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.

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Democratic Republic of Vietnam flag

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), or North Vietnam, as it became commonly known after the 1954 Geneva Accords, came into existence on September 2, 1945. Following the Japanese surrender in World War II, Vietnamese Communist Party (Vietminh) leader Ho Chi Minh seized the opportunity and declared Vietnamese independence.

Vietminh strength was centered in the north. The French, however, were disinclined to accept this, and moved to reimpose their colonial rule over the entire region. They quickly established control in the south, although they could not effectively control the countryside.

Since the French and the Vietminh hoped to avoid a full-scale war, both sides entered into intermittent negotiations. In March 1946 the French provisionally recognized the DRV in exchange for Ho’s agreement to include the north in a proposed French Union.


Final agreement remained elusive, however, and the relationship between the two sides continued to deteriorate. In November 1946 the French shelled the port of Haiphong. Ho and his supporters escaped into the mountains in the north and began a war of nation-wide resistance.

The war against the French unfolded against the backdrop of the emerging cold war. On the battlefield, the Vietminh relied on the military genius of General Vo Nguyen Giap. They also seized land belonging to French landowners and alleged traitors and redistributed it to peasants, winning popular support.

The French were decisively defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. At the Geneva Conference that followed, Ho was pressured by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China to accept a compromise.

The result was the partitioning of Vietnam, with the promise of nationwide elections in 1956. Those elections never took place. Although he had envisioned the establishment of an independent government over all of Vietnam, Ho had to accept a truncated Democratic Republic of Vietnam north of the 17th parallel.

With the official formation of the DRV, North Vietnam became the first communist state in Southeast Asia, with Ho Chi Minh as president and Hanoi as its capital. Political power rested in the Communist Party, or the Vietnamese Workers’ Party (VWP), as it had been renamed in 1951. The power nucleus of the VWP was the Politburo, which was responsible for day-to-day decision making.

The primary task that confronted Ho and his colleagues was the need to consolidate their rule. At Geneva the DRV leadership had issued a directive that indicated its intention to proceed cautiously and take gradual steps toward establishing a socialist economy.

In order to reassure the population, the government announced that the country would operate with a mixed economy, indicating acceptance of private wealth and property. At the same time, the government also stated its intention to respect the freedom of religion.

These pronouncements failed to reassure many in the north, and after the partition some 800,000 refugees made the trek south. An official policy of fair treatment for Catholics notwithstanding, many leaders in the VWP and others in local party and government structures continued to nurture suspicion of them, and harsh treatment of Catholics bred resentment in some areas.

The economy, which had been devastated by years of war, posed a tremendous challenge to the government. Moreover, fleeing refugees left many businesses abandoned. The DRV government moved to nationalize certain sectors of the economy such as utilities, banking, and some large enterprises. Prices and wages also came under government regulation.

The industrial sector had remained underdeveloped under French rule. In 1961 the government launched the first Five-Year Plan to develop heavy industry. By the middle of the decade war with the United States diverted resources from industrial development and stalled these efforts.

The agricultural sector required immediate attention since food was in chronically short supply. This, as well as the need to win over the rural population, seemed to demand land reform. In 1955 the government launched a agenda to confiscate land from wealthy landlords for redistribution.

The land reform program, however, produced mixed results. On the positive side it increased the rates of landownership, increased rice production, reduced the influence of wealthy landlords, and won the support of numerous poor peasants who reaped the benefits.

On the negative side, overzealous cadres and poor peasants often denounced those who owned only medium-sized holdings, and local tribunals executed many. In 1956 the hostility eventually erupted in a peasant uprising in the province of Nghe An.

Ho Chi Minh publicly admitted that errors had been made and slowed the pace of land reform. But within two years the government initiated a large-scale collectivization effort that brought most of the rural population into some form of state-controlled cooperative farming.

The VWP also created party-run organizations that recruited different segments of Vietnamese society, including veterans, workers, farmers, youths, and women. By mobilizing the population into various communist-led organizations, the VWP realized its domination of Vietnamese society.

The consolidation and nation-building efforts in the north also included increasingly harsh efforts to silence criticism and dissent. Freedom of expression was curbed. Authors of protest literature came under increasing public attack from 1958 onward. Culprits were sent to work in agricultural cooperatives or work camps to be reeducated.

The South Vietnamese government’s decision to boycott the elections planned for 1956 compelled the North Vietnamese leadership to decide the priority it would give to reunification. By and large the DRV leadership decided to adhere to the decision to build socialism in the north while searching for some means to reunify the country. Debates in the VWP Central Committee in the mid-1950s, however, suggested that the leadership anticipated reunification to be realizable only after a military struggle.

