An Introduction to the Cold War in Europe

The Cold War was a twentieth-century conflict between the United States of America (U.S.), the Soviet Union (USSR), and their respective allies over political, economic, and military issues, often described as a struggle between capitalism and communism—but the issues were actually far grayer than that. In Europe, this meant the U.S.-led West and NATO on one side and Soviet-led East and the Warsaw Pact on the other. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Why Cold War? The war was cold because there was never a direct military engagement between the two leaders, the U.S. and the USSR, although shots were exchanged in the air during the Korean War. There were plenty of proxy wars around the world as states supported by either side fought, but in terms of the two leaders, and in terms of Europe, the two never fought a regular war. Origins of the Cold War in Europe The aftermath of World War II left the United States and Russia as the dominant military powers in the world, but they had very different forms of government and economy—the former a capitalist democracy, the latter a communist dictatorship. The two nations were rivals that feared each other, each ideologically opposed. The war also left Russia in control of large areas of Eastern Europe, and the U.S.-led Allies in control of the West. While the Allies restored democracy in their regions, Russia began making Soviet satellites out of its liberated lands; the split between the two was dubbed the Iron Curtain. In reality, there had been no liberation, just a new conquest by the USSR. The West feared a communist invasion, physical and ideological, that would turn them into communist states with a Stalin-style leader—the worst possible option—and for many, it caused fear over the likelihood of mainstream socialism, too. The U.S. countered with the Truman Doctrine, with its policy of containment to stop communism spreading—it also turned the world into a giant map of allies and enemies, with the U.S. pledging to prevent the communists from extending their power, a process that led to the West supporting some terrible regimes. The U.S. also offered the Marshall Plan, massive aid package aimed at supporting collapsing economies that were letting communist sympathizers gain power. Military alliances were formed as the West grouped together as NATO, and the East banded together as the Warsaw Pact. By 1951, Europe was divided into two power blocs, American-led and Soviet-led, each with atomic weapons. A cold war followed, spreading globally and leadi ng to a nuclear standoff. The Berlin Blockade The first time the former allies acted as certain enemies was the Berlin Blockade. Postwar Germany was divided into four parts and occupied by the former Allies; Berlin, situated in the Soviet zone, was also divided. In June 1948, Stalin enforced a blockade of Berlin aimed at bluffing the Allies into renegotiating the division of Germany in his favor rather than invading. Supplies could not get through to a city, which relied on them, and the winter was a serious problem. The Allies responded with neither of the options Stalin thought he was giving them, but started the Berlin Airlift: for 11 months, supplies were flown into Berlin via Allied aircraft, bluffing that Stalin wouldn’t shoot them down and cause a hot war. He didn’t. The blockade was ended in May 1949 when Stalin gave up. Budapest Rising Stalin died in 1953, and hopes of a thaw were raised when new leader Nikita Khrushchev began a process of de-Stalinization. In May 1955, as well as forming the Warsaw Pact, Khrushchev signed an agreement with the Allies to leave Austria and make it neutral. The thaw only lasted until the Budapest Rising in 1956: the communist government of Hungary, faced with internal calls for reform, collapsed and an uprising forced troops to leave Budapest. The Russian response was to have the Red Army occupy the city and put a new government in charge. The West was highly critical but, partly distracted by the Suez Crisis, did nothing to help except get frostier toward the Soviets. The Berlin Crisis and the U-2 Incident Fearing a reborn West Germany allied with  the U.S., Khrushchev offered concessions in return for a united, neutral Germany in 1958. A Paris summit for talks was derailed when Russia shot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane flying over its territory. Khrushchev pulled out of the summit and disarmament talks. The incident was a useful out for Khrushchev, who was under pressure from hardliners within Russia for giving away too much. Under pressure from the East German leader to stop refugees fleeing to the West, and with no progress on making Germany neutral, the Berlin Wall was built, a concrete barrier between East and West