The U.S. Wartime economy. The Marshall Plan(EPR)
the United States became the world’s largest weapons manufacturer. Americans experienced virtually full employment, longer work weeks, and higher earnings. Labor scarcity drew women into the war economy. The war made US a military and economic world power. World War II inspired hard work, cooperation, and patriotism. In US however were casualties of war: 1. December 7, 1941 Japanese airplanes attacked Pearl Harbor (the largest single-day loss in the US Navy history), then the Congress declared the war to Germ, Jap, Italy. In 1945 Am.airplanes dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan (Hiroshima, Nagasaki).
United States program of financial assistance that helped to rebuild European nations devastated by World War II (1939-1945) - the Marshall Plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall. After the war, Europe's agricultural and coal production had nearly stopped, and its people were threatened with starvation. The United States responded for 4 reasons:
1)Europe had been a great market for American goods; without a prosperous Europe, the US might have suffered a severe economic depression.
2) without American aid, Western Europe might have used socialist or Communist methods to rebuild, and U.S. leaders considered that undesirable.
3) Western Europe appeared open to influence by USSR, which the United States was beginning to see as its main rival.
4) West Germany had to be rebuilt as a buffer against Soviet expansion.
After careful planning, Marshall announced in June 1947 that if Europe devised a cooperative, long-term rebuilding program, the United States would provide funds. The Congress of the United States appropriated more than $13 billion in aid. The program achieved both its immediate and long-term aims: When the aid ended in 1952, Communist control of Western Europe had been averted, West Germany was independent, rearming, and economically booming.
19. The origins of the Cold War(1946–1991).
After the Second World War, America experienced a period of great economic growth. The United States launched massive economic reconstruction efforts, first in Western Europe and then in Japan (also in South Korea and Taiwan). The Marshall Plan began to pump $12 billion into Western Europe.the US and the USSR became rivals for global dominance. After WWII, the United States emerged as a global superpower.
British prime minister Winston Churchill popularized the term “Iron Curtain”. The term described the isolation of eastern European nations that fell under control of the USSR. That was the start of the COLD WAR policy.
- The policy of containment and the escalation of the Cold War, the Eisenhower administration and the policy of "massive retaliation".
This policy was further articulated in the Truman Doctrine Speech of March 1947, which argued that the US would have to contribute 4 billion dollars to help Greece and Turkey, to efforts to "contain" communism. Truman ordered the development of hydrogen bomb. 1949- NATO because of widespread fear of Communism. In early 1950 came the first U.S. effort to opposing communist forces in Vietnam, plans to form a West German army, and proposals for a peace treaty with Japan that would guarantee long-term U.S. military bases.
In 1953, Stalin died, and the new president, Dwight D. Eisenhower used the opportunity to end the Korean War, but continued Cold War policies. His Secretary of State John Foster Dulles - the policy of "massive retaliation,"(they can use nuclear weapons) which Dulles announced early in 1954 wielding the vast superiority of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Dulles defined this approach as "brinksmanship."(баланс на грани войны)
The Cold War reached its height during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis began on October 16, 1962 and lasted for thirteen days. When the U.S. discovered 42 Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, President John F. Kennedy demanded their removal and announced a naval blockade of the island. It is regarded by many as the moment when the Cold War was closest to becoming nuclear war.
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1957- 1975) was a war fought on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos and in the strategic bombing of North Vietnam. In Vietnam, the conflict is known as the "American War”. U.S. involvement in the war gradually increased, though there never was a formal declaration of war. There had been a movement of opposition to the war in the United States starting in 1964.
Demonstrations protesting Am. involvement broke out on college campuses, and there were violent clashes b/n students and police. The United States then unilaterally withdrew its troops from Vietnam in 1973 and two years later the North had a complete control over the whole country. Stung by his increasing unpopularity, Johnson decided not to run for a second full term. Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. He pursued a policy of Vietnamization, gradually replacing American soldiers with Vietnamese. In 1973 he signed a peace treaty with North Vietnam and brought American soldiers home. Nixon achieved two other diplomatic breakthroughs: re-establishing U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China and negotiating the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Soviet Union. In 1972 he easily won re-election ( Watergate political scandal in which an attempt to bug the national headquarters of the Democratic Party (in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C.) led to the resignation of President Nixon (1974)).
