Another innovation hit the streets in 1974, the microprocessor. This tiny, well . . . not so tiny at first . . . innovation allowed computers to be made a lot smaller—and cheaper. As the microprocessor improved, it helped telecommunications satellites, cellular telephones, cars, plus a lot more, to operate better. This was THE invention that put tabletop computing on the world scene. The invention of the microprocessor will probably rank with the printing press as one of the most important inventions in world history.
Carter: Incompetent Cold Warrior
1976 to 1980
Worldwide, the Western Democracies began losing the Cold War after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. The United States was no longer viewed as an impeccable partner, and Soviet influence grew in Europe, Africa, and South America while Chinese influence expanded in Southeast Asia. Gerald Ford lost the next presidential election to Jimmy Carter in 1976, in part because he opposed a massive loan to New York when it was in financial difficulty. Mr. Carter was the former governor of Georgia, and before that he grew peanuts.
As Carter took office, the communists stepped up their march to world power and increasing the isolation of the United States. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, turning the nation into a Soviet satellite. The Carter administration responded by canceling the US participation in the Moscow Olympics. To hardnosed Soviet and Chinese leaders this proved the United States was powerless against communist expansion. In Iran, radical fundamentalist Muslims overthrew the Shah and replaced him with a radical Muslim religious leader pulled home from exile. The Muslim radicals then seized the US Embassy, taking sixty-six Americans hostages and holding them until the end of Carter’s term (444 days). This was additional proof the United States could be intimidated by bold actions.
During the Carter administration the US Congress, under the leadership of the Church Committee, discovered the CIA was spying on US citizens, and the committee discovered the intelligence agency paid off “immoral people” in its espionage operations. Congress banned the CIA from spying in the United States, employing “unsavory people” for intelligence operations, and prohibited the FBI and CIA from sharing information. These moves, among others by Carter and the US Congress, destroyed the intelligence-gathering capability the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies possessed. These unrealistic laws stopped coordination in tracking foreign spies and terrorists. The Church Committee knew the problems this legislation would create, but Church and his colleagues chose to ignore pleas from the security agencies. The Church Committee truly eviscerated the ability of the US to gather intelligence in the Cold War, and this would continue during the War on Terror. As ragged as US intelligence was before, it shrank in value after Congress “reformed” the security agencies.
The communists made inroads in Africa and Latin America throughout the Carter years. The US lost control of the Panama Canal when the tiny nation of Panama seized the Canal Zone, Cuba sent troops to Africa and Latin America to fight for communism, Nicaragua went Communist, Iran went to the terrorists, Russia was threatening Iran and Turkey, and the United States was doing little to turn the tide. OPEC[345] doubled the price of oil in retaliation for President Carter freezing Iranian assets in the United States. The world over the United States was viewed with disdain as more nations fell into communism’s sphere of influence.
The economy under Carter continued to stagger. Inflation accelerated along with government spending, meanwhile, the economy continued stagnating. With no economic growth and worsening world conditions, the future looked bleak. Some commentators were opining that the days of growth and prosperity were behind the Western world. The Western world’s economies had wandered in the doldrums for years. Since the Lyndon Johnson era, it seemed nothing had gone right economically. The European Union was coming together, and it was clear the economic union would benefit Western Europe; nevertheless, that benefit seemed a long way off. Nixon’s regulations failed to right the US economic ship, and even though these regulations were gone the economy meandered downward. The West, it seemed, was out of options. The Carter administration appeared unable to meet the challenge.
A nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, and the following media frenzy, destroyed the nuclear electric industry in the United States. France and other nations continued to build nuclear reactors for energy, but the United States would halt this construction, effectively removing this source of power as an alternative to oil or natural gas. The fuel crisis rippled through the United States and other Western economies, further crippling the already fragile system of economic interchange. Congress and several states passed bills protecting the environment that made building anything much more expensive and time consuming. Oil refineries, for example, were simply not constructed after the passage of the restrictive environmental measures (even in 2010, no oil refineries have been constructed in the US since the 1970’s). The price of everything was increasing while wages were flat which, in essence, shrank the economic power of the common person.
Reagan: Ultimate Cold Warrior
1980 to 1988
Figure 75
President Ronald Reagan
(We win, they lose!)
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States. His first thought was to strengthen the US economy. Reagan cut taxes and decreased government regulation over many aspects of the economy. This was the magic bullet that no one else thought would work. Reagan decided the government was the problem with the US economy; thus, as he removed government restrictions and lowered taxes, the economy responded and began to grow rapidly. Inflation was tamed, wages began to increase as the economy expanded, and even tax revenues increased as the economy grew. Reagan proved the commentators wrong when they said the best days were behind the United States and the West. Reagan proved the best days were still ahead as long as the government gave the people the room to invent and the money (power) to do so. The US economy recovered from years of stagflation (a combination of inflation and stagnated growth) and began a more than decade’s long expansion. Many future politicians would reap the benefits of Reagan’s low tax and low regulation policies—without mentioning him of course.
