The fear of nuclear bombs destroying the entire world today kind of seems like a foreign idea to me. Sure in the news I’ve hear about the major nuclear powers of the world yet it’s never really been out on the top of my mind. However there was a period of time where people all around the world felt the fear of nuclear destruction. A threat that lasted over 40 years known as the Cold War.
For the past few weeks our focus in PLP 11 has been on the Cold War. With our unit based around the driving question “How was the world on the brink?” Throughout this unit we went in depth about the different events/actions that left the world on the brink of destruction. To do this we watched films, had class discussions and listened to lectures to truly get an in depth understanding.
During the span of a couple classes we watched a movie called “13 Days” which was a Drama/Docudrama film about the Cuban Missile Crisis and how close the world was to going to nuclear war. Although some of the scenes were fictionalized, I think that this movie was a really educational way to learn about Cold War gave me a visual depiction of what happed during the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. After we finished watching the movie we wrote a critical analysis regarding the movie making and historical content. I decided to focus my paragraph on the movie’s interpretation of the political and military heads. This is the paragraph I wrote:
“Thirteen Days” Analysis Paragraph
As John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Kenny O’Donnell discuss the options regarding the missile issue in Cuba during a critical scene in the movie “Thirteen Days”. O’Donnell says “There is no expert on this subjects, there’s no wise old man, shit it’s just us” referring to how no one including the joint chiefs of staff could be an expert on such a topic as nuclear war. This quote from the film helped portray a show that they are only human and don’t know the future outcomes of certain decisions. At times such as these during the film the tension between the political minded heads and the military is clearly outlined.Yet was this portrait the movie painted a clear representation of the historically events? Throughout the film General LeMay, Chief of Staff of the Air Force as well as many of the other military personnel were pushing Kennedy to choose to destroy the missiles in Cuba however what the US armed forces didn’t take into consideration was the effect this would have on not only America but the entire world. Trying to destroy such missiles would have lead to a World War 3, a nuclear war. The movie portrayed these discussions as intense debates between the divided sides of what to do about the nuclear missiles in Cuba. Although not entirely accurate these heated discussions really helped viewers to understand the drastic decisions that had to made during this crucial time.One key interaction between O’Donnell and a pilot during the film included O’Donnell telling the Airforce pilot to lie to the head of command about being shot while flying over Cuba. This part of the film was completely fictional. While this event didn’t actually take place, it played a key role presenting the underlying ideas of the film. Specifically by the pilot reporting back to his superiors that he wasn’t shot at to avoid going to war and in hopes of a future for America. During the actual period pf the 13 days there were many instances where the United States and Russia were seconds away from nuclear war. In my opinion this scene did a good job of representing how if one thing were to have gone a separate way the outcome could have been different. At times JFK and the military had very different opinions of how to handle the missiles. It is clear that many of the decisions Kennedy made wouldn’t have been the same choices as the military and If the military would have been in charge there could have been a drastically different outcome that would have effected the entire world. Throughout this movie scenes were portrayed with more intensity then the real event which allowed views to understands the historical facts within the movie while creating an engaging experience for viewers to watch.
Research Essay
A long and harsh 5 years came to a close on September 2, 1945 with much of the world just having experienced trauma and major devastation. The sound of rapid gun fire had scarcely faded into the background and it was clear the world was in need of security and hope in order to ensure a peaceful future. As a result the victorious allied forces created the United Nations to maintain balance and order in a previously unstable world. In spite of this effort a conflict arose between two of the founding members of the United Nations. This 40 year conflict was between USA and the soviet Union and was known as the Cold War . The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union had a major effect on the UN security council’s power to protect the world during this period of time. With both countries having the right to veto any major decisions, the two Cold War enemies could essentially act in their own self interest without consequences. This ineffectiveness of the United Nations was one of the leading causing for the length of the cold war.
The five permanent seats on the security council consisted of the 5 major allied powers following the second world war. At the time this seemed to the most logical decision as all five of the countries were active in international negotiations and relations. Following this “resolution” the allies became divided over communism and capitalism. A split between two dramatically different worlds. American people living with a government of election and freedom of press. The Soviet Union was the opposite, with non elected totalitarian government. This concept is demonstrated by Aiyaz Husain statement in a journal article that by the UN’s early years it had become obvious “that competing political interests would severely limit the ability of the 5 permanent members of the security council to work in unison to preserve international peace”. ( Husain,A. the American journal of international law vol 101;581: 598)
Within the security council the five permanent members had the power to veto any idea being put forth. Anyone of the permanent members can halt any actions even if the rest of the members agreed to a solution. This allowed the countries of power to make decisions solely based on their own country’s interest. Which essentially destroyed any opportunity for conflict resolution. This was a massive issue during Cold War and can be seen by the inability of the UN to act effectively during the conflicts in Korea, Indonesia, Kashmir, and Palestine. While member states will appear on the
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surface to support the UN they really use it to achieve their own goals. Any action that goes against their self interest is vetoed and “kills the resolution” (CNN April 2, 2019. United Nations Security Council Fast Facts ), making the United Nations Power inconsequential during the Cold War.
The USA and the Soviet Union were in a cold war nuclear arms race . The constant terror of nuclear war dwelled in the back of people’s minds. There was no one to protect the world from the horror and devastation a nuclear bomb could bring. The United Nations was meant to protect the security and international peace of the world but due to the veto members being the countries involved in the arms race the UN had the will but not the power to stop the escalation of the nuclear arsenal.