21 US political scandal of the 70’s 80’s and 90’s.
70’s - Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. He pursued a policy of Vietnamization, gradually replacing American soldiers with Vietnamese. In 1973 he signed a peace treaty with North Vietnam and brought American soldiers home. Nixon achieved two other diplomatic breakthroughs: re-establishing U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China and negotiating the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Soviet Union. In 1972 he easily won re-election ( Watergate political scandal in which an attempt to bug the national headquarters of the Democratic Party (in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C.) led to the resignation of President Nixon (1974)).
80’s – Iran-Contra scandal - a political scandal of 1986 involving the covert sale by the U.S. of arms to Iran in exchange for Am. hostage in Lebanon. The proceeds of the arms sales were used by officials to give arms to the anticommunist Contras(freedom fighters) in Nicaragua, despite congressional prohibition. Sale occurred during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, at a time when official relations between the countries were suspended.
90’s – scandal b\n president Bill Clinton and White House trainee Monica Lewinski,it shook the foundation of Am. Puritanism and broke the myth of US president’s supremacy, high morale and honesty.
The Reagan revolution
Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, won a landslide victory in 1980, and Republicans also gained control of the Senate for the first time in twenty-five years. Reagan promised an end to the drift in post-Vietnam U.S. foreign policy and a restoration of the nation's military strength. He also aimed to cut government spending on welfare and social services geared toward the poorer sectors of society, which had built up during the Vietnam era. Reagan combined the tight-money regime of the Federal Reserve with an expansionary fiscal policy. Another factor in the recovery from the worst periods of 1982-83 was the radical drop in oil prices, which ended inflationary pressures of spiraling fuel prices.
By the middle of 1983, unemployment fell from 11% to 8.2. Reagan-era deficits were keeping the U.S. dollar overvalued. With such a high demand for dollars, the dollar achieved an alarming strength against other major currencies.
The U.S. balance of trade grew increasingly unfavorable; the trade deficit grew from $20 billion to well over $100 billion.
23. The Reagan administration –
favored a hawkish approach to the Cold War, especially in the Third World arena of superpower competition. The administration financed training of mujahadeens and other insurgent groups under Osama bin Laden control. The Reagan administration also supplied funds and weapons to heavily militarily-influenced governments in El Salvador and Honduras, and to a lesser extent in Guatemala. In 1982 the CIA, with assistance from the Argentine national intelligence agency, organized and financed right-wing paramilitaries in Nicaragua, known as the Contras. In 1985 Reagan authorized the sale of arms in Iran in an unsuccessful effort to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon. In Afghanistan, Reagan massively stepped up military and humanitarian aid for mujahadeen fighters against the Soviet proxy government there
U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan also provided the rebels with significant assistance. Reagan also continued American support for the autocratic Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, an anti-Communist.
Clinton administration.
Clinton's terms in office will be remembered in some quarters for the nation's largely domestic focus during the period.
The years 1994-2000: technology driven "new economy," and relatively high increases in real output, low inflation rates, and a drop in unemployment to below 5%. Clinton raised taxes to their highest level in history. During the 1990’s the nat. debt doubled. A 2 % reduction of nat. debt was achieved in 2000 due to the “borrowing” of a trillion dollars from The Social Security Trust Fund. The 90’s –“dot-com” industries. 1994 the Internet project was opened. Localized conflicts such as those in Haiti and the Balkans prompted President Clinton to send in U.S. troops as peacekeepers.
Although the economy was strong in the mid-1990s, two phenomena were troubling many Americans. Corporations were resorting more and more to a process known as downsizing: trimming the work force to cut costs despite the hardships this inflicted on workers. And in many industries the gap b\n the annual compensations of corporate executives and common laborers became enormous. Even the majority of Americans who enjoy material comfort worry about a perceived decline in the quality of life, in the strength of the family, in neighborliness and civility.