North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

The NATO alliance is dedicated to the maintenance of the democratic freedoms and territorial integrity of its 26 European and North American member countries through collective defense.

This alliance has been the dominant structure of European defense and security since its founding in 1949 and continues to serve as the most formal symbol of the United States’ commitment to defend Europe against aggression. Following the end of the cold war, the organization also took on a peacekeeping and stabilizing role within Eurasia.

NATO was founded with the Washington Treaty of April 4, 1949, which was signed by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Great Britain, and the United States.


The 12 founding members were later joined by 14 others, including Greece and Turkey, which allowed the alliance to secure the Mediterranean. From the outset, NATO was intended to deter Soviet expansion into central and western Europe.

The Washington Treaty reflected the will of the signatories to further democratic values and economic cooperation, to share the obligations of defense individually and collectively, to consult together in the face of threats, to regard an attack against one member as an attack against all members, and to collectively and individually assist the victims of an attack.

The treaty also delineated the geographic boundaries of the alliance, created the North Atlantic Council to implement the treaty, made provisions for new members to join, governed ratification according to constitutional processes, and made provisions for review of the treaty.

NATO’s civil and military organization materialized during 1949–95. The basic structures developed during this period remained into the 21st century. The civilian headquarters for the North Atlantic Council (NAC), which maintains effective political authority and powers of decision in NATO, is located in Brussels, Belgium.

NATO’s secretary-general chairs the NAC and oversees the work of the International Staff (IS). Member countries maintain permanent representatives. The council serves as a forum for frank and open diplomatic consultation and the coordination of strategic, defense, and foreign policy among the alliance members.

Action is agreed upon on the basis of common consensus rather than majority vote. Twice a year the defense ministers of the member countries meet at the NAC, and summit meetings involving the heads of state of each member country occur, during which major decisions over grand strategy or policy must be made.

After the end of the cold war, the NAC was supplemented by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) as well as the NATO-Russia Joint Council. These newer bodies facilitate peaceful coordination and cooperation between NATO and the Russian Federation and other former members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance.

The secretary-general of NATO also chairs the Defence Planning Committee (DPC), which is tasked with planning for the collective defense of the member countries. The DPC provides guidance to the alliance’s military authorities to improve common measures of collective defense and military integration. The DPC consists of the permanent representatives; like the NAC, the DPC also serves as a forum for meetings between the defense ministers of the member states twice a year.

The senior military representatives of the member states form the Military Committee. The Military Committee is subordinate to the NAC and consists of the chiefs of staff of the member nations, who advise the NAC on all military matters and who oversee the implementation of the measures necessary for the collective defense of the North Atlantic area.

The committee is supported by the International Military Staff (IMS), which meets twice a year at chiefs of staff level and more often at the national military representatives level. Until 2003 operational control of military forces operating under the NATO flag fell to Allied Command Europe and Allied Command Atlantic.

In 2003 NATO undertook a major restructuring of its military commands. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied Command Operations (ACO). ACT is tasked with driving transformation in NATO and establishing future capabilities, while ACO is responsible for current operations.

Throughout the cold war NATO faced a powerful counter-alliance in the Warsaw Pact and turmoil within the organization itself. Indeed, in 1949 the alliance members could only marshal 14 divisions of military personnel against an estimated 175 Soviet divisions.

At the NAC meeting in 1952, the members established a goal of fielding 50 divisions backed up by several thousand aircraft by the end of the year and 96 divisions by 1955. Also in 1952 the alliance introduced a new strategic concept: mass conventional defense of Europe coupled with long-range nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact members.

However, the cost of raising the 96 divisions required to implement this strategy proved too great, and it was quickly abandoned. In 1953 Dwight Eisenhower put forward a new strategy, which focused more on nuclear deterrence.

The new strategy came to be known as "massive retaliation" and would have involved extensive use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union and eastern Europe if their forces had broken through NATO’s conventional defenses in central Europe.

Nuclear crises over Berlin and Cuba in the late 1950s and early 1960s suggested a need for a more gradual strategy than massive retaliation. President John F. Kennedy endorsed a strategy of "flexible response" in 1961–63, which favored deploying more conventional forces in central and northern Europe from both the United States and the other NATO members.

Disagreement over this new strategy led France to withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command structure in 1967. NATO adopted a new doctrine in December 1967, which endorsed a flexible conventional and nuclear response to Soviet aggression. At the same time, the NAC adopted a new grand strategy favoring stable and peaceful relations with the Warsaw Pact countries.

NATO was further challenged in the mid-1970s when the Soviet Union deployed large numbers of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe that were capable of striking all of the European NATO allies.

In response the members agreed to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in West Germany, the United Kingdom, the Low Countries, and Italy. However, a more cordial relationship between the alliance and the Warsaw Pact during the 1980s led to the dismantling of these intermediate weapons at the end of that decade.

After the end of the cold war, NATO retained several important formal and informal functions. First, it serves as a permanent and institutionalized link between the United States and an ever-growing number of European allies. In addition, it prevents the renationalization of European defense policies.

Moreover, NATO allows an institutionalized relationship with Russia and several of the former Warsaw Pact countries that have yet to join the alliance. Finally, it serves peacekeeping and stability functions in Europe and Asia.

NATO invoked article 5 of the Washington Treaty for the first time following the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States. Many NATO countries participated in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Indochina War (First and Second)

Indochina War

The French colonization of Indochina—consisting of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—was completed when Laos became a French protectorate in 1893. World War II opened new avenues for anticolonial movements in Southeast Asia.

In the wake of the Japanese occupation of Indochina, the Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) set up the Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for the Independence of Vietnam), or Vietminh.

He gave the call in August 1945 to liberate Vietnam. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), or North Vietnam, was established on September 2, 1945, after the formal Japanese surrender on the same day.

Laos and Cambodia did likewise. But the French were in no mood to give up Indochina. The Vietminh was ordered by the French to lay down arms, but they attacked the French troops in Hanoi on December 19, 1946. Thus the First Indochina War began.

The Khmer Issarack, the Free Khmers of Son Ngoc Thanh (1907–76), were aligned with the Vietminh. In Laos, the Pathet Lao under Souphanouvong (1901–95) also fought against the French. The three communist factions formally formed the Viet-KhmerLao alliance on March 11, 1951.

In the cold war period, the United States followed a containment strategy and helped France by giving it military aid. It amounted to 85 percent of the French Indochinese budget, and it provided up to 40 percent of the military budget of France during the First Indo-china War by 1952.

In March 1949 the southern part of Vietnam became an associate state within the French Union, along with Laos and Cambodia. By 1950 South Vietnam had been recognized by the United States and Great Britain.

Vietnamese army

The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was very favorable to the DRV. China recognized the government of Hanoi and supplied military matériel according to an agreement of April 1, 1950. The Soviet Union and its East European allies also recognized the DRV.

The actual combatants in the First Indochina War were the Vietminh, the Pathet Lao, and the Khmer Issarack fighting against the French. The Vietminh resorted to guerrilla warfare. By 1950 the Vietminh had established complete control over the northern free zone, and the communists had strengthened their position in Laos and Cambodia.

The commander in chief of the Vietminh, Vo Nguyen Giap (1911– ), was an expert on modern guerrilla warfare and led the army of Vietnam from its inception. His strategy of dispersing French troops and capturing weak outposts had paid off well.

By 1952 half of the villages of the Red River Delta were under his control. The war was becoming unpopular in France, with a heavy loss of men from the French Expeditionary Corps and matériel. General Henri Navarre (1898–1983), the commander of the French forces, had captured the town of Dien Bien Phu, 16 kilometers from the Lao border, in November 1953.

Navarre established a fortified camp and was convinced of a North Vietnamese attack so as to open the road to Laos. Giap did not make any assault and instead surrounded the camp with about 50,000 soldiers of the Vietnamese People’s Army. The siege of Dien Bien Phu began on March 13, 1954, and 11,000 French troops were entrapped. The Vietminh artillery cut off the supply by air to the French troops.