Reagan armed the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan (actually Muslim fundamentalists) and tried to arm Latin American guerrillas to fight communism. The efforts in Afghanistan tied down thousands of Soviet troops and allowed the United States to hurt the Soviets as they had hurt the United States in Vietnam. None of this was essential because everything was a sideshow compared to what Reagan was really planning, an all-out assault on the Soviet system itself.
After taking office Reagan told his staff he had a new idea for dealing with communism: “We win, they lose,” he said. This was a complete reversal of thirty-five years of US policy aimed at coexistence with the Soviets. Reagan wanted to destroy them, not live with them. To that end, he put his staff to work looking at what was weak in the Soviet system. The key flaw soon surfaced, their economy was on thin ice. To hurt the USSR’s economy, Reagan began an arms race where American technology would outperform the Soviets and cause them to spend millions they could not afford in order to keep up. The plan worked. The Soviets were paranoid about keeping up with the United States in arms and arms production. As their spending for military and technological hardware increased it collapsed their economy. The Soviet Union began to do things no one ever thought they would witness. They allowed the reunification of Germany; Poland’s independence; left Afghanistan, and they released their hold over Eastern Europe. By 1989 it was over, and ecstatic Germans, uniting their country after years of separation, tore down the Berlin Wall.
Eastern Europe was free, and many non-Russian areas of the Soviet Union declared independence. Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and others fled the Soviet empire. The speed with which these formally subjugated regions left the Soviet Union was amazing. In spite of the fact the Russians controlled them for many decades, the moment a chance for freedom appeared th
ey took it. The Communist Party no longer controlled Russia. This victory came suddenly and could hardly be fathomed until it was complete. Reagan left office in 1988 after two successful terms as president. He was a visionary who convinced the people of the United States to continue looking forward for the best days, because optimism was the tonic for the future.
George Bush number 41(or Bush the “elder”) was president of the United States when the Soviet Union collapsed, but the policies of Ronald Reagan won the Cold War for the Western Democracies. George Bush the elder worked his magic by helping the Soviets withdraw without bloodshed, which was common for such realignments in the past. Reagan viewed the Soviet Union as evil. Being evil, Reagan thought it could not last; therefore, if he concentrated on its weaknesses the USSR would fold. He was right, and he victoriously ended one of the longest, costliest, and most dangerous confrontations to threaten the world. President Ronald Reagan did what Hitler and Stalin could not, defeat Russia and cause the collapse of its empire. The cost of this Cold War contest cannot be calculated. Some estimates say the United States alone spent 8 trillion dollars and sacrificed at least 100,000 US lives during the conflict.
As the US economy recovered under Reagan, the world economy began to pick up as well. In England, Margaret Thatcher managed to turn the tide against socialism for a while, and the British economy picked up after a period of rather tough government policies emphasizing growth rather than taxation and socialism. England was toying with the idea of becoming part of Europe, and the Chunnel (a tunnel between France and England) planning began. It would open in 1994.
By 1989, computers were being tied together forming the World Wide Web. This network grew to dominate the news and information sectors of the world. The Internet challenged governments’ abilities to control the content and reach of this new communication method. Wireless telephones were also on the horizon, and the mobile phone would become as ubiquitous as leaves on the trees. The modern world soon filled with chitchat invisibly flowing over the airwaves.
The European Economic Community (EC) formed its common market in 1993, thereby expanding its trade and economic potential. The Euro, the EC’s currency, was introduced in 1999, and by 2008 it grew to be worth almost twice the US dollar. It appears the economic power of the EC will grow to become a dominant force in the Western world. In 1995, the World Trade Organization was created with the idea of facilitating international free trade. This too became a formidable part of the world economy forming in the twenty-first century. As Asia (Japan, Korea, and China) increases in economic power along with the European common market, it is apparent a new world economic order is forming. The impact of the World Wide Web, instant communications, the World Trade Organization, the computerization of the world, communication satellites, spy satellites, and so many other world-changing technologies, coupled with the growth of markets, will influence the twenty-first century massively. Accelerating change is now the most apparent product of the new century. What must be acknowledged is that the pace of change is becoming incredibly quick. Also, we must also acknowledge a large part of the world is not changing. Africa and the Middle East are still in the 18th Century except for their plethora of full automatic weapons. Islam still embraces a medieval mind-set, rejecting the changes the world is undergoing, and wanting to raze what the West identifies as progress. As the West and parts of Asia hasten away from the stagnate regions of the world, turmoil is predictable; but how much? Will the moribund areas of the earth be willing to destroy the dynamic peoples of the globe with atomic weapons, biologic terror weapons, or other armaments of mass murder?
A new economic world order will most probably lead to a political world order challenging the individualism of the West. The United Nations is already showing how the non-Western world rejects the Western ideology of individual freedom and individual empowerment. The Western Democracies are isolated in the United Nations by the tribal and totalitarian societies that dominate the rest of humankind. As technology and economic interdependence increase in importance, will the world be able to incorporate its widely divergent views on how people should live? Such wide differences have led to conflict in the past, and if history is our teacher, it is warning we must be vigilant of these differences leading to momentous disarray in the future.
Books and Resources:
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America’s Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World by Derek Leebaert, probably the best book on the subject of the Cold War and its impacts.
Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA by Tim Weiner, probably the best book on the failures of the American intelligence services and its costs.
At the Abyss, An Insider’s History of the Cold War, Thomas C. Reed, Ballantine Books, 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War: excellent article and good overview of the Cold War.
Chapter 17
The Korean War
Figure 76 Map of Korean War
1950-1953
Background to Invasion
The Korean War is one of those almost-forgotten conflicts speckling the history of our planet. However, we need to remember Korea because it set the stage for the remainder of the twentieth century and established several foundational rules for the Cold War. America answered a direct challenge from the communist nations of China and the USSR while choosing to restrain the use of its available power. The Cold War had already started, tensions were soaring, and the stakes in Korea were high. The response of the United States of America, its allies, and the United Nations to this blunt challenge altered the course of history.
Before the invasion of South Korea, there were no negotiations, no demands, and no pre-war chest pounding—just pure aggression by way of an unannounced invasion. The United States could have ignored the plight of the small nation, but that would be an open invitation to more Hitler-like conquests. The experience of WWII filtered every decision of the Allies in the Korean conflict.
On June 25, 1950, the communist army of North Korea crossed the thirty-eighth parallel into South Korea beginning its bid to conquer the south. Stalin and Mao endorsed this move.[346] Stalin (leader of the USSR) and Mao (leader of Red China), both brutal murdering dictators, decided to push Western ideas and control off mainland Asia. The communist leader Ho Chi Minh would push the French out of Vietnam and then extend the assault to the rest of Indochina[347] thereby driving all Western control off the Asian mainland. In Korea, Soviet-trained troops and massive amounts of Soviet equipment would drive the South Korean army into the sea uniting Korea under communism. Both communist leaders thought America would not interfere in the puny peninsula’s fall. Statements by the American Secretary of State Dean Acheson in 1950 may have led the communist to this conclusion about Korea.[348] Even if America wanted to defend, the assault would overrun the peninsula in thirty days, before the United States could respond. The communist dictators further calculated that America would not use the atomic bomb because of moral impediments. No such moral impediments existed in the communist dictatorships.
The Red Empires Strike!
June 25, 1950
The attack on South Korea on June 25, 1950, was an unqualified surprise to American intelligence which had received but ignored information from Taiwan. Some additional clues about a massive buildup of arms and men reached MacArthur’s US Army staff, but it was thought to be unreliable. General MacArthur, who was running postwar Japan, did not even have his staff tell the South Koreans; thus, the Soviet buildup of North Korean forces went unnoticed. This kind of surprise would happen repeatedly over the years. The American intelligence services were nearly useless outside of aerial and satellite observation or electronic eavesdropping. Total defeats were imposed on the United States in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence decade after decade. For example, one man working for the US Navy in an extremely sensitive position was a Soviet spy, and he remained so for decades before his discovery. The amount of secret information delivered to the Soviets was beyond calculation,
and it cost the lives of several Russians who were working with American intelligence. This disaster continues into 2010 and is a most important problem for the survival of America. Korea was a deep-seated failure for American intelligence organizations, and it should have been a wake-up call for improvement. Somehow, it was not.[349]
Communist success during the first days of the North Korean attack was so complete it appeared they would conquer the rocky peninsula in mere weeks. Truman moved at once and without a declaration of war from Congress to help the South Koreans. Untried American garrison units from Japan arrived to help stop the communist advance. Task Force Smith, one of the garrison units encountering the daunting communist attack, was shattered on first contact. Both American Army and South Korean infantry units were overwhelmed by North Korean human wave assaults supported by Russian T-34/84 style tanks that shrugged off American antitank weapons. Massive barrages from Soviet-supplied artillery swept the battlefield as the North Koreans tore through Allied defense lines scattering the defenders to the four winds.
Exhausted and battered, South Korean and Allied forces were brushed back to their last stronghold at the port city of Pusan. Within the tight perimeter, South Korean and American forces rallied to withstand communist attacks. Amid the rain of artillery, thunder of tanks, and crashing waves of screaming communist troops ripping at the defenders of Pusan, there was hope. From the sea came US Navy aircraft smearing the attackers with napalm. Tons of exploding steel flung from the guns of US warships cleaved enemy attacks, and reinforcements moved in to stitch tears in the Allied line. Japan’s airfields disgorged a mass of US Air Force bombers regurgitating death upon the brazen enemy. Far to the north, behind the Pusan perimeter, roads and bridges melted away under US bombardment, multiplying North Korean supply problems. The Soviet trained and supplied troops were not prepared for a US aerial armada projecting carnage and devastation deep behind their lines. Massive numbers of troops need massive amounts of supplies, and as the supplies dwindled so did the combat power of North Korea’s army (logistics . . . again). The Soviet preparation of their partners failed to include the impact of naval gunfire which dismayed and splintered the communist troops. North Korea’s leaders began to ponder the possible consequences of failure in the South.
The Super Summary of World History Page 55