When the Soviets forfeited their seat in the security council the UN was able to approve support of South Korea after North Korea invaded and send UN/USA troops as an anti-communist war effort. This would never have happened if the Soviet Union could have used their veto. The situation within Korea demonstrates that UN could only act when there were not 2 veto powers of polar opposite political views. An example of the flawed system of the UN security counsel veto power was demonstrated when the Soviet Union abused their power and didn’t take responsibility for their actions when they shot down a Korean Airline Flight in 1983. The Soviet Union stated that they through that the plane was a US spy plane and by using their veto power they did not allow the UN to denounce their action.
There are five permanent seats on the UN Security Council, two of which had economic and political opinions as different as day and night. The Americans and the Soviet Union have seats of power and the right to veto within the UN security counsel. The security counsel was meant to promote peace but the Formation of the Security Council was the leading cause of the Cold War and increased the tension between United States and Soviet Union. Following the extended time of conflict, the United Nations was left with the task of evaluating the structure of the security council, “the most important
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function in the united nations” (Snyder, R. Reforming The Security Council For The Post-Cold War) as stated in the charter. However today the permanent members remain the same as when the organization was first formed. Knowing the severity and length of the cold war and the issues following having polar opposite countries in seats of power. Will this permanent formation promote the main goals of the United Nations or will the security council need to be reassessed because of further issues that will arise in the future?
Works Cited
Husain, Aiyaz. The United States and the Failure of UN Collective Security: Palestine, Kashmir, and Indonesia, 1947-1948. The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 101, No. 3 (Jul., 2007), pp. 581-599.
United Nations Security Council Fast Facts. CNN Library. CNN, April 2, 2019.
Snyder, R. Reforming The Security Council For The Post-Cold War. International Journal on World Peace, Vol. 14, No. 1 (MARCH 1997), pp. 3-16.
Now you’re probably wondering about the essay that is right below the paragraph I mentioned above. Well this essay is the final product of this unit, it shows my understanding of the cold war and my ability to dive deeper on the subject. Below is the process behind this essay.
Once we finished learning about the key parts of the cold war we went onto learn that we would be doing an end of the unit research essay. Meaning we would be using primary sources and property citing them.The essay we wrote was based on our unit’s driving question using evidence from the learning we’ve done on the cold war. So far this year we’ve had a big focus on writing specifically during the last unit where we wrote two essays in the span of a couple weeks, This essay was a little different than the essays we had written before.
When choosing a topic for this essay we were encouraged to reach outside the realm of typical answers to the question of “How was the world on the brink?” I decided to reach outside my comfort zone and strive for a topic that I thought was interesting and would be a little harder to write about. I chose to write about how having Russia and the United Staes with permanent seats not the United States Security Council with the right to veto left the world on the brink. While in the process of writing the essay at time I found it hard to get my ideas down on paper. Sometimes I have so much I want to say regarding a subject but its difficult for me to elaborate on these subjects through writing. This leads to me spending hours upon hours just trying to figure out how to get all my ideas down on paper in an orderly fashion. This is definition something I want to try and improve upon as I want to drastically up my writing game.
UN Security Council
Instead of just following the typical five paragraph essay we just wrote as many paragraphs as was need to support our point. Also the order we wrote our essays in was a little different, the first thing we wrote was the thesis which makes sense. Then we went onto write our introduction paragraph with doing little to no research. This was to get us to write down our idea of what we wanted to focus our essay on. After writing the essay we received feedback from our teacher on our writing which I found really helpful to progress me along and improve upon my writing skills. Following writing our introduction we were tasked with writing our conclusion which was not the usual way I had learned how to write an essay. At this point in time I hadn’t even really done much research on my topic and I didn’t know why we were writing it like this. Nonetheless once I wrote the conclusion it allowed me to clearly outline the points I wanted to make and the outcome of these points. Once we had received an approved conclusion we were allowed to start our body paragraphs. This was the most difficult part for me as I had to find a way to incorporate quotes primary source using only a couple words. In the end I think I did a pretty good job of integrating these quotes and using them to support the points I was trying to make. Although its always something I can improve on and strive to be better at in writing.
At first I found writing the essay like this a little difficult as ever since I’ve started writing essays we’ve based them around the five paragraph format from thesis through to conclusion. However after writing this essay in this format, I found it actually made writing the essay a lot more functional as I wasn’t trying to grasp at ideas to pull certain things together. Although I found writing this essay very difficult as writing is not my strong suit, it was definitely a good experience. As in University I will potentially be writing a lot of research papers and now I will have experience doing so.
1960s Social Change
During the time period of cold war specifically the 1960s there was a lot of social change occurring. It was a decade full of historical moments and people who changed the American society.
Just last unit we learned about the civil rights movement which took place throughout the 1960s. This movement lead to huge social changes in America including voting rights and ciivl rights acts. The movement helped African Americans fight for equal rights in America, becoming young change makers. If you want to read more about this unit we did and the different key elements of the Civil Rights Movement than you can read this learning portfolio post.
Willie O’Ree, An Individual Who Changed A System
Along with being a time of protest against discrimination of black citizens, the 1960s included a lot of protests for women’s rights and to end the War in Vietnam. The role of women drastically changed in American society. Shifting from on of the women being solely house wives to having a massive impact in the paid workforce.
In 1963 Betty Friedan a feminist activist wrote the book called “The Feminine Mystique” which is credited for being a major influence of the women’s rights movement. Along with writing this book, Betty Friedan was also one of the founders of the Nations Organization for Women (NOW). Throughout the next few decades she was a massive influence towards creating equal opportunities for women, including fighting for a bigger role in politics. Another organization she established in the late 1960s was the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (which is today known as NARAL Pro-Choice America). Betty’s impact and protest for equal rights has had a major influence on our society today. Without her action to force change our society might not be where we are today.
Here is a visual I created representing the social change in the United States during the 1960s:
