It is argued by a noted historian that the federal government sets the policies and the people calmly follow. However, for that to be the case, one would have to ignore the many riots and protests that have taken place in America from 1945-present. Also, this noted historian says that the central policy makers are sophisticated, trained professionals who understand the complexity of foreign and domestic affairs. Again, one would have to ignore the entire Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Cold War. Then the noted historian goes on to say that the general public is less competent and often incapable of dealing with the myriad of issues of national life.
[...] Britain and France spent too much blood and treasure to regain their prewar military and economic power” (Grob & Billias 265-266). Then with only the US and Soviet Union still standing, the technological revolution became very important, to the point where after the exploding of the atomic bomb in 1945, every confrontation between the two countries threatened the destruction of mankind (Grob & Billias 266)[25]. The reason for the explosion of the atomic bomb was because of the US's fear that the Soviet Union would try to expand communism into other parts of Europe. [...]
[...] afraid of a nuclear attack, so they both came up with ways of relieving the publics fear: Truman by writing a book entitled to survive atomic attack” and Kennedy by urging people to build bomb shelters (Lecture 3-28)[4]. However, that only reinforced the public's despair about the threat of a nuclear war (Lecture 3-28)[5]. Besides nuclear protests, there were others types of protests as well. There was the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) who fought for civil rights in Mississippi and peace by responding to the escalation in Vietnam (15,000-25,000 peace protests) during the 1960's (Lecture 4-11)[6]. [...]
[...] Eventually, the Vietnam War and all its problems forced Johnson to withdraw from the presidential race, which speaks volumes about how terribly it was handled. On the other side of the coin, there was the reaction of how poorly things were going by the soldiers themselves. Radio technician Jan Barry commented on how unorganized things were: had no idea whether they had left me in the middle of nowhere and the guerrillas were going to come and carry me away. [...]
[...] The Chinese warned the United States not to advance father, and when MacArthur continued his northern thrust, the Chinese entered the fighting and pushed American and United Nations troops back to the old border between the two Koreas” (Carroll & Noble 356)[16]. That example shows unsophisticated and untrained these professionals were when dealing in matters of foreign policy. Then, of course, there was the Vietnam War, where we sent 500,000 troops and more bombs than in World War II (Carroll & Noble 405)[17]. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