Berlin. It became the physical representation of the Cold War. Cold War in Europe in the 60s and 70s Despite the tensions and fear of nuclear war, the Cold War division between East and West proved surprisingly stable after 1961, despite French anti-Americanism and Russia crushing the Prague Spring. There was instead conflict on the global stage, with the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. For much of the  60s and 70s, a program of dà ©tente was followed: a long series of talks that made some success in stabilizing the war and equalizing arms numbers. Germany negotiated with the East under a policy of Ostpolitik. The fear of mutually assured destruction helped prevent direct conflict—the belief that if you launched your missiles, you would be destroyed by your enemies, and therefore it was better not to fire at all than to destroy everything. The 80s and the New Cold War By the 1980s, Russia appeared to be winning, with a more productive economy, better missiles, and a growing navy, even though the system was corrupt and built on propaganda. America, once again fearing Russian domination, moved to rearm and build up forces, including placing many new missiles in Europe (not without local opposition). U.S. President Ronald Reagan increased defense spending vastly, starting the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to defend against nuclear attacks, an end to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). At the same time, Russian forces entered Afghanistan, a war they would ultimately lose. End of the Cold War in Europe Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and his successor Yuri Andropov, realizing change was needed in a crumbling Russia and its strained satellites, which he felt was losing a renewed arms race, promoted several reformers. One, Mikhail Gorbachev, rose to power in 1985 with policies of Glasnost and Perestroika and decided to end the cold war and give away the satellite empire to save Russia itself. After agreeing with the U.S. to reduce nuclear weapons, in 1988 Gorbachev addressed the U.N., explaining the end of the Cold War by renouncing the Brezhnev Doctrine, allowing political choice in the previously dictated-to satellite states of Eastern Europe, and pulling Russia out of the arms race. The speed of Gorbachev’s actions unsettled the West, and there were fears of violence, especially in East Germany where the leaders talked of their own Tiananmen Square-type uprising. However, Poland negotiated free elections, Hungary opened its borders, and East German leader Erich Honecker resigned when it became apparent the Soviets would not support him. The East German leadership withered away and the Berlin Wall fell ten days later. Romania overthrew its dictator and the Soviet satellites emerged from behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union itself was the next to fall. In 1991, communist hardliners attempted a coup against Gorbachev; they were defeated, and Boris Yeltsin became leader. He dissolved the USSR, instead creating the Russian Federation. The communist era, begun in 1917, was now over, and so was the Cold War. Conclusion Some books, although stressing the nuclear confrontation that came perilously close to destroying vast areas of the world, point out that this nuclear threat was most closely triggered in areas outside Europe, and that the continent, in fact, enjoyed 50 years of peace and stability, which were sorely lacking in the first half of the twentieth century. This view is probably best balanced by the fact that much of Eastern Europe was, in effect, subjugated for the whole period by Soviet Russia. The D-Day  landings, while often overstated in their importance to the downhill of Nazi Germany, were in many ways the key battle of the Cold War in Europe, enabling Allied forces to liberate much of Western Europe before Soviet forces got there instead. The conflict has often been described as a substitute for a final post–Second World War peace settlement that never came, and the Cold War deeply permeated life in the East and West, affecting culture and society as well as politics and the military. The Cold War has also often been described as a contest between democracy and communism while, in reality, the situation was more complicated, with the democratic side, led by the U.S., supporting some distinctly nondemocratic, brutally authoritarian regimes in order to keep countries from coming under the Soviet sphere of influence. Sources and Further Reading Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956. New York: Anchor Books, 2012.Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. Khrushchevs Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. the Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. New York: Simon Schuster, 1986.

