacy with the roles of technology, intelligence, and domestic politics in each of the principal nations, Fearing the Worst offers a new account of the Korean War and its lasting legacy.

Book NATO and the United States

Download or read book NATO and the United States written by Lawrence S. Kaplan and published by Macmillan Reference USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The North American Treaty Organization (NATO) remains the indispensable link that binds America and Europe in common defense - even after the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union and its satellite countries. The North Atlantic Treaty, which established NATO after its signing in Washington, D.C., in 1949, was one of the West's primary cold war-era countermeasures against the threat of Soviet aggression. Considering a military attack on any member an attack on all its members, NATO has made its way through some 45 years of turbulence from both without and within - the Korean War (1950-53), the Soviet launching of Sputnik in 1957, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, France's sudden withdrawal from the alliance in 1966 and the subsequent relocation of NATO headquarters to Brussels, SALT and START negotiations, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. In updating his 1987 history of the United States' relations with NATO and the European interests it encompasses, the eminent NATO scholar Lawrence S. Kaplan looks at the challenges the organization faces in the 1990s, arguing that the alliance is still essential for a stable and secure Europe and that it is incumbent on the United States to maintain its NATO troop strength. U.S. participation in NATO marked a fundamental change in America's pre-World War II policy of isolationism, and Kaplan begins this study by examining the postwar mood that led Washington into the unprecedented treaty and then to the maneuvers - especially by John Foster Dulles and Arthur Vandenberg - that facilitated the progress from treaty to organization. Kaplan charts the ups anddowns of U.S. involvement with NATO as he explores NATO's "New Look" in the 1950s, negotiations with the irascible Charles de Gaulle and France's exit from NATO in the 1960s, detente and the Nixon doctrine of the 1970s, the dual-track approach (promoting both new arms and arms control) of the early 1980s, the challenge posed by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, and the shape of the so-called new world order that emerged from the rubble of the Communist empire. The fate of the large nuclear arsenals in Russia and the Ukraine, the rise of nationalism in the former Soviet republics, and NATO membership for the former Warsaw Pact countries are crucial issues remaining on NATO's drawing board, and Kaplan's timely and comprehensive chronicle of this enduring alliance should prove essential reading for anyone interested in what Europe will look like, and how secure it will be, in the twenty-first century.

Book History of United States Naval Operations

Download or read book History of United States Naval Operations written by James A. Field, Jr. and published by University Press of the Pacific. This book was released on 2001-12-01 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans think of the Korean War as death and hardship in the bitter hills of Korea. It was certainly this, and for those who fought this is what they generally saw. Yet every foot of the struggles forward, every step of the retreats, the overwhelming victories, the withdrawals and last ditch stands had their seagoing support and overtones. The spectacular ones depended wholly on amphibious power -- the capability of the twentieth century scientific Navy to overwhelm land-bound forces at the point of contact. Yet the all pervading influence of the sea was present even when no major landing or retirement or reinforcement highlighted its effect. When navies clash in gigantic battle or hurl troops ashore under irresistible concentration of ship-borne guns and planes, nations understand that sea power is working. It is not so easy to understand that this tremendous force may effect its will silently, steadily, irresistibly even though no battles occur. No clearer example exists of this truth in wars dark record than in Korea. Communist-controlled North Korea had slight power at sea except for Soviet mines. So beyond this strong underwater phase the United States Navy and allies had little opposition on the water. It is, therefore, easy to fail to recognize the decisive role navies played in this war fought without large naval battles.

Book How NATO Adapts

    Book Details:
  • Author : Seth A. Johnston
  • Publisher : JHU Press
  • Release : 2017-02
  • ISBN : 1421421984
  • Pages : 267 pages

Download or read book How NATO Adapts written by Seth A. Johnston and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2017-02 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite momentous change, NATO remains a crucial safeguard of security and peace. Today’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with nearly thirty members and a global reach, differs strikingly from the alliance of twelve created in 1949 to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” These differences are not simply the result of the Cold War’s end, 9/11, or recent twenty-first-century developments but represent a more general pattern of adaptability first seen in the incorporation of Germany as a full member of the alliance in the early 1950s. Unlike other enduring post–World War II institutions that continue to reflect the international politics of their founding era, NATO stands out for the boldness and frequency of its transformations over the past seventy years. In this compelling book, Seth A. Johnston presents readers with a detailed examination of how NATO adapts. Nearly every aspect of NATO—including its missions, functional scope, size, and membership—is profoundly different than at the organization’s founding. Using a theoretical framework of “critical junctures” to explain changes in NATO’s organization and strategy throughout its history, Johnston argues that the alliance’s own bureaucratic actors played important and often overlooked roles in these adaptations. Touching on renewed confrontation between Russia and the West, which has reignited the debate about NATO’s relevance, as well as a quarter century of post–Cold War rapprochement and more than a decade of expeditionary effort in Afghanistan, How NATO Adapts explores how crises from Ukraine to Syria have again made NATO’s capacity for adaptation a defining aspect of European and international security. Students, scholars, and policy practitioners will find this a useful resource for understanding NATO, transatlantic relations, and security in Europe and North America, as well as theories about change in international institutions.

