Vietnam War Essay

World War I, Americans realized their mistake in participating in the war. The country did not wish to repeat the same mistake again. Therefore, during the 1920s and 1930s, America aims to pursue number of approaches intended at preventing war. The first significant players towards this effort were American peace societies, numerous societies belonging to this causes were a part of a bigger set of global movements. Their efforts saw to the signing of a significant agreement in 1922 between the great powers in order to minimize their quantities of battleships (Karsten, 2006, p. 36).

The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese prompted America's participation in WWII. Prior to this, America remained neutral, even with attacks from German torpedoes on USS Reuben (Beard, 1948, p. 148). Although neutral, America still took some offensive tactics when the Kearny incident involved an attack on an unmanned German weather station.

Pearl Harbor brought America into the offensive stance. They made internment camps for the Japanese residing in the United States. They began fingerprinting Hawaiian residents. When the internment camps became overcrowded, they offered freedom to the Japanese-Americans if they served in the army. President Roosevelt withdrew the Executive order and at the end of 1945, the internment camps closed down. America supported Britain and its allies by supplying those munitions. In 1945, America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities. The bombings killed 129,000 people and performed several firebombing campaigns (Poolos, 2008, p. 14).

2. In 1950 the Korea Peninsula became divided among a Soviet-supported government in the north, an American-supported government in the south. The end of WWII brought division, due to the end of Japan's control over Korea, which existed since 1910. The Soviet Union invaded Korea in August of 1945. The United States feared the Soviets would seize all of Korea and moved its troops promptly into southern Korea. In the north, Japanese troops yielded to the Russians and then to the Americans in the south (McFarland, 1986, p. 60).

Involvement in the Korean War was justified because if America did not intervene, all of Korea would become communist like North Korea is today. The United States approved a new foreign policy in 1947, to contain communism (Nagai & Iriye, 1977, p. 34). Although the policy mainly focused in Western Europe, it also extended to Asia. When the forces of North Korea invaded the south or the noncommunist government of the south, the U.S. saw this action as a risk of communism increasing. The U.S. refused to give any more ground to forces supporting communism. To defend South Korea became a defense of democracy. Later in June 1950, North Korean forces traversed the 38th Parallel into the region of South Korea. This prompted the U.S. To go to the United Nations Security Council (Tatum, 2002, p. 111). The council responded with a 9-0 vote supporting adoption of…