American history

Cold War (1945–1991)

Following the WWII, the United States emerged as a global superpower vis-a-vis the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In this period of some forty years, the United States provided foreign military aid and direct involvement in proxy wars against the Soviet Union. It was the principal foreign actor in the Korean War and Vietnam War during this era. Nuclear weapons were held in ready by the United States under a concept of mutually assured destruction with the Soviet Union.

1. Postwar Military Reorganization (1947)

The National Security Act of 1947, meeting the need for a military reorganization to complement the U.S. superpower role, combined and replaced the former Department of the Navy and War Department with a single cabinet-level Department of Defense. The act also created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Air Force.

2. Korean War

The Korean War was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. It was also a Cold War proxy war between the United States and its United Nations allies and the communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union (also a UN member nation).

The principal combatants were North and South Korea. Principal allies of South Korea included the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, although many other nations sent troops under the aegis of the United Nations.

Allies of North Korea included the People's Republic of China, which supplied military forces, and the Soviet Union, which supplied combat advisors and aircraft pilots, as well as arms, for the Chinese and North Korean troops. In the United States, the conflict was termed a police action under the aegis of the United Nations rather than a war, largely in order to remove the necessity of a Congressional declaration of war.

The war started badly for the US and UN. North Korean forces struck quickly in the summer of 1950 and nearly drove the outnumbered defenders into the sea, but US forces held a perimeter around Pusan, allowing reinforcements to arrive.

US commander Douglas MacArthur, in a bold but risky move, ordered an amphibious invasion at Inchon, cutting off and routing the North Koreans and quickly moving into North Korea. MacArthur disobeyed orders to halt his forces, however, and as allied forces continued to advance, the Chinese Army poured across the border and sent allied forces reeling back towards the south.

MacArthur was later relieved of his command by Truman for his actions, and the conflict appeared likely to spark another world war, but cooler heads prevailed and negotiations eventually resulted in a stalemate and armistice in 1953, with the two Koreas being divided at the 38th Parallel. North and South Korea are still today in a state of war, having never signed a peace treaty, and US forces remain stationed in South Korea, as North Korea remains a thorn in the side of US foreign policy.

3. Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (also known in Cuba as Playa Girón after the beach in the Bay of Pigs where the landing took place) was a United States-planned and funded landing by armed Cuban exiles in southwest Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in 1961.

US-Cuban tensions had grown since Castro had overthrown the US-backed regime of General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations had made the judgment that Castro's shift toward the Soviet Union could not be tolerated, and moved to overthrow him.

However, the invasion failed miserably and proved to be a major international embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. The resulting fiasco of the invasion attempt has been studied as an ideal case of 'groupthink' and poor decision making.

4. Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a war fought between 1957 and 1975 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."

Fighting on one side was a coalition of forces including the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam or the "RVN"), the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Participation by the South Korean military was financed by the United States, but Australia and New Zealand fully funded their own involvement.

Other countries normally allied with the United States in the Cold War, including the United Kingdom and Canada, refused to participate in the coalition, although a few of their citizens volunteered to join the U.S. forces. The US and its allies fought against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) as well as the National Liberation Front (NLF, also known as Viet Cong), a guerilla force within South Vietnam. The NVA received substantial military and economic aid from the Soviet Union, turning Vietnam into a proxy war.

The US framed the war as part of its policy of containment of Communism in south Asia, but American forces were frustrated by an inability to engage the enemy in decisive battles, corruption and incompetence in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and ever increasing protests at home.

The Tet Offensive in 1968, although a major military defeat for the NLF, marked the psychological turning point in the war. NLF forces appeared to be everywhere at once, even overrunning the US embassy in Saigon, supposedly one of the most secure places in the country, and news anchor Walter Cronkite, in a famous broadcast from the battlefield, pronounced the war "unwinnable."

After more than 57,000 dead and many more wounded, US forces withdrew in 1973 with no clear victory, and in 1975 South Vietnam was finally conquered by North Vietnam and unified. The chaotic evacuation of the US embassy in April 1975, as NVA forces closed in on the city, made for enduring images of desperate souls clinging to helicopter skids, trying to escape Communist rule.

Even today, Vietnam is a politically divisive subject. Some view Vietnam as a noble, if flawed, cause; "the only war that America lost" is a phrase occasionally used. Others see the conflict as a quagmire; a waste of American blood and treasure in a conflict that did not concern US interests. Military service during Vietnam is still an issue in US presidential campaigns, more than 30 years after US troops left the country, and fears of another "quagmire" have been major factors in US military planning since 1975.

5. Tehran hostage rescue

Following the Iranian revolution and the resulting Iran hostage crisis a military operation named Eagle Claw attempted to rescue the hostages using a combination of special forces and helicopter evacuation, but the rescue failed with the destruction of several aircraft in an accident in the Iranian desert. The failure was attributed to inappropriate equipment, incomplete and unrealistic planning, and the lack of joint service training. Despite its size, the mission had significant effects on U.S. military doctrine and training.

6. Grenada

In October, 1983, alarmed by a violent power struggle in Grenada within a leftist junta sympathetic to Cuba, the U.S. dispatched hundreds of paratroopers, Marines, Rangers, and special operations forces to the island in Operation Urgent Fury. Ostensibly a mission to rescue U.S. citizens, mainly medical masters, the invasion force quickly moved to seize the entire island, eventually taking hundreds of military and civilian prisoners from a variety of East Bloc nations.

7. Beirut

In 1983 fighting between Palestinian refugees and Lebanese factions reignited that nation's long-running civil war. A UN agreement brought an international force of peacekeepers to occupy Beirut and guarantee security. The U.S. stationed marines in an urban compound including a multi-story dormitory, once a hotel; a terrorist bombing destroyed the building, killing 241 Marines. Subsequently the U.S. Navy engaged in bombing of militia positions inside Lebanon proper.

8. Panama

Operation Just Cause was a 1989 invasion of Panama, mainly from U.S. bases within the former Canal Zone, to oust dictator Manuel Noriega, whose government was becoming a narco-state. The U.S. did not wish to turn over control to Noriega of the Panama Canal, which it was obligated to do under treaty, due to the canal's strategic importance.