In 1959 the VWP shifted to a more activist approach and began to approve efforts to increase pressure on Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime in the south. By this point a broad-based resistance movement against Diem had gained strength. In late 1960, largely at the behest of southern cadres, the National Liberation Front was created as an umbrella organization that rallied a broad range of anti-Diem resistance.

The road to the reunification of Vietnam led the DRV to war against the United States, whose commitment to a noncommunist South Vietnam had grown steadily. Between 1965 and 1973 U.S. combat troops fought in the Vietnam War. Some evidence suggests that Hanoi had begun infiltrating troops into the south in late 1964. Supplies and men flowed south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia.

In January 1973, after several rounds of peace talks, the Paris Peace Accords ended U.S. involvement. The cease-fire between north and south broke down, and the war resumed. On April 30, 1975, victorious North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and achieved Ho’s dream of a unified Vietnam. In his honor Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976, in a country now renamed the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Don Delillo

Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo, the distinguished contemporary U.S. novelist, is the author of xiii novels—including Amazons (1980), a pseudonymously penned new past times Cleo Birdwell—and 2 plays. His many awards include the National Book Award for White Noise (1985), the PEN/Faulkner abide by for Mao II (1991), in addition to inward 2000, the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld (1997).

DeLillo is also the start American to have the Jerusalem Prize (1999) inward recognition of his consummate plant that, inward the words of the prize committee, “express the theme of the liberty of the private inward society” (Time).

DeLillo’s novels are prescient critiques of U.S. culture, engaging specifically U.S. subjects similar cultural materialism, sports hysteria, stone music, terror in addition to violence, conspiracies, waste, post–World War II U.S. history, corporate America, in addition to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. DeLillo’s plant are prophetic every bit they apprehend in addition to explore latent U.S. ills earlier they accomplish privileged condition inward the media.

DeLillo understands that many U.S. predilections are connected every bit Underworld claims: “everything is connected inward the end” (826). For his needlelike perceptions DeLillo has been dismissed past times the New York Times Review of Books every bit the “chief shaman of the paranoid schoolhouse of American fiction” (Begley, 303), in addition to detractors criticize him for his tenacious exhuming of Americana in addition to for creating what Bruce Bawer calls, “conspiracy-happy protagonists” (35).


Speaking amongst Anthony DeCurtis on the Zapruder film, DeLillo remarked that “the strongest feeling I took away from that 2nd is the feeling that the shot came from the front end in addition to non from the rear” (291). From this comment, in addition to its implication of an choice to the Warren Commission’s findings, critics similar a shot branded him every bit a conspiracy theorist writing fiction. It is non surprising that DeLillo’s artistic integrity has invited such criticism.

DeLillo’s run is maybe ameliorate understood every bit daring, exploring the underside or undercurrent of U.S. history in addition to culture. DeLillo’s significance emerges from his willingness to explore alternatives to the mainstream consensus in addition to to address the unaccountability of the many, intricate connections— cosmic, quotidian, in addition to profound—of adventure in addition to coincidence inward modern in addition to contemporary America.

Much of DeLillo’s writing underscores what he calls inward his start novel, Americana (1971), the “true mightiness of the image” (12), especially media images. For DeLillo, no icon is to a greater extent than penetrating in addition to culture-altering than frame 313 of the Zapruder film, the frame capturing the precise 2nd of Kennedy’s assassination.

The assassination is thus pervasive inward U.S. civilisation in addition to thus pregnant for DeLillo that he has asserted inward an interview amongst Adam Begley that U.S. history seems “engineered” since thus (303), in addition to that it fifty-fifty “invented” him every bit a author (DeCurtis, 285). This is non to state that DeLillo views history every bit necessarily controlled every bit business office of a massive military-industrial conspiracy, but that he has charted a collective shift inward U.S. consciousness since 22 Nov 1963.

Moreover, a corollary of DeLillo’s plant is that they telephone telephone for a to a greater extent than critical appraisal of our cultural media images past times pointing to in addition to critiquing prominent images, similar the famous painting of Lee Harvey Oswald belongings a Manilicher rifle in addition to purportedly Communist journals. It has been alleged that the photograph was adulterated amongst Oswald’s caput inserted afterward.

Don DeLillo has flora resonance in addition to connectivity inward parallel U.S. events since JFK. He has farther tailored his fiction for, in addition to written perspicacious essays on, seemingly disparate events similar Oswald’s expire (Libra), shot simultaneously past times telly cameras in addition to Jack Ruby’s pistol, in addition to the Ronald Reagan assassination endeavour with, every bit he writes inward “American Blood,” its “choreography of gesture” of Secret Service agents flourishing drawn weapons (24).

Don DeLillo hither shrewdly notes that Americans are thus culturally steeped inward the lore of JFK’s assassination that fifty-fifty Reagan’s agents displayed a palpably self-conscious awareness of the gravity of their videotaped 2nd every bit the drama unfolded, in addition to that event’s historical antecedence inward JFK’s assassination. In an historic menstruation of ubiquitous video cameras in addition to amateur-video footage, Don DeLillo contends that it is no longer possible to alive without an urgent selfconscious awareness, fifty-fifty during the mundane happenings of mutual existence.

For DeLillo, the USA unalterably changed inward 5.6 seconds at Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. Connecting subsequent events amongst the Kennedy assassination is non paranoid, every bit DeLillo’s detractors accept claimed. Rather, it demonstrates a circumspect agreement of the mightiness of U.S. media images, in addition to how no effect after JFK tin hold upward performed without reference to the assassination on some level.

His run oft returns to doublings in addition to mirrored events. In Libra, Lee Harvey Oswald in addition to Kennedy’s lives are linked; DeLillo himself claims an affinity for Lee Harvey Oswald, noting that they lived around each other every bit children inward the Bronx. The footing for DeLillo’s largest in addition to maybe almost complex novel, Underworld, is the four Oct 1951 New York Times’ double headline of “Giants capture pennant” in addition to “Soviets explode atomic bomb.”

The headlines’ interpenetrating “shot-heard-around-the-world” resonance in addition to synchronicity is simply 1 of many adventure events of twentieth-century America that engage Don DeLillo. For Don DeLillo, our historic menstruation is increasingly technologically bounded, in addition to piece these gains are beneficial they are also bewildering in addition to isolating. DeLillo’s fiction, then, operates every bit a counter to U.S. existential loneliness in addition to despair.

His fiction is a restorative past times turning our collective attending dorsum to the ordinary elements of human life, noting the sometimes alarming moments of conjunction inward disparate episodes. Finding these instances of revelation in addition to transcendence inward seemingly typical junctures is a hallmark of his fiction.

U Nu

U Nu

U Nu was the prime minister of Burma (now the Union of Myanmar) from 1948 to 1958 and from 1960 to 1962 and was an important leader earlier in the struggle for independence from Britain.

U Nu was born in a period during which the British colonization of Burma was coming under increasing pressure from nationalist Burmese and opposition in Britain. U Nu graduated from the University of Rangoon and worked for several years as a schoolteacher. In 1934 he returned to the university to study law and became involved with nationalist politics.

He became leader of the student union and was subsequently expelled from the university, along with Aung San. The subsequent student strike was one of the earliest confrontations between the Burmese and the British, which intensified in the following years.

U Nu joined the We-Burmans Association (Dobama Asi-ayone), which had been formed in the wake of the 1932 anti-Indian riots and was a center for nationalism. The association was dominated at first by the Rangoon University student union, but under U Nu and others it expanded its activities.

It was influenced by a combination of Marxism, democratic socialism, and Irish nationalism. The leaders, including U Nu, took the forename Thakin, or master, to demonstrate that they were not subservient to the British. The forename "U" is an honorific.

When World War II broke out in Asia, British authorities arrested U Nu and others, and they were imprisoned until Burma was invaded and occupied by the Japanese. The Japanese established a puppet government under Ba Maw, and U Nu served in his cabinet for a period. In the years between the end of the war and independence, U Nu assumed the leading position in the nationalist movement following Aung San’s assassination in 1947.

Consequently, he headed the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League and became the first prime minister of independent Burma in 1948. Winning two subsequent elections, he remained in office for a decade, with only a brief hiatus in 1956–57.

His time as prime minister was marked by numerous communist insurgencies and independence struggles by ethnic minority peoples, and a decline in the value of rice exports. His government proved unable to improve the lot of the people. He resigned in 1958, and the government was taken over by General Ne Win as a result of widespread social disorder.

U Nu returned to power in a brief return to democracy from 1960 to 1962, but the subsequent military coup returned the country to the repressive regime that remained in power into the 21st century.

U Nu was imprisoned by Ne Win and not released until 1969. He made several subsequent attempts to return to power, the first when he attempted to organize resistance to the military government in 1969. He was then forced into exile in India, although he returned to Rangoon to become a Buddhist monk in 1980.

He had throughout his life been a devoted Buddhist and had introduced several laws to support the religion. In 1988 it briefly appeared that democracy would return to Burma, but U Nu’s attempt to seize power was crushed and he was put under house arrest. He was freed in 1992 and died in Rangoon three years later.

United Nations

The United Nations, already six decades old, has traversed a long, strife-formed cold war. Not a superstate above the states, it collectively approaches issues of war, peace, development, and justice, and has sufficient transforming potentials to create a new, better world order.

Since the end of the cold war, it has acquired new dynamism, but at the same time it has to be restructured to cope with an emerging complex world of nation-states, various movements, and unforeseen challenges like terrorism.

The United Nations, founded in the aftermath of World War II, was established at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 on the principle of collective security. It was the successor to the League of Nations, which had been established after World War I but failed to organize world order on the principles of universality.

The United Nations, therefore, took care to avoid the mistakes of its predecessor, and five major powers were given special power and responsibility through the mechanism of "veto" power in the most important organ of the United Nations—the Security Council.


The goals of the United Nations were enshrined in the Charter: to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, to achieve international cooperation, and to work as a harmonizer among nations. Security was the principal goal of the United Nations.

Unlike in the league, however, security was not narrowly conceived in the United Nations but was broadened to include socioeconomic justice, human rights, and development. Like the league, the United Nations was based on the principles of collective security.

The new principle on which the league and the United Nations were based does not consider security as the individual affair of states or regions but as a collective affair of all states, and aggression against one state is considered aggression against all others. All states are obliged to take collective action against the aggressor.

From The League

The UN Charter provided for six major organs, four of which evolved out of the League of Nations. The General Assembly was based on the democratic principle of "one country, one vote", irrespective of size and power, and was essentially a deliberative organ.

The countries of the Third World used the body for organizing themselves and took up issues of colonialism and racialism. The Charter provided for some supervisory functions of the General Assembly. The council and assembly had joint functions as well.

The Security Council, the most important organ of the United Nations, reflected the reality of power. The United States, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and China were the five permanent members with veto power and had special responsibility to maintain world peace and security.

However, veto became a mechanism of obstruction, and the Soviet Union frequently used it; while the United States did not use it in earlier years, the frequency of veto increased after 1970. The Security Council was based on the assumption that the major powers would agree on issues of war and peace, but the onset of the cold war around 1945 made the United Nations a helpless spectator.

The Charter provided for a mechanism of maintaining peace, whereby the council may call upon members states to apply sanctions against the aggressor and may form a Military Staff Committee consisting of the chief of staff of permanent members of the Security Council.

The enforcement of peace was possible in the Korean War, and a united command was formed under the United States. It placed an embargo on the export of strategic materials to China and North Korea. Subsequently the provision could not be replicated for a long time.

It was only after the closing stages of the cold war that the Security Council became effective again; consultations and coordination among the major powers in the council have been frequent, as in the Persian Gulf crisis and more recently over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

For about five decades of the cold war, the United Nations never appeared to play the role envisaged at San Francisco in the realm of peace and security; it was bypassed in major flash points across the globe, such as the Panama Canal crisis, Hungary, the Berlin blockade, the Cuban missile crisis, Arab-Israeli conflicts, the India-China border war, Vietnam and Indochina, and the Sino-Soviet border war.

The United Nations was a passive bystander as major powers professed to settle scores outside the United Nations. When the United Nations was hamstrung due to the use of veto, the General Assembly sought a way out through the Uniting for Peace Resolution to consider measures in a situation of breach of peace.

After the end of the cold war, the United Nations became more active again, although in the process it acquired new functions, in line with but not envisaged in the Charter. During the turn of the 21st century this function, known as peacekeeping—traditionally denoting acting as a buffer between contending parties or monitoring ceasefire agreements—expanded to other areas.

Now peacekeeping also means the provision of humanitarian relief, removal of mines, repatriation of refugees, and reconstruction of national infrastructure in devasted areas, such as Afghanistan.

The costs of all of these functions have been enormous, especially in recent peacekeeping operations: South Africa, Rwanda, Iraq-Kuwait, Mozambique, Somalia, Haiti, and Liberia. Sometimes the United Nations has drawn flak; the UN troops have also been targeted, as in Somalia and Bosnia.

Cooperation

Unlike during the cold war years, however, the United Nations finds cooperation among major powers to repulse aggression. In the First Gulf War, Moscow supported U.S. efforts to impose sanctions against Iraq, which had annexed Kuwait.

The machinery of the United Nations was used. Other major powers contributed troops, particularly France and Britain. Japan and Germany too accepted new security roles.

Besides war and peace, the United Nations has been instrumental in various humanitarian efforts. A large amount of credit must go to the United Nations for ending apartheid in South Africa, improving life expectancy in Africa, helping children suffering from malnutrition, and fighting diseases. It has not been as successful in the removal of global poverty, but it has launched efforts in that direction.

Now the United Nations finds itself playing a new role against international terrorism. It has not been as successful, and the United States acted unilaterally in 1998 when al-Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in East Africa.

Subsequently, following September 11, 2001, the United States took drastic steps, and the United Nations was more involved than before; terrorism became a key issue of international and United Nations concern.

The United Nations has been moving into new, uncharted areas. In a world where millions of children die days after they are born, the issue of human rights has become a major arena of international attention.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, has been enshrined in constitutions of states. Now the United Nations has also been a force in expanding the frontiers of democracy worldwide, believing that democracy fosters world peace.

While the United Nations is engaged in redefining issues of war, peace, development, and freedom, reforming the world body has become a burning issue since the end of the cold war, and more particularly since 1998, when 185 states met to celebrate 50 years of the United Nations.

There is also demand to restructure the Security Council and to add new permanent members—with or without veto power. Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, and some African countries are key candidates demanding permanent places on the Security Council.

The major powers with vetos—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France—themselves differ about who should be permanent members in a reformed council. Reforms are, however, necessary to make the United Nations more in tune with the changes of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

Ukraine

Ukraine

Since 1991, Ukraine has been an independent state, the sovereignty of which is now recognized by all the countries of the world. Ukraine is one of the biggest European states (603,700 square kilometers). Ukraine has common borders with seven countries (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Russia, and Byelorussia), and the Black and Azov Seas are on its southern border.

Ukraine consists of 24 regions (oblast) and the Crimea Autonomous Republic. The capital of Ukraine is Kiev. A Pan-Ukrainian population census in 2001 found the total number of inhabitants at 48,416,000. The majority are city inhabitants, and 32 percent live in the countryside.

Over 100 ethnicities and nationalities are represented in contemporary Ukraine. Among them are Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, Moldavians, Crimean Tatars, and Bulgarians. Most of the population of Ukraine belongs to the Orthodox Christian Church.


Striving for national and state independence was a key issue in Ukraine in the 20th century. This aspiration, partly realized during the hard days of 1917–20, remained potent political motivation for Ukrainians living all over the world. The democracy brought by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika inspired ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union to activate national liberation movements.

Revision of the Ukrainian nation historical past, promoted by representatives of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group of human rights activists; a rise in national identity supported and developed by artists, poets, writers, and scientists; and the people’s movement known as "meeting democracy" had created the necessary background for historical action. On July 16, 1990, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine, first among the republics of the former Soviet Union, adopted a declaration of state sovereignty of Ukraine.

Ukraine map

The next step was a coup that took place in the Soviet Union on August 19–21, 1994, and that resulted in the pronouncement of the Act of State Independence of Ukraine by Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Soon afterward the first elections were held for president of independent Ukraine (Leonid Kravchuk won and was president from 1991 to 1994), combined with an all Ukrainian referendum for endorsement of the independence of Ukraine.

Since that time a series of measures aimed at the organization of bodies and institutions necessary for an independent Ukraine have been undertaken. Some acts were compromises with the Russian Federation; because of the deep economic integration of both countries, it was hard to become separated at once.

Issues included the state border between Ukraine and Russia in the Azov Sea; the presence of the Russian navy in Sevastopol in Crimea and the status of that city; and the persoalan of the frontier with Romania around Zmeinyi Island. Some others still remain only partially solved.

On December 7–8, 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia signed a document denouncing the union treaty of 1922, according to which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had been organized. A treaty establishing a Commonwealth of Independent States was signed instead. Since that time, Ukraine has been free to conduct its internal policy.

During 1991–94 a series of democratic reforms were instituted in Ukraine, among which the most important were beginning a constitutional process, the improvement of the multiparty system, the formulation of basic principles of foreign policy and international cooperation, the formulation of a military doctrine, introduction of economic reforms, the elaboration of an ethnic policy, and the creation of relationships with the different churches represented in Ukraine.

The presidential and parliamentary elections of 1994 opened a new phase in the political development of Ukraine. The keystone of the political history of Ukraine at that time was the adoption of a new constitution (June 28, 1996), a long and hard process that repeatedly caused political and parliamentary criss.

It was the beginning of parliamentary and presidential opposition, which led to growing tension during Kuchma’s presidency in relation to the composition of parliament factions and their representation.

The presidential elections of 2004 and the following Orange Revolution opened a new masa in the political history of Ukraine, characterized by general democratization and liberalization of the political process.

Ukrainians dissatisfied with officially announced results of the runoff election between presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovich and leader of the opposition Viktor Yuschenko demonstrated in the principal square of Kiev—the Maidan (Square) of Independence—and for several weeks people from various cities, towns, and villages in Ukraine marched for democracy, for their political rights, and for the possibility to make their political choices freely.

Orange Revolution

Orange Revolution

Representatives of different political parties and movements united their efforts in this process, and the Orange Revolution ended in a victory for democracy in Ukraine. A coalition government, with the participation of all "orange" parties and movements, was formed, with Julia Timoshenko as the first woman prime minister in the history of Ukraine.

In local administrations, thousands of former functionaries of different levels have been replaced by "orange" democrats. New priorities in foreign policy, a tendency toward integration with the European Union (EU) and cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and reorientation of trade relationships have been elaborated.

Nevertheless, as early as the beginning of September 2005, Julia Timoshenko’s government was dismissed, and it became clear that there were serious discrepancies among Orange Revolution leaders and representatives of different orange parties.

Political reform that implies the transition of Ukraine from presidential to parliamentary republic was adopted by the parliament and became a point of serious discussion among "orange" revolutionaries, social democrats, representatives of the Party of Regions, and communists. The ideals of democracy and freedom still remain the essence of the Viktor Yuschenko presidency, as was shown by the first free parliamentary election in March 2006.

Viktor Yuschenko

Shortly after its independence, Ukraine faced problems during the transitional period of economic development from planned socialism to free-market forms. The destruction of traditional Soviet resources, marketing, and energetic and macroeconomic networks, along with the extreme difficulty of creating new ones in the European community, and the urgent need for modernization of basic equipment and production techniques, negatively influenced the general state and the prospects of further development of the economy of Ukraine. A so-called shadow economy sprang up and grew rapidly with substantial support from the highest administration of Ukraine, which appeared to be corrupt.

Inflation, accompanied by a decrease in purchasing power, indicated that the standard of living of Ukrainians decreased to a crucial level, creating a need for the state administration to finance a series of social programs. Pension reform, changes in support for families with low income, support for veterans of World War II, and many other social actions were undertaken.

Broad-scale raising of salaries, stipends, and pensions began in 2004 under the government headed by Viktor Yanukovich on the eve of presidential elections. The new president of Ukraine, Viktor Yuschenko, and his ministries consequently instituted a series of social programs aimed at improving the standard of living.

A series of economic reforms, including the introduction of new currency, privatization in agriculture and industry, promotion of national producers and national product exportation, searches for new investments and new sources of power supply abroad, and cooperation with the World Bank, gradually contributed to a general slow growth of the Ukrainian economy after 2000.

The creation of a new macroeconomic network, tending toward integration with the European Union (EU) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), is the principal strategic goal proclaimed by President Yuschenko.

The organization of an independent state of Ukraine led to a new animo in the development of the ideology and culture of the country, connected with the formation of the ideas of national unity and ethnic and national self-identification.

The process of national memory revival, studies of the cultural and historical past of the Ukrainian nation, rediscovering cultural heritage, the revival of the folk culture of national minorities, and the establishment of fruitful connections with the Ukrainian diaspora are key aspects of the cultural development of Ukraine in the new millenium.

One of the sharpest debates in the context of cultural development is the discussion of an official language of Ukraine. It was demonstrated in the presidential election of 2004 and the parliamentary election of 2006 that a strong Russian-speaking opposition still exists in Ukraine.

The activation of religious life in independent Ukraine after the dismantling of a totalitarian ideology brought a series of conflicts, first of all among representatives of different branches of Orthodox Christianity. As stated by the constitution of Ukraine, the nonobligatory character of any religion creates the background necessary for religious pluralism and freedom of people’s consciousness.

Turkey

Turkey flag

Present-day Turkey lies in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia and shares borders with Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. It is made up of 780,580 square kilometers. It contains the Bosporus Strait, which connects, the Black and Marmara seas, and is one of the busiest shipping lanes, in the world. Turkey also has coastline on the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.

Turkey has 81 provinces, and Ankara is the capital city. Turkey’s population is almost 70 million, of which a majority are Turkish, with a significant minority of Kurds, as well as Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Circassians, Assyrians, Arabs, and Laz communities. Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Turkey is a republican parliamentary democracy with a civil law system derived from several European legal systems such as the Swiss Code. The legislative branch is the unicameral Grand National Assembly, which contains 550 popularly elected seats.


Turkey’s economy is a mix of industrial, agricultural, and commercial. The private sector is expanding, but the state still controls most basic industries and the banking, transport, and communication sectors. The main export industries are textile and clothing production, with automotive and electronic export production close behind.

The main agricultural products include tobacco, cotton, grains, olives, sugar beets, pulses, citrus products, and livestock. In the 1990s Turkey’s economy suffered severe fluctuations, which culminated in financial disaster in February 2001. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides heavy backing, but the economy faces high debt and deficits.

Ismet Inönü took over as president upon the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1938, and the Republican People’s Party (RPP) held the majority until 1950. Inönü managed to stay out of World War II until 1945, when Turkey declared war on Germany as a symbolic gesture in order to qualify as a founder of the newly forming United Nations. Under the Truman Doctrine, Turkey, due to its close proximity to the Soviet Union, qualified for massive financial aid.

Despite these achievements, the economy was weak, and the RPP and Inönü grew increasingly unpopular. Turkey had by then formed a multiparty system, and in 1950 the Democratic Party (Demokrati Partisi, or DP) received the majority in the elections, forcing the RPP to relinquish its 27-year majority.

Turkey map

Celal Bayar became president, and Adnan Menderes became prime minister. The economic boom of the early 1950s strengthened Menderes and the DP’s position. By 1952 Turkey had become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), largely due to the fact that Turkey had immediately volunteered troops for the Korean War. Turkey’s entry into NATO ensured protection along its borders and allowed NATO a closer position against the USSR.

After the 1954 elections the DP became more authoritarian. Conflict was exacerbated when a Greek citizen placed a bomb at the Turkish consulate in Thessalonica. The island of Cyprus, under British control and with an 80 percent Greek majority, also became a point of conflict. These two issues culminated in riots in 1955 that targeted Greek homes, shops, and businesses and wrought havoc throughout Istanbul.

Many Turkish citizens of Greek origin fled Turkey after these riots. During this period, Greek nationalists of the EOKA movement on Cyprus also began a struggle against the British forces. Turkey strongly opposed British suggestions that the Greeks might be allowed to annex Cyprus. Ultimately Cyprus became an independent nation.

Turkey prime minister in 1950s, Adnan Menderes

The DP lacked the support of the military, which had been vital to the RPP. This led to the DP’s downfall in 1960. Because of training, aid, and financial support gained as a result of joining NATO, the Turkish military was a strong and powerful mechanism within Turkey. Menderes grew increasingly unpopular with the military.

In 1960, the military overthrew the Menderes government. The coup was popular among students, who had been repressed by the DP. A new constitution was drawn up that justified military intervention if the ruling government acted unconstitutionally. The military was also given a role in government.

In January 1961 political activity was allowed once again, and 11 parties registered for the elections to be held at the end of 1961. One of the parties, the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, or JP) appeared to be a phoenix of the old, outlawed DP. Menderes and two of his cabinet members were tried by a military tribunal and executed in September 1961. Elections were held in October 1961.

Süleyman Demirel

The Justice and Republican People’s Parties formed a shaky coalition. In 1965 the JP, led by Süleyman Demirel, won a major victory in elections. Under Demirel, Turkey saw significant economic growth. The JP espoused Islamist and traditional beliefs that ran directly counter to communist and leftist thought. The left grew increasingly popular among the student population and industrial proletariat.

The right also emerged as a strong force in the 1960s, setting the stage for the crisis of the 1970s. The formation of two strong, Islamic-leaning parties, the National Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) and the National Order Party (Millî Nizam Partisi), seriously threatened the JP’s hold on the government in 1969.

Demirel’s JP government started to fall apart in 1971. On March 12, 1971, the army forced the Demirel government from office.

Free elections were held in 1973, with a victory by Bülent Ecevit’s RPP. However, because they failed to capture the majority vote, they were forced into coalition governments. This continued throughout the 1970s as rightist and leftist violence escalated. Kurdish separatism also flared up in the 1970s. Kurdish nationalist Abdullah Öcalan formed the left-leaning Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in 1978.

The sectarian violence escalated, and the military stepped in. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, Islamic groups in Turkey were suspected of receiving aid from Iran. The religious demonstrations in Konya in September 1980 provided an excuse for direct military intervention.

The Purge

Kenan Evren : president of turkey 1980-1989

The military suspended all political parties and groups and instituted martial law and curfews. General Kenan Evren was declared acting head of state. The National Security Council (NSC) arrested 122,000 people during 1980–81 in order to stop the violence. Academics and politicians were purged from the system. A new constitution was enacted in 1982. Kenan Evren was then elected president, and the military began to restructure the political system.

Elections were held in 1983, with the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi) gaining the majority under Turgut Özal. The old parties then reincarnated and changed their names in order to enter the 1984 elections. After Kenan Evren’s term ended in 1989, Turgut Özal became president. Turgut Özal’s presidency, although fraught with corruption and scandal, was also marked by impressive modernization.

Turgut Özal : President of Turkey 1989-1993

The 1990s were also marked by the rise of the PKK. After the 1980 coup the Kurdish language was forbidden, as was the term Kurdish as a separate identity. Abdullah Öcalan had fled to Damascus after the 1980 coup. Turkey until 1991 refused to acknowledge the presence of Kurds in the country and referred to them as "mountain Turks". The government forbade their language, songs, customs, and names.

Öcalan’s followers carried out their missions with an almost religious zeal. Talabani of the Kurdish PUK faction based in Iran helped Öcalan get financial support from Kurds living throughout the Middle East, which brought the PKK beyond the sphere of Turkey. The PKK also received support from Kurds living in Europe.

The PKK used guerrilla warfare to launch attacks within Turkey. The Turkish army responded brutally to the terrorist attacks. Villages thought to be harboring PKK terrorists were destroyed, and thousands were arrested, detained, and tortured. Many innocent people were killed and their homes destroyed.

After the U.S. defeat of Iraq in 1991, Turkey feared the creation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq that would be used as a base for Kurdish attacks on Turkey. Subsequently, President Özal officially recognized the existence of Kurds in Turkey and implemented a bill that would allow the Kurdish language to be used in everyday conversations but not in business, government, or any other official agency.

Despite this, the PKK stepped up their campaigns against the Turkish government, committing more atrocities, which further enraged the Turkish public. Öcalan was captured in Nairobi, Kenya, by Turkish commandos in 1999. He was sentenced to death and imprisoned on an island in the Marmara Sea, where he remained for years.

Tansu çiller : first female prime minister of Turkey 1993-1996

In 1993 the True Path Party came into power, and Tansu çiller became the first female prime minister of Turkey. Necmettin Erbakan was the leader of Refah, which was supported by the young, professional middle class and students. Erbakan did not engage in a radical Islamic changeover.

He personally championed reforms to change the working hours during bulan pahala and loosen control of the Directorate of Religious Affairs to make it harder for the government to monitor Islam. Erbakan also proposed lifting the ban against wearing headscarves in universities and government institutions. The Erbakan/çiller coalition also made significant overtures to Libya and Iran, and at the same time condemned Israel.

With the advent of new freedoms under Erbakan, many other Islamic leaders eagerly expressed their long-silent opinions. Refah wanted to abolish the Swiss legal code instituted by Atatürk, and secularists feared a return to sharia, or Islamic law.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan : Prime minister of Turkey 2003-2014,
Present days president of Turkey

Erbakan and çiller both left government, and in 1998 the Constitutional Court formally disbanded Refah and forced its members out of Parliament. Bülent Ecevit emerged as the new president, in large part because of his handling of Öcalan and the Kurdish conflict. In 1999 a huge earthquake struck Izmit, near Istanbul, killing between 15,000 and 40,000 people.

The government was extremely slow to respond, and the public was enraged by the lack of support from both the government and the military. Memories of the earthquake played a role the emergence of the Justice and Development Party (JDP, or Ak Partisi). In the 2002 elections the JDP, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won a majority in the Grand National Assembly.

Although the JDP espoused a moderate Islamic line, it was careful to respect the secular state. Erdogan also instituted reforms to help pull Turkey out of its financial troubles. Erdogan and the JDP also scored a major victory with the October 2005 decision by the European Union (EU) to start Turkey’s EU membership bid.

Present days Istanbul, Turkey