Strategic Assessment Of Risk Assessment Methodologies

Mostly all security methodologies call for some kind of objective assessment of risks. This is simply so because, security controls selections are centered on the known risks there are to an organization s assets and operations. There is also an alternative, which would consist of randomly selecting security controls without using any type of methodical threat or control analysis. If the alternative method is used to implement the security controls, there will be issues such as: having security controls implemented in the wrong places, and the organization will be left vulnerable to unanticipated threats and resources will be wasted. Risk assessment methodologies establishes rules for what is to be assessed and establishes who will need to be involved. Risk assessment methodologies also establishes the terminology that will be used when discussing the risk, establishes the degree of risk when quantifying, qualifying, and comparing risk, and they also help to establish what documentation must be collected as a result of the assessments. The two most popular risk assessment methodologies that are used today are: OCTAVE (Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation) which was developed at Carnegie Mellon University, and the NIST risk assessment methodology that is documented in NIST Special Publication 800-30. The OCTAVE methodology is a method that is used when assessing an organization s information security needs. The most recently developed andShow MoreRelatedProtecting The Nation s Security Essay1203 Words   |  5 PagesSecurity is about effectively managing risks to the Nation’s security (DHS, 2010). 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Criminology and Terrorism Free Essays

J. Paul BatraProfessor Barnes Research Paper Final due 4/19/10 April 1, 2010 Terrorism Introduction Terrorism is defined loosely based on the Latin word Terre, which means to frighten. To be considered an act of terrorism, which is a political crime, an act must carry with it the intent to disrupt and the change the government and should not be merely a common-law crime committed for greed or egotism. We will write a custom essay sample on Criminology and Terrorism or any similar topic only for you Order Now The discipline of economics has many concepts that are relevant to an understanding of terrorism — supply and demand — costs and benefits, etc. Fully-developed economic or econometric models of terrorism are quite rare, however, and often involve such things as â€Å"psychic† costs and benefits (Nyatepe-Coo 2004). More down-to-earth economic theories can be found in the literature on deterrence. Rational choice theory, in particular, has found a place in criminology, and holds that people will engage in crime after weighing the costs and benefits of their actions to arrive at a rational choice about motivation after perceiving that the chances of gain outweigh any possible punishment or loss. The second theory that can explain the motivation behind terrorism is the relative deprivation hypothesis which is the idea that as a person goes about choosing their values and interests, they compare what they have and don’t have, as well as what they want or don’t want, with real or imaginary others. The person then usually perceives a discrepancy between what is possible for them and what is possible for others, and reacts to it with anger or an inflamed sense of injustice. We should be advised that debates exist within criminology regarding relative deprivation and terrorism, on the one hand, with the anomie or strain tradition which finds causal influence in such objectivist factors as Gross Domestic Product, and on the other hand, with the left realist tradition which finds causal influence in subjective experiences of deprivation or discomfort Crime Characteristics of Terrorism: Terrorism is not new, and even though it has been used since the beginning of recorded history it can be relatively hard to define. Terrorism has been described variously as both a tactic and strategy; a crime and a holy duty; a justified reaction to oppression and an inexcusable abomination. Obviously, a lot depends on whose point of view is being represented. Terrorism has often been an effective tactic for the weaker side in a conflict. As an asymmetric form of conflict, it confers coercive power with many of the advantages of military force at a fraction of the cost. Due to the secretive nature and small size of terrorist organizations, they often offer opponents no clear organization to defend against or to deter. The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as â€Å"the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological. † Within this definition, there are three key elements—violence, fear, and intimidation—and each element produce terror in its victims. The FBI uses this: â€Å"Terrorism is the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. † The U. S. Department of State defines â€Å"terrorism† to be â€Å"premeditated politically-motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. (International Terrorism and Security Research). Technological terrorism is defined as actions directed against infrastructure elements critically important for national security or committed with the use of especially hazardous technologies, technical means, and materials. In considering technological terrorism scenarios, the primary impact factors of such terrorist acts initiate secondary catastrophic processes with a significantly higher (tens and hundreds of times) level of secondary impact factors that affect the targets of the ttack, their personnel, the public, and the environment. (Nikolai A. Makhutov, Vitaly P. Petrov, and Dmitry O. Reznikov, Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Machine Sciences )Although what we don’t know about the psychology of terrorism is more than what we do know, there have been several promising attempts to merge or combine psychology with sociology (and criminal justice) into what might be called terrorist profiling (Russell and Miller 1977; Bell 1982; Galvin 1983; Strentz 1988; Hudson 1999). This line of inquiry actually has a long history, and includes what rare studies exist of female terrorists. The earliest study (Russell and Miller 1977) found that the following people tend to join terrorist organizations: †¢ 22-25 years of age †¢ 80% male, with women in support roles †¢ 75-80% single †¢ 66% middle or upper class background †¢ 66% some college or graduate work †¢ 42% previous participation in working class advocacy groups †¢ 17% unemployed †¢ 18% strong religious beliefs IBLIOGRAPHY NOTE: Characteristics of Technological Terrorism Scenarios and Impact Factors* http://www. nap. edu/openbook. php? record_id=12490=53 The Economics theory of Rational Choice Theory as a theory of terrorism contends that these criminals usually come to believe their actions will be beneficial — to themselves, their community, or society — AND they must come to see that crime pays, or is at least a risk-free way to better their situatio n. Perhaps the most well-known version of this idea in criminology is routine activities theory (Cohen and Felson 1979), which postulates that three conditions must be present in order for a crime to occur: (1) suitable targets or victims who put themselves at risk; (2) the absence of capable guardians or police presence; and (3) motivated offenders or a pool of the unemployed and alienated. Other rational choice theories exist which delve further into models of decision making. In the few models of collective iolence that have found their way into criminology, the Olson hypothesis (source unknown) suggests that participants in revolutionary violence predicate their behavior on a rational cost-benefit calculus to pursue the best course of action given the social circumstances. Bibligraphy note: (THEORIES AND CAUSES OF TERRORISM) http://www. apsu. edu/oconnort/3400/3400lect02. htm) .   As far as we know, most terrorists feel that they are doing nothing wrong when they kill and injure p eople. They seem to share a feature of the psychological condition known as antisocial personality disorder or psychopathic personality disorder, which is reflected by an absence of empathy for the suffering of others. However, they do not appear unstable or mentally ill for this. A common feature is a type of thinking such as â€Å"I am good and right. You are bad and wrong. †Ã‚   It is a very polarized thinking which allows them to distance themselves from opponents and makes it easier for them to kill people. It is not the same kind of simplistic thinking one would expect from someone with low intelligence or moral development. Most terrorists are of above average intelligence and have sophisticated ethical and moral development. A closed-minded certainty is a common feature of terrorist thinking. (Merari 1990). Relative Deprivation occurs where individuals or groups subjectively perceive themselves as unfairly disadvantaged over others perceived as having similar attributes and deserving similar rewards (their reference groups). It is in contrast with absolute deprivation, where biological health is impaired or where relative levels of wealth are compared based on objective differences – although it is often confused with the latter. Subjective experiences of deprivation are essential and, indeed, relative deprivation is more likely when the differences between two groups narrows so that comparisons can be easily made than where there are caste-like differences. The discontent arising from relative deprivation has been used to explain radical politics (whether of the left or the right), messianic religions, the rise of social movements, industrial disputes and the whole plethora of crime and deviance. The usual distinction made is that religious fervour or demand for political change are a collective response to relative deprivation whereas crime is an individualistic response. But this is certainly not true of many crimes – for example, smuggling, poaching or terrorism – which have a collective nature and a communal base and does not even allow for gang delinquency which is clearly a collective response. The connection is, therefore, largely under-theorized – a reflection of the separate development of the concept within the seemingly discrete disciplines of sociology of religion, political sociology and criminology. The use of relative deprivation in criminology is often conflated with Merton’s anomie theory of crime and deviance and its development by Cloward and Ohlin, and there are discernible, although largely unexplored, parallels. Anomie theory involves a disparity between culturally induced aspirations (eg success in terms of the American Dream) and the opportunities to realise them. The parallel is clear: this is a subjective process wherein discontent is transmuted into crime. Furthermore, Merton in his classic 1938 article, ‘Social Structure and Anomie’, clearly understands the relative nature of discontent explicitly criticising theories which link absolute deprivation to crime by pointing to poor countries with low crime rates in contrast to the wealthy United States with a comparatively high rate. But there are clear differences, in particular Mertonian anomie involves an inability to realise culturally induced notions of success. It does not involve comparisons between groups but individuals measuring themselves against a general goal. The fact that Merton, the major theorist of reference groups, did not fuse this with his theory of anomie is, as Runciman notes, very strange but probably reflects the particular American concern with ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and the individualism of that culture. The empirical implications of this difference in emphasis are, however, significant: anomie theory would naturally predict the vast majority of crime to occur at the bottom of society amongst the ‘losers’ but relative deprivation theory does not necessarily have this overwhelming class focus. For discontent can be felt anywhere in the class structure where people perceive their rewards as unfair compared to those with similar attributes. Thus crime would be more widespread although it would be conceded that discontent would be greatest amongst the socially excluded. The future integration of anomie and relative deprivation theory offers great promise in that relative deprivation offers a much more widespread notion of discontent and its emphasis on subjectivity insures against the tendency within anomie theory of merely measuring objective differences in equality (so called ‘strain’ theory) whereas anomie theory, on its part, offers a wider structural perspective in terms of the crucial role of differential opportunity structures and firmly locates the dynamic of deprivation within capitalist society as a whole. To be completed: Application: Conclusion: Bibliography How to cite Criminology and Terrorism, Papers