French Surrender

On May 7 Dien Bien Phu fell, and the next day the Geneva Conference on Indochina began. The Geneva Conference divided Vietnam temporarily along the 17th parallel into two states, North and South Vietnam. Elections would be held two years afterward to decide unification of the two Vietnams.

On November 7, 1953, Cambodia became independent, two days later; Norodom Sihanouk (1922– ) returned to form a government. The conference recognized the Pathet Lao as a political party with control over the Phong Saly and Sam Neua Provinces.

Although there is no disagreement over the Second Indochina War ending in 1975, there is controversy about the year of its beginning. The years 1954, 1957, 1959, and 1960 have been named as the starting point.

Most authorities agree on 1959, when the central committee of the Lao Dong Party in January called for armed struggle in South Vietnam to achieve the goal of unification. Gradually the whole of Indochina would be involved in war because the Geneva Conference of 1954 did not resolve the Vietnamese problem, and all the signatories violated its provisions.

The United States provided military and economic assistance to Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–63), the president of South Vietnam. Diem refused to hold the elections called for in the Geneva Conference to decide about unification.

Compared to the weakness of Diem’s regime, Hanoi under Ho was politically stable and increased support to the communist factions in Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. In September 1960 Le Duan (1908–86), the secretary of the Lao Dong Party, called for the overthrow of Diem’s government to achieve the goal of unification.

Le Duan had earlier led the independence struggle against France in the south. The Ho Chi Minh Trail passing through Laos and Cambodia was the main supply route for North Vietnam to send convoys carrying supplies to the Vietcong in South Vietnam.

The U.S. commitment to South Vietnam strengthened during President John F. Kennedy’s administration (1961–63), when the dispatch of American Green Beret “special advisers” to South Vietnam began. In August 1964 the USS Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats, creating the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Although the veracity of the incident was questioned afterward, the U.S. Congress gave full authority to President Lyndon B. Johnson to retaliate. The Vietnam War escalated, with the survival of South Vietnam a primary consideration for Johnson, who had reaffirmed the policy of Kennedy.

The United States aimed at eliminating the Vietcong by bombing, chemical warfare, and counterinsurgency operations. Combat troops were sent in 1965, and their number reached 500,000 three years later.

During the Tet (Vietnamese New Year) Offensive of January 1968, the communists attacked major cities of South Vietnam. Meanwhile, domestic dissent in the United States regarding the Vietnam War was gathering momentum.

The coup by General Lon Nol (1913–85) in Cambodia on March 18, 1970, added a new dimension to the Second Indochina War. On April 21 the United Indochinese Front was established.

The summit conference three days afterward in southern China was attended by Pham Van Dong representing North Vietnam, Norodom Sihanouk as head of the National United Front of Cambodia, Souphanouvong from the Pathet Lao, and Nguyen Huu Tho as a representative of the provisional government of South Vietnam. The delegates called for unity in fighting against the United States.

The objectives of the 1971 U.S. attack on Laos were to cut the trail and prevent North Vietnam from attacking northern areas of South Vietnam. With 9,000 U.S. and 20,000 South Vietnamese troops, the campaign lasted for 45 days and resulted in a disastrous defeat of South Vietnam.

US army in vietnam war

The objective of cutting off the trail could not be achieved. The failure of South Vietnamese ground troops in spite of air support showed that it was not ready to take over a ground combat role from the United States.

The lessening of tension in the international arena had its impact on the Paris Peace Talks, which had started on January 23, 1969. The Sino-U.S. rapprochement, growing domestic opposition to the war, increasing success of communists in battlefields, the mounting cost of the war, and the loss of life of U.S. soldiers compelled the United States to disengage from Vietnam.

The Paris Peace Agreements on Vietnam were signed on January 27, 1973. It was only a matter of time before the communists would score the simpulan victory. On April 30, 1975, communist forces entered the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. The two Vietnams were reunited officially in January 1976.

On December 2, 1975, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) was formed. The government of Lon Nol in Cambodia was ousted by the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975. By 1975 the whole of Indochina was communist, and the Second Indochina War was over.

Colonial Administration of New Spain

Colonial Administration of New Spain

In order to administer their vast holdings in the New World, the Spanish Crown devised an exceedingly intricate bureaucratic system intended to exert royal authority, to protects its economic and political interests, to maintain order and stability, and to prevent the formation of cohesive interest groups that might challenge royal authority. In theory, all political and legal authority in Spain’s overseas holdings ultimately derived from the Crown.

This system of what has been called “Hispanic absolutism” stood in sharp contrast to the situation in British North America, where various forms of local authority, including colonial and town assemblies, mingled with and effectively limited the exercise of royal authority.

Not so in Spain’s dominions, at least in theory, although in practice there quickly emerged substantial self-rule. Nor was there any legal or functional separation of executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. While some bodies were more concerned with judicial matters, others with legislative and executive, effective distinctions among these functions did not exist.


Nor was there a clear separation between royal and ecclesiastical authority, though in theory the Crown was the supreme authority in the colonies in consequence of the Patronato Real (Royal Patronage), which derived its legal basis from papal bulls of 1501 and 1508.

Habsburg Spain’s political culture was highly legalistic and placed a premium on the generation of paperwork, demonstrated by both the quality of the paper (still crisp after more than four centuries) and its quantity, most housed in the massive Archive of the Indies in Seville.

A key characteristic of the byzantine administrative hierarchy that governed Spain’s New World holdings was the functional overlapping of jurisdictions, as discussed later.

Some have proposed that the confusion and conflicts thus generated were part of an intentional strategy of “divide and rule” on the part of the Crown, a mechanism meant to ensure that subordinate administrative bodies would squabble among themselves, thus permitting the Crown to stand above the fray and act as the ultimate arbiter whenever serious conflicts arose. If this was not an intentional strategy—and opinion is divided on this point—it nonetheless worked in practice to that effect.

Hierarchical Structure

At the pinnacle of authority stood the king. Directly subordinate to him in the royal chain of command was the Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias), established in 1524, modeled on the Council of Castile, and exercising supreme executive, legislative, and judicial authority in the day-to-day running of the American “kingdoms.”

The Council of the Indies, which comprised a dozen or so members, drafted and issued laws, interpreted laws, and nominated appointees to secular and religious offices, all subject to the king’s tamat approval. “Its tendency was meticulous and bureaucratic. It operated through lengthy, deliberative sessions surrounded by massive quantities of reports, laws, opinions, briefs, and other types of contemporary record.”

Within the colonies, the highest royal authority was the viceroy, conceived as the direct representative of the Crown in the colony. Viceroys were responsible for enforcing law, collecting revenues, administering justice, and maintaining order—virtually everything having to do with governing the viceroyalty. The viceroyalty was the largest administrative unit.

Until 1717, all of Spain’s American holdings fell under the jurisdiction of two viceroyalties: the Viceroyalty of New Spain (created in 1535, capital Mexico City, embracing all of Southwest North America through Central America to Panama, with much of Central America under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Guatemala), and the Viceroyalty of Peru (or New Castile, created in 1542, capital at Lima, embracing all of South America not claimed by Portugal).

In 1717, a third viceroyalty, that of New Granada (Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador), was carved out of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and in 1776, a fourth, the Viceroyalty of La Plata (Argentina).

Partially subordinate to the viceroy were the audiencias, established before 1550 in Santo Domingo, Mexico City, Guatemala, New Galicia (in New Spain), and Panama, Lima, and Bogotá (in Peru), with more added later, and with much shifting of boundaries, jurisdictions, and status over the next 250 years. Judicially subordinate only to the Council of the Indies, the audiencias served as a kind of appellate court and legislative body, subject to royal approval.

Described as “the most durable and stable” of the many branches of colonial government, audiencias were composed of the colonies’ most prominent men: ecclesiastics, captains-general, encomenderos, merchants, landowners, and others, appointed by the council and king.

The boundaries between viceregal and audiencia authority were never clearly delineated, resulting in much disagreement between them. A similar situation obtained for local officials subordinate to the audiencias and viceroys, most notably alcaldes mayores, corregidores, and gobernadores, among whom leading authority Charles Gibson has discerned “no appreciable functional distinction.”

Each exercised administrative, judicial, and some legislative authority within its districts. Alcaldes were superior to regidores, while municipal councils (ayuntamientos and cabildos) were generally associated with corregidores.

Municipal councils were the only form of collective self-governance in the Spanish American colonies. There was nothing akin to colonial assemblies of British North America, for example. All authority was vested in individual officials and corporate bodies directly subordinate to royal authority.

The other major cor porate body charged with overseeing Spain’s New World colonies was the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación), founded in 1503 and located in Seville, which was to trade, commerce, and finance what the Council of the Indies was to politics, law, and governance.

The Crown, through its Seville-based mercantile guild (consulado), worked to maintain a royal monopoly on a wide variety of goods, from precious metals to tobacco to many other export commodities.

But despite the Crown’s efforts to maintain a relationship of mercantilism with the colonies, in everyday practice smuggling, contraband, and similar efforts to avoid royal monopolies and royal controls became very common.

Absolutist System

At no level of government did there exist any degree of democratic decision making. In theory, the system was absolutist: All authority flowed from the top down, and nothing but compliance from the bottom up.

In practice there existed a substantial degree of local self-governance by individual authorities, and considerable deviation from royal laws and decrees, most commonly expressed in the phrase obedezco pero no cumplo (“I obey but I do not fulfill”).

In other words, officials universally acknowledged the Crown’s supreme authority while very often balking at the enforcement of specific laws, usually premised on the belief that it was necessary to respond sensibly and pragmatically to realities on the ground.

Selective enforcement of the New Laws of 1542, intended to place limits on the institution of encomienda, ranks among the most prominent examples of this strong tendency to disobey or only selectively enforce royal laws and decrees.

Scholars continue to debate the consequences of this structure and style of colonial governance for postcolonial Spanish America. Key questions include the longterm implications of the institutionalization of endemic conflict among various branches of government, with the many claimants to political authority vying for supremacy, as expressed in the abundant lawsuits, appeals, and related forms of litigation that marked the entire colonial period.

Another concerns the cultural legacy bequeathed by the structural tendency toward disobedience to royal authority and the formation of a political culture in which practical deviation from the letter of the law became the norm.

Another key area of investigation focuses on the ways in which subordinate individuals and collectivities, particularly Indian communities, learned to use this elaborate legal structure to defend and advance their interests, as they did throughout the colonial period.

Some scholars argue that the Spanish American tradition of vesting local authority in individual officials, combined with the absence of substantial collective authority and democratic institutions, over time generated a political culture that emphasized executive authority far more than legislative or judicial authority, provoking sharp conflicts and diverse syntheses with republican and representative forms of governance and Enlightenment notions of citizenship in the postcolonial period, with many variations in time and space.

Nadir Shah - Persian Conqueror

Nadir Shah (Nader Shah), often called the “Napoleon of Iran,” was the last of the Central Asian conquerors who made the region quake under the hoofbeats of his army. Like Genghis Khan, Babur the Tiger, and Timurlane before him, Nadir came from humble origins and rose to the pinnacle of power through a potent combination of great courage, implacable brutality, and shrewd wisdom.

Nadir was born in 1688 in Persia, five years after the defeat of Persia’s great enemy, the Ottoman Turks, at the gates of Vienna in 1683. He was an outsider in Persia, a member of one of the Turkomen tribes that had once swelled the ranks of the armies of Genghis Khan and Timurlane.

Much like Genghis Khan, known in early life as Temujin among the Mughals, Nadir was captured and taken into slavery by a rival Turkomen clan, the Ozbegs, while a boy.

The Ozbegs (modernday Uzbeks) had been powerful in Central Asia since the 14th century, even before the birth of Timurlane, in 1336. Nadir apparently managed to escape his slavery, although his mother, taken with him, seems to have died in captivity. Nadir went to the Afshar clan and sought service under one of their chieftains.


His ambitions proved too much for the Afshars, and he left to found a durjana army, which eventually reached the strength of 5,000 men, all hardened Turkomen warriors like him.

Nadir seemed destined to live out his life as a durjana until war erupted between Persia and Afghanistan in 1719. Prior to this date, the Safavid empire had been powerful in southern Afghanistan and claimed the loyalty of the powerful Ghilzai tribe.

The Safavids, however, were Shi’i Muslims, while the Ghilzais were Sunni. Safavid rulers had respected the different Ghizai beliefs until the Safavid sultan Hussein, who had been raised to the Persian throne in 1694, began a purge under the ayatollah Mohammed Baqir Majilesi, whose zeal in his religion would equal that of the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini some 300 years later.

All Sunnis were persecuted, both in Iran and in Iranian-controlled regions of Afghanistan. Zoroastrians (Parsees), Jews, and Christians also suffered from this Shi’i inquisition.

In 1715, the Ghilzai leader Mir Wais died of natural causes, but his example kept the Ghilzai resistance alive. Even the Abdali tribe in Afghanistan, which had tried to maintain its neutrality, revolted against the Persians in the city of Herat, which would be contested by Afghans and Persians for decades.

When Mil Wais’s brother seemed willing to come to terms with the Persians, his son, Mahmoud, killed his uncle and in 1719 invaded Persia itself. In 1722, Mahmoud defeated Hussein and became ruler of Iran.

Then he unleashed a reign of terror among the Persians, which soon caused his own supporters to fear for their lives. Consequently in 1725, his Ghizais assassinated him in the Persian capital of Isfahan and his cousin Ashraf became shah, attempting to legitimize his rule by marrying a Safavid princess.

By this time the weakened Safavid Empire proved a tempting target for its enemies. In 1723, Ottoman Turkish troops of the sultan Ahmed III struck from the west, launching damaging raids as far as Hamadan.

At the same time, the Russian forces of Peter the Great, who had just won the Great Northern War (1700–1721), attacked Persia from the north. The once-powerful Safavid Empire was so weakened that it agreed to a peaceful settlement and dividing Iran’s northwestern provinces.

In the beginning of the Afghan invasion of Persia, Nadir had supported Mahmoud and the Ghilzais. But when they ceased paying him and his bandits, he changed loyalties to the son of the Safavid sultan Hussein, who had succeeded his father as Shah Tahmasp II. With Tahmasp II’s support, Nadir began what today would be called a war of national liberation to free the Persians from their foreign oppressors.

He began his revolt in his home province of Khousan, where he knew he could count upon the support of his clansmen. With a growing army he was able to expel Ashraf from Isfahan, but not before he massacred thousands of Persians in revenge. Nadir relentlessly pursued Ashraf, who was overtaken during his retreat and killed in 1730.

Strategy

Nadir pursued a cautious attack strategy and concentrated his efforts on first removing the weakest of his enemies, the Ghilzais. However Tahmasp II foolishly attacked the Turks, losing Georgia and Armenia to them. Nadir, now the preeminent Safavid general, deposed Tahmasp and put upon the throne the young Abbas III.

Although careful to keep up the legitimacy of the Safavid dynasty, there was no doubt now that Nadir was the true ruler of Persia, although Abbas III was officially shah from 1732. In a series of lightning campaigns Nadir struck back at the Russians, now under the czarina Anna, and at the Turks.

The Turks were driven out of the territories they had conquered, and the Russians by 1735 had also been expelled from Persia. By this time, a successful warlord, Nadir overthrew Abbas III and became ruler of Persia in his own right, the first of the Afshar dynasty, in 1736.

Having consolidated his position at home, as Genghis Khan and Timurlane before him, Nadir embarked on a campaign of conquest that took him first into Afghanistan. His diplomatic cunning was shown at its greatest when, apparently with the promise of much booty, he was able in 1739 to enlist the Ghilzais and Abdalis into his army, only nine years after he had chased them out of Persia.

Moreover, in a show of bravura, he allowed the Afghans to join his personal bodyguard troops. Nadir swept aside any Afghan resistance at the cities of Kabul and Kandahar.

It was now that he revealed the real target of his invasion—the riches of the Mughal Empire of India. Nadir was able to enter the capital of the now-decrepit Delhi almost unopposed by the emperor Mohammed Shah. Nadir had already destroyed the main Mughal army at Karnal in the Punjab. On the pretext of an attack on the Persians, Nadir ordered the massacre of thousands of citizens of Delhi.

Some estimates put the number as high as 20,000. For 58 days, Nadir pillaged Delhi. When he finally grew tired, he took back with him a treasure trove of riches. He even took the priceless Koh-i-noor Diamond and the Mughal emperor’s own Peacock Throne.

Until the fall of the Persian (Iranian) monarchy in 1979, the Peacock Throne would be used by the reigning shahs of Persia. On his way back to Afghanistan and then Persia, Nadir was attacked at the Khyber Pass by the Pashtun tribes, either urged on by the Mughals or tempted by the sheer size of Nadir’s treasure train. The attack, however, was defeated by the Persian forces in a counter attack.

Undeterred by the attack in the Khyber Pass, Nadir resumed his campaigns of conquest by sweeping north over the Amu Darya and attacking the rich cities of the Silk Road that reached throughout Central Asia. Bokhara, Khiva, and Samarkand, the city of Timurlane, all fell before him.

However, in his later years, Nadir seems to have fallen victim to a form of dementia and began to think that his closest supporters were turning against him and coveting his power. Fearing that his own son, Reza Qouli, was plotting against him, Nadir had him blinded, presumably in the Persian way, with daggers thrust into both eyes.

Nadir’s end came in his camp at Quchan, when he ordered his Abdali guard to kill his army commanders. Apparently some of the Abdalis, perhaps Ahmad Shah himself, carried the news to the Persians. In June 1747, Nadir was assassinated and beheaded by his own troops.

Ahmad Shah was able to retreat to Afghanistan, where he founded the Durrani dynasty. In Iran, Nadir was succeeded by his nephew Adil Shah, who had most of Nadir’s offspring, including the unfortunate Reza Quoli, killed to assure his title to the throne. The Afshar dynasty would rule in Persia until Karim Khan seized control in the midst of anarchy, launching the Zand dynasty.

Mongol Rule of Russia

Mongol invasion

The almost 250-year Mongol rule over Russia was precipitated by two separate invasions. Following a successful invasion of the Caucasus in 1221, the Mongols invaded a small part of Russia in 1222.

Although a small contingent of the Mongol army succeeded against the ruling princes, they did not establish control over Russia and instead disappeared into the steppe. It was not until 1237 that a sizable Mongol army commenced its invasion of Russia proper, to which all of Russia fell and came under the dominion of the Golden Horde.

Having conquered the Muslim empire of the shah of Khwarazm, Jalal-ad-Din Mengubirdi, otherwise known as Sultan Muhammad II, Genghis Khan charged his capable generals Jebe and Subotai to march through the hazardous Caucasus Mountains in the direction of Russia.


The Caucasian tribes, the Alans (Ossetians), the Circassians, and the Lezgians, together with the Polovsti, formed an alliance and put up a fierce resistance to the Mongol invaders on the southern Russian steppe in 1221. The first battle between the Mongols and Caucasian alliance proved indecisive, but Jebe and Subotai had no intentions of withdrawing from the engagement.

Instead the Mongol generals resorted to using the strategy of divide and conquer. Jebe and Subotai persuaded their nomadic brethren, the Polovsti, to remain neutral by reminding them of their common Turkic-Mongol fellowship and also by promising to share with them the spoils of victory over the Caucasian tribes.

With the success of the subtle diplomacy, the generals returned to battle the Caucasian tribes with greater ferocity and overwhelmingly crushed the stubborn resistance.

The Mongol generals then turned against the Polovsti, who, in defeat, fled in the direction of Galacia and Kiev and appealed to the Russian princes—Mstislav Staryi of Kiev, Mstislav Udaloi of Galacia, and Vladimir of Suzdal—for intervention.

Two sets of crucial factors persuaded the Russian princes to join forces to help the Polovsti. First Prince Mstislav Udaloi was obliged to help because Kotian, the khan of the Polovsti, was his father-in-law.

And second according to the Novgorodian First Chronicle, the Mongols were unknown to the Russians—they did not know where they came from, what religion they practiced, or what language they spoke.

Mongol vs Russia

Fearing that the Mongols would grow stronger if they did not intervene, the princes Mstislav and Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great), together with the Polovsti, forged the Russo-Polovsti alliance.

In early 1222 the Mongols received news of the Russo-Polovsti alliance and sent a 10-member diplomatic envoy to negotiate with Princes Mstislav and Vladimir. The Mongols claimed to have no desire to war with the princes and did not harbor any intentions to conquer their lands or cities.

In the manner similar to the way they isolated the Polovsti from the Caucasian tribes, the Mongol diplomats urged the princes to defeat the Polovsti and take the spoils of victory for themselves and offered to enter into a peace treaty with the Russians. The princes, suspecting a Mongol trick, executed the diplomatic envoy, an act that was considered by the Mongols to be unforgivable.

A strong Russian-Polovsti army of 30,000 soldiers amassed on the Dnieper. Outnumbered by more than 10,000, Jebe and Subotai ordered the Mongol army to retreat. They dispatched a second diplomatic envoy to meet with the Russians and reproached the Russians for the murder of the first delegation.

The second envoy returned unharmed and carried a message for the Mongol army—the Russians feared that, after conquering the Polovsti, the Mongol army would attack them. Hence, they would only be happy if the Mongol army returned to the steppe.

As the main Mongol army retreated from the forest, its rearguard kept a watchful eye on the Russian mobilization. War-hardened and accustomed to being outnumbered, Jebe and Subotai managed to evade the Russians for more than nine days.

This contrasted sharply with the attitudes of the Russian princes. The Russian army lacked strategic coordination because Mstislav of Galacia and Mstislav of Kiev disputed over the ways to engage the Mongol army.

In pursuit of the Mongol army, the Russians were led farther and farther into the steppe and away from their supply lines. Prince Mstislav of Galacia, accompanied by Daniil of Volhynia, commanded the first Russian battle with the Mongol army, defeating the Mongol rearguard at the east of the bend in the Dnieper.

Wanting to claim the glory all for himself, Prince Mstislav Udaloi decided to pursue the main Mongol army. Without informing the rest of the Russian army or waiting for reinforcements to arrive, the prince took his army, the Volynian and Polovsti soldiers, across the river Kalka.

Overconfident from his victory over the Mongol rearguard, Prince Mstislav failed to consolidate his defenses after crossing the Kalka and fell into a Mongol trap.

The Mongol retreat was a strategy aimed at isolating the army commanded by Prince Mstislav of Galacia from those commanded by Prince Mstislav Staryi of Kiev, which was concentrated some distance away from the river Kalka.

In mid-June 1222 Jebe and Subotai seized the advantage and ordered an all-out assault on the Russian front and flanks. Prince Mstislav of Kiev watched from the western banks of the Kalka as the Mongols launched a ferocious attack against the forces of Mstislav of Galacia.

As the Polovsti fled and confusion set in within the Russian ranks, the army of Prince Mstislav of Galacia, unable to maneuver effectively in the marshy terrain, was cut into pieces. The prince, along with the wounded Prince Daniil of Volhynia, a small remnant of his troops, and what remained of the Polovsti, managed to escape.

Realizing that a hasty retreat from a swift army is guaranteed to be fatal, Prince Mstislav of Kiev ordered his forces to fortify themselves on a commanding hilltop. But before the prince could securely establish his defenses, Jebe and Subotai attacked.

After three days of ferocious Mongol assault, Prince Mstislav of Kiev surrendered on the condition that he and his army would be permitted to return to Kiev unharmed. The Mongol army accepted, but, as soon as the Russian army disarmed, Prince Mstislav of Kiev was executed and his forces slaughtered.

Fearing that the Mongols would cross the Dnieper, Prince Mstislav of Galacia and his remaining forces destroyed all the ships. The forces of Jebe and Subotai never crossed the Dnieper and, instead, returned to join the main Mongolian army stationed in the steppes east of the Syr Darya River. Thus by the end of 1222 the first invasion of Russia ended as swiftly as it had begun.

In the winter of 1237, well after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, the Mongol army returned. In the context of a greater invasion of Europe, the Mongol army, headed by the veteran Subotai, amassed some 150,000 to 200,000 warriors.

The large army crossed the frozen Volga and attacked the Russian eastern principality of Riazan because it was considered the weakest. As the Mongol army advanced, Prince Roman rushed to Suzdal to ask Prince Yuri for help, which was denied.

Instead Grand Prince Yuri suggested that the four princes of the vassal state, Princes Yuri, Oleg, Roman, and Yaroslav, end their squabbling and join forces against the Mongols. After defeating the Russian army at Riazan, the Mongol army constructed a wooden palisade that encircled the town capital of Riazan.

After five days of bitter fighting, Riazan was finally captured. The trapped princes and their families were executed, the young women and nuns were systematically raped, and the entire population was massacred.

In the winter of 1237–38 Batu Khan and his army sacking Suzdal

In the winter of 1237–38, under the command of Batu Khan, the Mongol army attacked Suzdal and its capital Vladimir. Although his territory and its city came under siege, Grand Prince Yuri did not intervene.

Batu Khan targeted Novgorod while Subotai attempted to draw Grand Prince Yuri into battle. Novgorod, particularly the fortress of Torzhok, fought and resisted the forces of Batu Khan.

The ensuing battle lasted two weeks, enough time for an early spring to arrive. The spring thaw flooded most of the southern terrain and made it impossible for Batu Khan to advance. Batu Khan was forced to abandon his siege on Novgorod and retreat to the southern steppe.

Batu Khan stabbed Prince Michael of Chernigov to death for his refusal
to do obeisance to Genghis Khan's shrine in the pagan ritual.

In March 1238 Grand Prince Yuri and the Suzdalian army perished at the decisive battle against Subotai on the river Sit. With the strongest section of Russia conquered within several months, the Mongolian army sacked the state of Chernigov.

Through the summer of 1239 and for one and a half years, the Mongol army rested and sought comfort in the lush steppeland of western Ukraine, in preparation for another campaign.

In summer 1240 the Mongol army resumed their offensive against Russia. The cities of Chernigov and Pereyaslav were captured. On December 6, 1240, Batu Khan arrived with his army at Kiev to reinforce the Mongol vanguard commanded by Mongke Khan.

After Dimitri, the governor of Kiev, had executed the Mongol ambassadors, the Mongol army stormed the city. Apart from the cathedral of Saint Sophia, the entire city was leveled and its population exterminated.

By 1242 the Mongol army had captured all of Russia. Batu Khan chose Old Sarai, in the lower Volga, to establish the headquarters of the Mongol dominion over Russia, which became known as the Golden Horde.

The Golden Horde, as a center for the Mongol administration of Russia, endured for almost 250 years. A daruga handled Russian political affairs and the collection of an annual tribute.

Invasion of Russia by the Golden Horde

To become eligible to take office, Russian princes had to journey to the Golden Horde to pay obeisance to Mongol overlords. Contented with being overlords, the Mongols never established a dynasty in Russia.

Occasionally, Russian military units had to serve alongside the Mongol army. Despite an attempt by Prince Dimitri of Moscow to wrestle Russia from Mongol control in 1330, they managed to rule and exact tribute for a further century.

Ivan III of Moscow finally broke Mongol rule over Russia in 1480. Failing to check the emergence and rise of the Muscovite state, the seed of modern Russia, the Mongols ceded control.

Peter I the Great - Czar of Russia

The rise to power of Peter the Great was fraught with death and uncertainty, but his reign as czar greatly strengthened Russia in regard to its acquisition of territory in the Baltic and Black Sea regions, and the modernization of Russian society. Czar Alexei (1645–76) and his wife, Natalia Naryshkin, did not believe their son Peter would drastically change the course of Russian history when he was born on May 30, 1672.

The death of Czar Feodor III (1676–82) created a persoalan for the continuation of the Romanov dynasty in Russia since Fedor left no heirs; the debate developed concerning Ivan or Peter as successor.

Ivan was Fedor’s brother, but Ivan, who was 16 years old, was mentally and physically handicapped. Peter was the half brother of Ivan and had the support of many of the boyars and the patriarch Joachim, since this healthy 10-year-old offered stability to the Russian throne.

The Zemsky Sobor, an assembly of boyars, was assembled and voiced its support for Peter, but Sophia, Feodor’s sister, refused to allow Peter to be crowned as czar and attempted to incite the Streltsi, a regiment of guardsmen, to turn against Peter. On May 15, 1682, the Streltsi, upon hearing rumors that Ivan and a number of boyars were murdered, rebelled and stormed the Kremlin.

The Streltsi swore their loyalty to the Romanov family after Ivan Naryshkin and Doctor Van Gaden were brutally murdered. These two individuals were killed because the Streltsi believed they played a role in the presumed death of Ivan.

Following these murders, the Streltsi decided that Ivan and Peter would corule Russia, with Ivan acting as the senior czar and Sophia as the regent over both czars. The double coronation ceremony was held on May 26, 1682.

Sophia’s control over the Russian government quickly deteriorated with mounting tension between Sophia and Peter as Peter tried to assert his authority over her. In August 1689, Sophia called up some of the palace guards to protect her from a suspected attack from supporters of Peter.

This intensified the situation, because a number of people loyal to Peter believed that these guards were called up to attack him. Peter fled for refuge to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, where he rallied a sizable force. Sophia, fearful of Peter’s increasing strength and of her declining support, capitulated.

Peter’s mother, Natalia, was selected to replace Sophia as the regent of the czars, but her regency was short, as she died in 1694. Ivan died shortly later in 1695, leaving Peter as the czar of Russia, and in a position to pursue his own policies.

Military Might

Peter’s first interests were against the Crimean Turks, as Peter was anxious to acquire access to the Black Sea so that Russia could trade with Europe throughout the whole year. The battle against the Turks at Azov in 1695 was a failure despite the fact that Peter assembled an army of approximately 31,000 men to attack Azov, and another 120,000 men to fight near the Dnieper River.

The reason for the failure was that the Turks could still ship supplies to Azov via water transport. Peter decided to correct this oversight in his strategy and collected money from monasteries and boyars to build a Russian naval fleet. The second attempt to take Azov in June 1696 with an army of 80,000 soldiers and a fleet was successful.

With the campaign against the Turks a success, Peter decided to focus his attention toward the West. In 1697, Peter and an entourage of 250 Russians toured Europe to examine Western knowledge and technology. Peter was impressed with the wealth Holland was able to acquire through its trading access and commercial fleet.

This wealth left such an impression on Peter that he was determined to emulate this success by constructing his own commercial fleet. He wanted to give Russia a window to the West via trade and to acquire more European technology to strengthen Russia.

Peter also wanted to import Western culture to Russia; he forced the nobles to shave their beards, changed the Russian calendar to conform to the European calendar, and made the Russian New Year conform to the European New Year.

In fact, the historian Paul Bushkovitch has credited Peter with introducing modern culture and political thought to Russia. Peter was also able to create a stronger state by making the Eastern Orthodox Church subservient to the Russian government.

The money Peter seized from monasteries and the reformed tax system helped Peter to build an academy to improve the education system in Russia. Peter was also able to bring order to the Russian social hierarchy by formulating the Table of Ranks in 1722, which determined an individual’s status in Russian society.

Moving West

Instead of pursuing Russian expansion to the south against the Turks, as previous Russian foreign policy dictated, Peter moved west, initiating hostilities against Sweden. The Great Northern War against Sweden dominated much of Peter’s reign.

In order to defeat the Swedish, Peter built a large army based on the same model as his Preobrazhenskii regiment, which had Western-style uniforms, training, and promotion through the ranks based on merit instead of birth. Poland sent a declaration of war to the Swedish government in January 1700, and Denmark quickly followed suit.

These two countries gave Peter allies in a war against Sweden, initiated when the Russian government declared war against the Swedish government on August 20, 1700. Unfortunately for Peter, the Danes sued for peace on August 20, 1700, leaving Russia and Poland to fight against the Swedish empire without this valuable ally.

As this alliance between Poland and Russia developed, Charles XII of Sweden reviewed his plans to protect his empire. Unfortunately, he was not able to recognize the major threat to his country’s boundaries. The Swedish strategy during the Great Northern War consisted of concentrating the main bulk of their forces against the Polish armies while Charles relied upon a token force to limit the Russian advance in the east.

It is true that the Swedes quickly attacked and defeated a Russian force at Narva on November 30, 1700. At this battle, a small Swedish force of 10,000 soldiers was able to overwhelm a Russian force of 40,000 men and seize the battlefield.

Despite this victory, the Swedes did not follow up their attack with further pressure against the Russians. The Swedish strategists preferred to concentrate their war effort against the Poles. It took the Swedes eight years to launch their second invasion into Russian territory.

Following his victory at Narva, Charles maintained a Swedish force of 15,000 men to protect his Baltic possessions. This force proved to be inadequate in the defense of the eastern portion of his empire against the armies of Peter. In January of 1702, Peter gained some momentum with his victory over the Swedes at Errestfer.

This battle had major consequences for the Swedish war effort since its army lost 3,350 soldiers. This Swedish defeat was compounded by another Swedish rout half a year later. This defeat cost the Swedish army a significant number of soldiers and provided the stimulus Peter needed in order to expand into the Baltic area.

Peter was able to strengthen Kronstadt after the capture of the fortresses of Nyenskans and Nöteborg. Peter was determined to hold on to his acquisitions in the Baltic region and give Russia closer ties with the rest of Europe by founding St. Petersburg in 1703, which became the future capital of Russia.

It is important to note that the Russian armies acquired more than territorial gains from this Baltic campaign. Through these military victories, the Russians were able to acquire more experience and confidence, as well as increase the size of their army.

When Charles XII finally turned his attention toward the Russian front, Peter had already established himself on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The eight-year gap between the two Swedish invasions of Russian territory provided Peter with a reprieve in which he could strengthen his armies.

The number of cavalry regiments increased from two in 1700 to 34 regiments at the time of Charles’s return. As Charles advanced through the Ukraine, Peter was obliged to follow a scorched earth policy in order to stall for time and demoralize the invading Swedes.

Vicious methods were employed to deprive the Swedes of anything of use as the town of Dorpat was destroyed after the inhabitants were forcibly moved eastward and Russians were forbidden to provide Swedish troops with provisions.

Swedish Defeat

On May 11, 1709, the Swedish army unknowingly began a siege that would lead to the capitulation of the Swedish government 12 years later. The Poltava battle accurately foreshadowed the decline of Swedish power in the affairs of the Baltic as this battle cost the Swedish army 9,700 soldiers. This is a significant number of men compared to the 4,545 casualties the Russian army endured.

The consequences of this battle were further devastating to the Swedes. On July 1, 1709, fully 20,000 Swedes surrendered to the Russian armies at the town of Perovolochina. The Russians were unable to capture their royal opponent as Charles XII, who abandoned a significant portion of his army, fled south to the Ottoman Empire.

Poltava is recognized by scholars as a battle that not only changed the course of the Northern War, but completely altered the balance of power in northeastern Europe. It must be noted the governments of Western Europe were anticipating not only the destruction of the Russian army, but the further expansion of Swedish influence into eastern Europe.

The consequences of the Battle of Poltava ended any hope of imposing Swedish influence on the Russians. Not only did the Swedes lose a substantial portion of their army, but the old alliance against them was strengthened.

In this respect, Peter shifted from a passive role during the first alliance into a more active role. Peter, who encountered Augustus on the Vistula River, agreed to help his former comrade reclaim his throne since he was deposed following the Swedish victory over the Poles at Kliszow in 1702.

Peter attempted to make the Polish throne more secure to the family of Augustus by making the Polish monarchy a hereditary position. This illustrates the massive degree of power Peter now possessed in the internal affairs of the Polish government. The Danes, already allied to Augustus, wished to restore the old balance of power in northern Europe.

Invasion of Finland

Peter was able to use his gains in the Baltic to their fullest potential as he launched an invasion of Finland in order to strengthen his position at the upcoming peace negotiations with the Swedish government. The Russians won a remarkable victory against the Swedish at Storkyro in March 1714.

This land victory was followed by a Russian naval triumph over the Swedish navy at Gangut. In 1718, the Swedish government faced another threatening situation: Charles XII died during a battle in Norway. Ulrika, Charles’s sister, faced increasing pressure resulting from Peter’s invasions of the Swedish heartland.

The Russians were also enlarging the size of their Baltic fleet at an alarming pace. These threats compelled the Swedish government to end the war against the Russians. The Russians were able to gain a significant degree of power in the Baltic region from the Treaty of Nystadt.

The agreement between these two powers allowed the Russians to take possession of several islands, the territories of Livonia, Estonia, Ingermanland, and a section of Karelia. The Russians were given significant influence in Baltic affairs since they kept the fortress of Viborg.

More important, the Russian czar was regarded as an imperial monarch by the Prussians and the Dutch. Even the Swedes and other western Europeans eventually acknowledged this title.

Peter’s death on January 28, 1725, brought uncertainty to the succession of a new ruler for two reasons. Peter did not have a male heir to succeed him, and he failed to nominate his successor before he died. Peter’s only son and heir to the throne, Alexei, died on June 26, 1718, as a result of the torture inflicted on him for his rebellious attitudes.

Alexei was an outspoken critic of Peter’s reforms and feared the wrath of his father, resulting in his flight to Austria in 1716. Despite the fact that he was plotting against his father, Alexei was eventually persuaded to return to Russia and was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he later died. His wife, Catherine, was nominated to succeed Peter since she had the support of a number of Peter’s advisers and the Imperial Guard.

Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was America’s longest war. In total, the conflict in Vietnam lasted from 1946 to 1975. The official dates of U.S. involvement were 1964–73. The Vietnam War was extremely costly and destructive and had a profound effect on both the soldiers who fought it and the civilians who lived through it. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and gave him the power to wage war in Vietnam.

Throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, the Vietminh under Ho Chi Minh were fighting the French colonial presence in Vietnam. By 1954 the United States was paying 80 percent of the cost of France’s war against the Vietminh. In July 1954 the French and the Vietminh signed an armistice in Geneva, which divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel.

Ho Chi Minh controlled the north, and Vietnam-wide elections were to be held in 1956. The United States did not sign the agreement, and plans were put in place to stop Ho Chi Minh’s plans to conquer all of Vietnam. President Dwight Eisenhower was afraid that if Vietnam fell to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would follow.


Not wanting Vietnam to be under the control of a communist leader, the United States pushed aside the French puppet leader and replaced him with Ngo Dinh Diem, a Vietnamese nationalist. Many were confident that Diem could rally Vietnam against communism. The United States increased aid to South Vietnam, and the first U.S. advisers arrived there in early 1955. These decisions laid the groundwork for the Vietnam War.

Ho Chi Minh was frustrated that Vietnam was not yet independent and unified, so in 1957 the Vietminh in South Vietnam began to revolt against the Diem regime. In May 1959 communist North Vietnam came to the aid of the revolutionaries in the south. As a result, the United States increased its aid to South Vietnam.

In South Vietnam conditions deteriorated rapidly. Diem’s regime never gained popular support. In 1960 anti-Diem communists and Buddhists created the National Liberation Front, with the Vietcong as its military wing, and began operations against Diem’s forces.

A young soldier being sent to vietnam

The United States had pledged in the 1954 South East Asia Treaty Organization pact to defend South Vietnam against external aggression, and President John F. Kennedy lived up to that obligation.

To Kennedy and other politicians, Vietnam was another cold war battlefield. Signs of weakness would lead the Soviet Union to believe that the United States was weak and vulnerable. As such, South Vietnam also became a testing facility for counter-insurgency units.

The U.S. Green Berets advised the South Vietnamese army, and civilians provided medical and technical aid and economic and political reforms, all in an effort to "win the hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese.

There was a general consensus in Kennedy’s administration about the consequences of losing Vietnam to communism; there were others who feared the worst. Undersecretary of State George Ball told Kennedy that within five years there would be 300,000 U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. However, Ball was incorrect: within five years nearly 400,000 soldiers were in Vietnam.

Female soldier, Vietnam war

Even with his advisers calling for escalation, Kennedy proceeded cautiously. By the middle of 1962 he had increased the number of military advisers from 700 to 12,000. He added another 5,000 in 1963.

As the number of casualties increased, the prospects of withdrawing became increasingly difficult. In the face of so many problems, Kennedy gave the order to overthrow Diem. On November 1, South Vietnamese military officials, with the assistance of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, arrested Diem and his brother.

While in custody, both were assassinated. However, the plan backfired. A number of inexperienced military officers took command in South Vietnam with little support and were unable to govern effectively. The country sank deeper into trouble and the role of the United States increased.

After President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the issue of Vietnam fell to President Lyndon B. Johnson; Johnson was deeply troubled over Vietnam and had been for some time. During the rest of the months leading up to the November 1964 election, Johnson tried all he could to keep the issue of Vietnam in the background, fearing it would hurt his chances of being elected.

In many of his conversations with Robert McNamara, secretary of defense, Johnson discussed doing all he could to keep the public thinking that he had made no simpulan decisions on Vietnam.

Some advisers were trying to give Johnson suggestions for getting out of Vietnam and still saving face; meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were advising him that preventing the loss of South Vietnam was of overriding importance to the United States.

Treating the wounded soldier

Robert McNamara visited Saigon. He reported to Johnson that conditions had worsened there since General Khanh took over power in January 1964. Many officials there favored increased pressure on North Vietnam, including air strikes. McNamara, aware of Johnson’s wish to be ambiguous to the public regarding his stance, offered to take a lot of the heat.

Johnson, knowing the conditions in Vietnam, understood that in order to achieve the ambitious conditions set out in McNamara’s policy statement, an escalation of military power in the country would have to be undertaken.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed in Congress on August 7, 1964. It provided the legal authority for Johnson to escalate the Vietnam War. On August 2 North Vietnamese gunboats had attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 4 the Maddox and another vessel, the USS Turner Joy, reported being under attack.

Many doubts exist about whether or not the second attack actually took place, but the Johnson administration used it as a pretext for retaliation. Johnson ordered the first U.S. air strikes against North Vietnam. The resolution was passed 88-2.

Johnson won the 1964 presidential election by a landslide. In addition to his domestic agenda, the Great Society, Vietnam was the largest issue he dealt with. Still relying on trusted advisers like Richard Russell, even though he would not take his advice, Johnson had countless discussions about Vietnam.

Johnson’s rationalization was what he considered a treaty commitment inherited from Eisenhower and Kennedy. No matter what Johnson said to him, Russell stuck to his conviction that Vietnam was not the place to invest U.S. blood and treasure. Johnson told Everett Dirksen, Senate minority leader, that communist propaganda, his advice from Eisenhower, and the domino theory informed his policies with regard to Vietnam.

Major Escalation

US Air Force First Lieutenant being held captive by a young North Vietnamese girl,
Vietnam War, 1967

After July 1965 the war escalated into a major international conflict. The North Vietnamese army numbered in the thousands, and they supported an estimated National Liberation Front force of 80,000. From 6,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam in July 1965, the number increased to over 536,000 by 1968, with an additional 800,000 South Vietnamese troops.

Both sides played to their own strengths. The United States had great wealth, modern weapons, and a highly trained military force under the command of General William Westmoreland. Using bombing raids and search-and-destroy missions, it sought to force the opponent to surrender.

The National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese army, under the exceptional direction of Vo Nguyen Giap, used a different strategy altogether. They were lightly armed and knew the area. They relied on the guerrilla warfare tactics of stealth and mobility. Giap wanted to wear down the United States and its allies by harassment missions.

Between 1965 and 1967 the United States did untold amounts of damage to Vietnam. Bombing increased from 63,000 tons in 1965 to over 226,000 tons in 1967. The U.S. military strategy failed to produce clear results. The war dragged on, and opposition to the conflict in the United States intensified.

Countless protests took place in cities and on college campuses. Troops who returned home were often treated poorly, quite the opposite of the heroes’ welcome experienced by returning veterans of World War II.

The Tet Offensive of 1968 brought a new phase of the war. In late 1967 the North Vietnamese launched operations in remote areas to draw U.S. forces away from cities. On January 31, 1968, the National Liberation Front launched massive attacks on the unsecured urban areas.

F-4 bomb run Vietnam....help is on the way.

They led strikes on 36 provincial capitals, 5 major cities in the south, and 64 district capitals. They also attacked the U.S. embassy in Saigon and captured Hue for a period. Although the Tet Offensive failed overall, it had a profound psychological effect on the people of the United States.

Protests increased, and murmurs that the war was unwinnable became much more audible. As a result of developments in Vietnam and widespread unrest across the country, Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection in 1968.

After the Tet Offensive, ensuing peace talks failed to produce any agreement. The dilema of Vietnam fell to the fourth U.S. president involved in the Vietnam conflict, Richard Nixon.

In 1969 he expanded the war into neighboring Cambodia, a move that he kept from the press, further increasing the gap in the people’s trust in the government when he went public about the decision in 1970. The domestic backlash led to a new wave of protests, during which four students died at Kent State University in Ohio, and two more at Jackson State University in Mississippi.

Photo by Art Greenspon/AP - Vietnam War. April 1968

Nixon’s involvement in Vietnam was marked by increased domestic opposition. After the Cambodian affair, Congress repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The trial of Lieutenant William Calley, commander of a unit that murdered 500 South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, raised fundamental susila questions about the war.

Finally, the Pentagon Papers were published in 1971, which deepened public distrust in the government. Polls showed that more than 70 percent of Americans felt that the United States had erred when it sent troops into Vietnam. During 1972–73 the U.S. phase of the war ended.

A peace agreement was signed in Paris on January 27, 1973. It allowed for the extraction of U.S. military forces from Vietnam and the return of U.S. prisoners of war but did not address the fundamental issues over which the war had been fought.

North Vietnam was allowed to leave 150,000 troops in the south, and the future of South Vietnam was not directly and clearly spelled out. Fighting broke out between the north and the south, and the U.S. Congress drastically cut military and economic aid to South Vietnam.

When Richard Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War issue was passed to its fifth president, Gerald Ford. Congress rejected his request for $722 million in aid for South Vietnam, agreeing to only $300 million in emergency aid to extract the remaining U.S. personnel from the south. The climax of this came on May 1, 1975, with a harrowing rooftop helicopter evacuation.

Those who never return

The total cost of the war was extensive. South Vietnamese military casualties exceeded 350,000, and estimates of North Vietnamese losses range between 500,000 and 1 million. Civilian deaths cannot be accurately counted but ran into the millions. More than 58,000 U.S. troops were killed, and over 300,000 were injured. The total financial cost of the war exceeded $167 billion.

Many of Johnson’s Great Society reforms were cut back because of the increased military expenditures. Veterans returning home experienced long-lasting effects, which ranged from flashbacks to posttraumatic stress disorder to the effects of exposure to chemicals. Furthermore, the war saw no tangible results. Once the United States evacuated Saigon, the North overran the city, and Vietnam was united under communist rule.

The Unabomber

The Unabomber

In Apr 1996, next what had been the longest criminal investigation inward the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), police pull enforcement agents arrested Theodore John Kaczynski, who afterwards admitted to existence the elusive Unabomber. Kaczynski’s contribution to U.S. conspiracy theory was two-fold. First, his conspiracism represented a novel plough inward anti-statist, anarchistic ideas.

His eclectic, anti-technology beliefs were completely idiosyncratic as well as drew their inspiration from the conviction that a technophile elite inward globe guild would shortly command the global population and, inward the process, destroy human freedom.

Second, Kaczynski’s lengthy bombing displace sparked an intensive moving ridge of media attending as well as resulted inward much heated paranoid rhetoric virtually the identity of the mysterious figure. Because no grouping e'er took responsibleness for the bombings, the U.S. media as well as law-enforcement “profilers” generated numerous theories virtually the perpetrator’s identity.


Some of these pointed to the bomber’s alleged antisemitic beliefs, due to the Jewish names of a few targeted victims, patch other theories suggested that the suspect was either an extreme right-wing populist or a mentally unbalanced thrill seeker.

Despite spending about $50 i G m inward their nearly twenty-year search, authorities long remained stymied inward the travail to apprehend the series bomber whose modus operandi involved mailing concealed explosive devices to academy professors amongst inquiry specializations inward fields including genetics, psychology, as well as estimator science, every bit good every bit to some corporate executives.

Given the designing of the bomb attacks, which commenced inward 1978 as well as resulted inward the deaths of 3 victims as well as the wounding of over 20 others, authorities began to telephone holler upward the representative “Unabomb,” a reference to the university-oriented targeting preferences of the unknown assailant.

The Unabomber’s eventual arrest took house next the September 1995 publication inward the New York Times as well as Washington Post of his rambling magnum opus, a 35,000-word manifesto entitled “Industrial Society as well as Its Future.”

In letters to both newspapers, the Unabomber offered to cease his attacks if his lengthy, apocalyptic arguing of anarchist principles was published. Although initially reluctant to submit to this blackmail, the newspapers were urged past times FBI Director Louis Freeh as well as Attorney General Janet Reno to concur to the foreign proposal inward the promise that readers of the manifesto mightiness recognize its author.

Following the full-length printing of the essay, a major breakthrough was made inward the case. Having discerned similarities betwixt the writing inward the Unabomber’s manifesto as well as the letters of an eccentric household unit of measurement member, David Kaczynski alerted FBI officials virtually the connecter he perceived to his brother, Theodore Kaczynski.

The origins of the Unabomber’s road to violence were unusual. Born inward 1942, Theodore Kaczynski grew upward inward a middle-class abode inward the suburbs of Chicago. He excelled at schoolhouse and, at historic menses sixteen, entered Harvard on a scholarship to study mathematics.

From 1962 to 1967, Kaczynski was enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he pursued a Ph.D. inward mathematics as well as ultimately was awarded the annual Sumner Meyers Prize for the best doctoral dissertation inward the field. In 1967, the shy as well as introverted Kaczynski was hired every bit an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Within 2 years, however, he resigned his seat and, next a brief menses of move inward the American West as well as Canada, purchased a tiny slice of belongings inward the mountains close the small town of Lincoln, Montana. At this remote site Kaczynski constructed a little cabin as well as spent the adjacent twenty-five years living the life of a mount recluse.

The Unabomber’s Conspiratorial Belief System

During his long remain inward the rugged mountains of western Montana, Kaczynski shaped the highly idiosyncratic, extremist philosophy that led him to adopt a trigger-happy strategy. H5N1 lifelong lover of nature, Kaczynski harbored deep concerns virtually the rapid increment of a vast industrial as well as technological “system” which he felt was leading to dandy social disruption as well as the extinction of the natural world.

In his view, modern engineering as well as those who advanced it threatened an older as well as to a greater extent than pristine agency of life, i that involved living only as well as inward interdependence amongst nature.

He saw the early on nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution, inward particular, every bit the mark betoken from which human guild began to degenerate on a “supertechnological” path that left people powerlessly subject on the “progress” made past times modern science.

The institutions of scientific discipline as well as engineering non solely had disastrous consequences for the environment, but, according to Kaczynski, also stripped people of their individualism as well as autonomy every bit they became pawns inward a modern scheme of global engineering dominated past times governments, corporations, as well as other large organizations.

In his manifesto, Kaczynski pose out amongst dandy precision the conspiratorial plot he saw existence employed past times an elite, global shape of technocrats, scientists, as well as “leftists” bent on subjugating human guild to the ability of the industrial-technological system.

Believing that the growing infiltration of supertechnology into everyday existence would farther erode at human independence, Kaczynski argued that the ruling “technocracy” was creating a slave race amongst an ever-diminishing connecter to the ideal, primitivist life he advocated.

While his politics receive got been a thing of some debate, Kaczynski makes clear inward his manifesto his hate of “leftist collectivists,” whom he considered (along amongst the technological elite) to hold out playing an active purpose inward the degradation of human freedom.

As he pointed out inward his treatise, the political Left benefited from the technological collectivization of humankind insofar every bit this tendency made it impossible for dissident groups as well as individuals to command the circumstances of their ain lives. Kaczynski believed that the “collectivist philosophy” of the Left, patch superficially appealing to many, genuinely masked a darker impulse to command human behavior.

Although he spoke for no i other than himself inward his manifesto, Kaczynski attempted to select that a little grouping of revolutionaries (named “FC” to propose the existence of a multi-person “Freedom Club”) opposed the industrial scheme as well as was engaged inward planning its destruction.

His idealized programme involved having this revolutionary cadre operate to weaken the economical as well as technological foundations of modern guild to such a grade that a pop revolution against it would hold out possible.

In addition, he maintained that a “counter-ideology” to that of modern engineering had to hold out developed as well as propagated inward monastic enjoin to supersede the electrical flow scheme inward the postapocalyptic menses when “Wild Nature” i time to a greater extent than returned to guide the course of teaching of humankind.

From the tenor of the manifesto, Kaczynski clearly believed that the industrial scheme was already unstable as well as heading for collapse. However, he believed that its ultimate devastation would accept much fourth dimension as well as require the assistance of a determined minority of revolutionaries absolutely devoted to the task.

His packet bombs, sent to those perceived to hold out associated amongst the scientific, organizational, as well as technological aspects of the system, seem to receive got been an travail at expediting the revolution past times fomenting chaos inward the fourth dimension earlier the go past times away of the electrical flow civilization.

In autumn 1997, inward Sacramento, California, Kaczynski faced trial inward federal courtroom on numerous counts of illegally manufacturing as well as using bombs, every bit good every bit 3 counts of murder. After receiving the reports of psychiatrists, Kaczynski’s lawyers devised a defence strength that portrayed their customer every bit insane.

However, Kaczynski refused to cooperate amongst the legal strategy and, instead, pleaded guilty to the charges inward central for the prosecution’s discussion that the go past times away punishment would non hold out sought. Kaczynski is currently incarcerated at the “Supermax” prison theatre inward Florence, Colorado, where he is serving 4 life price without possibility of parole.