Book The Evolution of US Army Tactical Doctrine  1946 76

Download or read book The Evolution of US Army Tactical Doctrine 1946 76 written by Robert A. Doughty and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.

Book NATO 1948

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lawrence S. Kaplan
  • Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
  • Release : 2007
  • ISBN : 9780742539174
  • Pages : 290 pages

Download or read book NATO 1948 written by Lawrence S. Kaplan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling history brings to life the watershed year of 1948, when the United States reversed its long-standing position of political and military isolation from Europe and agreed to an "entangling alliance" with ten European nations. Not since 1800, when the United States ended its alliance with France, had the nation made such a commitment. The historic North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, but the often-contentious negotiations stretched throughout the preceding year. Lawrence S. Kaplan, the leading historian of NATO, traces the tortuous and dramatic process, which struggled to reconcile the conflicting concerns on the part of the future partners. Although the allies could agree on the need to cope with the threat of Soviet-led Communism and on the vital importance of an American association with a unified Europe, they differed over the means of achieving these ends. The United States had to contend with domestic isolationist suspicions of Old World intentions, the military's worries about over extension of the nation's resources, and the apparent incompatibility of the projected treaty with the UN charter. For their part, Europeans had to be convinced that American demands to abandon their traditions would provide the sense of security that economic and political recovery from World War II required. Kaplan brings to life the colorful diplomats and politicians arrayed on both sides of the debate. The end result was a remarkably durable treaty and alliance that has linked the fortunes of America and Europe for over fifty years. Despite differences that have persisted and occasionally flared over the past fifty years, NATO continues to bind America and Europe in the twenty-first century. Kaplan's detailed and lively account draws on a wealth of primary sources--newspapers, memoirs, and diplomatic documents--to illuminate how the United States came to assume international obligations it had scrupulously avoided for the previous 150 years.

Book The Hidden History of the Korean War  1950   1951

Download or read book The Hidden History of the Korean War 1950 1951 written by I. F. Stone and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A great journalist” raises troubling questions about the forgotten war in this courageous, controversial book—with a new introduction by Bruce Cumings (The Baltimore Sun). “Much about the Korean War is still hidden, and much will long remain hidden. I believe I have succeeded in throwing new light on its origins.” —From the author’s preface In 1945 US troops arrived in Korea for what would become America’s longest-lasting conflict. While history books claim without equivocation that the war lasted from 1950 to 1953, those who have actually served there know better. By closely analyzing US intelligence before June 25, 1950 (the war’s official start), and the actions of key players like John Foster Dulles, General Douglas MacArthur, and Chiang Kai-shek, the great investigative reporter I. F. Stone demolishes the official story of America’s “forgotten war” by shedding new light on the tangled sequence of events that led to it. The Hidden History of the Korean War was first published in 1952—during the Korean War—and then republished during the Vietnam War. In the 1990s, documents from the former Soviet archives became available, further illuminating this controversial period in history.

Book The Korean War

    Book Details:
  • Author : William Stueck
  • Publisher : Princeton University Press
  • Release : 1997-07-27
  • ISBN : 0691016240
  • Pages : 497 pages

Download or read book The Korean War written by William Stueck and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a history and analysis of the Korean War, focusing on the contributions of the United Nations, diplomacy of the conflict, and its role in the Cold War.

Book The Great North Korean Famine

Download or read book The Great North Korean Famine written by Andrew S. Natsios and published by United States Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An administrator of the US Agency for International Development with first-hand experience of conditions and events, Natsios provides a provocative analysis of the 1995-99 disaster. He focuses on its political elements--both the North Korean policies that exacerbated the problems and the politics that prevented governments and NGOs from acting quickly.

Book NATO Divided  NATO United

Download or read book NATO Divided NATO United written by Lawrence Kaplan and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2004-05-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kaplan (history and European Union studies, Kent State U.) concentrates on the differences within the North American Treaty Organization, particularly between the US and Europe. Internal conflicts, he says, have arguable been more frequent and often more bitter if not more dangerous to the alliance

Book The Coldest Winter

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Halberstam
  • Publisher : Hachette Books
  • Release : 2007-09-25
  • ISBN : 1401389643
  • Pages : 1040 pages

Download or read book The Coldest Winter written by David Halberstam and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 1040 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home."---The New York Times David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures--Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden. The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.

Book Operations in Korea

Download or read book Operations in Korea written by and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Truce Tent and Fighting Front

Download or read book Truce Tent and Fighting Front written by Walter G. Hermes and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Download or read book Charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization written by Ian Shapiro and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most powerful military alliance in history, NATO shaped the geopolitical contours of the Cold War and continues to structure the contemporary international system. The NATO agreement is reprinted here with speeches and essential historical documents concerning the alliance’s founding and subsequent evolution. Accompanying essays by major scholars discuss debates about NATO’s evolving governance, its role in nuclear politics, and its appropriate mission during and since the Cold War.

Book The Test of War

    Book Details:
  • Author : Doris M.. Condit
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1988
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 768 pages

Download or read book The Test of War written by Doris M.. Condit and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: