Saint Paul Model United Nations 2014 - Home



134302534353500“THE COLD WAR”?BACKGROUND?Prior to the Second World War (WWII), European countries ruled the world’s economy. They had the latest advancements in mass production, which gave them an economic advantage, and influenced several third world countries around the globe, which gave them a political superiority. These countries set the economic and political standards that other nations had to follow in order to be included in the world market. Some of these superpowers were United Kingdom, France and Germany. The United States (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), because they were starting to react to the world’s new trends (second industrial revolution and new political systems) were nations that were in progress of becoming economically prosperous, but were outweighed by the superpower’s experience.During the Second World War Germany, joined with Italy and Japan, set a political plan characterized by a radical authoritarian nationalism known as fascism. These three countries known as “The Axis” pretended to take control over Europe with their advanced military equipment and effective expansionist strategist. In the process of mentioned expansion, The Axis got to control the majority of Europe and Pacific Asia (countries in the Pacific Ocean near Asia).?The USA and the USSR, since they were not directly attacked in the first term of the war,?had the chance to build up powerful army and military equipment; especially the USA with the nuclear bomb advancements, a new type of weapon never before tested on a war and with a power and expansion like no other. As a result of this situation, they could intervene in the last quarter of the war, when all the other nations were structurally destroyed and their military power had already diminished. Finally, these two nations swept the Axis army out of Europe. They sectioned Germany into for states, each one controlled by USA, UK, France and USSR. Japan, after the two nuclear bombs detonated, was left with over 300 thousand civilian dead and with two of their mayor cities converted to ashes.It is important to recall that although USA and USSR had been fighting the war as allies, there were many things which separated them:? Political System - the USA was the representative of capitalism to the whole world; its ideology was based on individual rights and for the government to intervene in the minimum on social and economic aspects of the population. On the other had, USSR represented communism to the world, they believed in social rights and for the elimination of private property and money. Since everything belonged to the government, there were no individual possessions. ? Economic System - the USA had a market based economical system which basically means that the industry is owned by private individuals who can make and keep their profit independently. The Soviet Union had a socialist economic system. All industry and land was owned by the government and the wealth generated distributed to the population.? Social System - the USA believed in freedom of speech (for example, allowing criticism of the government), freedom of personal belief and freedom of the press. Citizens exercised these rights under the constitution which limited the powers of the state. The Soviet Union did not guarantee these rights to its citizens, it subordinated these rights to the "greater interest" of the state. This led to censorship of those things considered "undesirable" and potentially "dangerous" to the government. The government controlled the media.? Election Process - the USA believed in free, multi-party elections which allowed all types of parties no matter how far right or left they were, to be represented and allowed to be voted for in elections. The party which won the majority of votes by the population would get into power. The Soviet Union held elections but allowed only one political party - the Communist Party - effectively preventing citizens from choosing who would govern them. The Cold War started when the second world war ended. These new superpowers (USA and USSR) were faced with a vast amount of governments that were completely destroyed, and needed both economical and political support. These superpower nations knew that the more countries they influenced, the more powerful they would become. Many experts view it as a “modern day colonialism” where subordinate countries gave the ability for superior countries to expand their market and reach a wealthier state. Tension and conflict arose between these two nation when they fought for a specific area or country to influence. Even though they didn't have a direct confrontation, they did support economically and militarily other nations to fight against the opposing part. Some of these conflicts where:? The Korean War (1950-1953): was a war between North?and South Korea. A UN force led by the USA fought for the South, and China fought, also assisted by the USSR,?for the North. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of WWII?and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards. By the end of the conflict, South Korea developed a capitalist, market-based economy; and North Korea developed a communist system, with a government controlled economy.?? The Berlin Blockade (1948-1949): was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War.?During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of?Berlin under?allied control. Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to start supplying Berlin with food, fuel, and aid, thereby giving the Soviets practical control over the entire city. In response, the Western Allies organized the Berlin airlift?to carry supplies to the people in West Berlin.Another form of tension that was present during the cold war was the competitions and races they had to get the top technology and advancements on several fields. Due to this harsh competition, it was frequent to find spies between in USSR from USA or viceversa. The race expanded most predominantly to two fields:? The Space Race: The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race intended to launch artificial satellites to other plants near earth and human spaceflight in low earth orbit and to the Moon. The competition began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 launch of Sputnik 1. Almost a year after the Soviet Union put a human into orbit, astronaut John Glenn?became the first American to orbit the Earth, on February 20, 1962? The Nuclear Race: was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers. These superpower’s viewed their nuclear stockpile as a form of power and even though a fraction of the quantity of the amount of nuclear stockpile they had were enough to blow up the whole world, just to have more than the rival gave them a sense of superiority. By 1962 USSR had almost one third of the nuclear stockpile that USA had, but they intended to have almost twice as USA had.?THE PROTAGONIST ENTITIESThe Eastern Block:?This bloc was represented the USSR, China and the countries they influenced. It represent the coalition of nations that shared similar economic and political systems (communism and government controlled economy respectively). The eastern block included countries such as Poland, Lituania, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Finland and Romania. This bloc had also several satellite countries.?-2381259271000The COMECON, standing for the Council for Economic Assistance, was an organization?made to support all those socialist nations who were economically unstable. The purpose of the COMECON was for affiliated countries to depend on Russian and Chinese economic aid, thus, keeping them under the umbrella of Communism and expanding their power as far as possible. The majority of countries that were on the Eastern Bloc side were also affiliated to the COMECON, since they were devastated after WWII and needed desperately economic aid.The Warsaw Pact, formally known as Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance, was the USSR response to the creation of NATO. Its main objective is to complement the COMECON, by adding a defensive military force to the relations between socialist nations. It pretends to support militarily any socialist nation who is in problems, with the purpose of cutting the expansion of capitalist regimes over Eastern Europe.3343275952500The Western Block:The western bloc was represented by USA and the countries that were under his influence. It represented the group of nations that had a capitalist or market based economy, with democracy and individual rights as political and social principles.The NATO refers to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. An intergovernmental community that pretends collectively and mutually defend each other in case of an attack of an external party. Its original purpose was to creat a common organization that would help any of the involved countries in cad of a military external attack (mostly from the Eastern Bloc).The Truman Doctrine (1947) pledged support for "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures"; the pledge was targeted at communism and basically gave America a blank check to intervene in other nations’ affairs if it was ‘threatened’ by communism.The Marshall Plan was another attempt by the US to prevent the spread of communism to his influenced nations by becoming their primarily ‘caretaker’ and making them dependent on the US, thus making it necessary for these nations to parlay with the US’s ideology to continue receiving funding provided almost $13 billion (from 1948 to 1951) to help European countries, including Germany, Great Britain, and France, recover from the war.Finally, and most notably, NSC-68 (1950) focused the US’s foreign policy towards the containment of the USSR’s influence and the spread of communism. The policy of containment was championed by George F. Kennan, a war correspondent who was at some point stationed in the USSR, who recommended that the US be wary of the USSR’s pursuit of power through the spread of communism and that the US work to prevent this spread.NON ALIGNED MOVEMENT:The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states which are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The purpose of the organization is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, racism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics”.The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the UN’s members and contain 55% of the world population. Membership is particularly concentrated in countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World. Members have at times included the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Argentina, Namibia, Cyprus,and MaltaCuban RevolutionThe Cuban Revolution was a civil war that took place in Cuba between December 2, 1956, and January 2, 1959. In this armed struggle, the guerrilla forces, led by Fidel Castro, fought against the government army, under Fulgencio Batista, a dictator who had got into power through a military coup in 1952.With an armed militia force of only 80 members, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul had sailed from México to Cuba, landing on Las Coloradas beach, on the south coast of the island, on December 2, 1956. In the first military engagement with the government forces they were defeated. The surviving members, however, penetrated the Cuban jungles of Sierra Maestra where they recruited more men, got more weapons, and better organized. Thanks to ideological propaganda and logistical supports they found in small Cuban towns, the 80-member militia force grew into an army of thousands.The civil war lasted three years, with battles taking place in the mountains and towns. Under the command of Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida Bosques, and Ernesto "che" Guevara, they carried out surprise attacks on government military outposts and communication centers. By mid 1958, Fidel and Raul Castro began a four-prong offensive as they headed from south to north, and then westward, towards the capital, La Habana. On December 30, 1958, Camilo Cienfuegos defeated an army unit composed of 300 men at the Battle of Yaguajay. The next day, on December 31, three guerrilla units defeated Fulgencio Batista’s army again at the Battle of Santa Clara. Having heard of this defeat, Fulgencio Batista left the island of Cuba and went into exile to the Dominican Republic. Castro’s revolutionary forces entered La Habana on January 2, 1959. Most of the Cuban people supported Castro’s revolution because he had promised them to bring back democracy and freedom to Cuba.Fidel Castro and UN first encounter.Fidel Castro was allowed to hold a speech in front of the General Assembly. He picked up the already forwarded accusations against the economic and therefore political pressure of the United States. He explained that “there is no political independence without economic independence” and thus emphasized the high level of aggression which was enacted against his country, under the false accusations of the USA that Cuba was a communist country.Cuba and the Bay of PigsWith diplomatic relations deteriorated with the US. US President Eisenhower approved a secret plan, “A Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime”, codified as JMARC, to overthrow the Castro regime. Essentially, the CIA trained Cuban exiles who invaded Cuba in 1961 but were stopped by Castro’s army?(This was by the time John F. Kennedy had assumed the presidency in the US). The plan failed miserably but succeeded in increasing tensions between Cuba and the US.Fidel Castro response to Bay of Pigs OperationsAfter the failed invasion, Cuba appealed to the political committee of the General Assembly in hope for measures that would guarantee the safety of the island. The Cuban Delegation pointed out that in spite of the US promises, Cuba was victim of an attack (Bay of Pigs) and furthermore there was evidence that the US increased their effort to topple the Cuban government. Cuba voiced its conviction that the US was planning to invade Cuba with regular forces.The US denied all connections to the invasion and countered the Cuban accusations with the argument that not the US, but rather the Cuban government was a threat to world peace, because it was involved in the efforts of revolutionary movements in Latin-America to topple elected governments. No definitive resolution passed in the General Assembly. The Russian Delegation, enraged by the new failure of the UN to secure the safety of the Cuban government, repeated its warning to the enemies of the Cuban People and reassured that Cuba wasn’t alone.right698500left1016000Final Fidel address to the General Assembly left7747000In the last debate of the Cuban problem before the outbreak of the crisis, the Cuban government changed its attitude. Cuba again denounced the terrorism of the US, the invasion in the Bay of Pigs, the economic pressure and the violation of Cuban airspace and asked the question “What should we answer? The only way to withstand the persistent aggressions of the US for Cuba is to arm itself, but the Cuban Delegate pointed out that it does so against its will and in the hope that one day it won't be necessary anymore.” He underlined that Cuba was always willing to negotiate with the US, but has always been treated with despise. He then continued to say: “We seriously hope that the Government of the United States does not abandon itself to any further mistakes. [...] But if they do, we point out to the UN here and now, with regret and against our own idea that Cuba is determined to fight. If these mistakes will be committed, then we warn, that any aggression against Cuba, despite our wish, what we explicitly notice, may possibly be the beginning of a new World War.”The Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC)It is October 1962. The US has found out that the USSR, led by Premier Nikita Khrushchev, is planning on working with the communist Castro regime, with whom the US’s relations have come essentially to an end, especially following the Bay of Pigs invasion. They pretend to place nuclear missiles on the Cuban island. This will bring the targeted US within range of USSR missiles. The US also recently placed missiles in Turkey. The USSR’s presence in Cuba poses a significant threat to the integrity and safety of the US. JFK is seeking the advice of his executive committee (Ex-Comm) to deal with the crisis at hand. If the USSR does not agree to stop importing its missiles to the island, JFK will consider imposing quarantine on the island.With all this information in your hands you are ready to begin your countries’ specific research. Some points you could take into consideration when researching and writing your position paper are:To what bloc was your country affiliated?What was its economic, social and political organization back in 1962?How has your country acted before 1962?What would your country propose as a viable solution?Is war unstoppable? *Note that some countries are looking forward to militarily engage against others. ................
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