Cuban Missile Crisis: Why we need more balance of power in the world.
Cuban Missile crisis in 1960s may raise a serious political question in retrospect i.e. should America be allowed to exist as the sole superpower and what could be the repercussions of such an existence? Now fifty years or so later, we are in a much better position to answer this question. United States or any other nation for that matter must not work as the sole superpower because it can cause many political upheaval as we recently witnessed. We will discuss the Cuban Missile crisis in detail but first we must establish that American history is fraught with events and wars that were fought on the false belief of America's superiority which made it an imperial power. Examples of these events include the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War and not to mention the current conflict with Iraq. These misadventures highlight a "pattern of racism and imperialism that began with the first Indian war in Virginia in 1622,"
Manifest Destiny and "City on a hill" are concepts that originated from this racist belief.
History is witness to the fact that when America has desired something, no matter how unlawful or unethical its desire was, it has always found a way to justify it. In most cases, this justification is based on the belief that white man is burdened with the job of removing "evil" from the world and usually included some mention of God. It was as if God had ordered white man to remove the others from the planet. As completely unethical, absurd, and faulty these notions might sound; Americans have complacently accepted them and even acted on them. Americans have always suffered from the false assumption that it's their "divine mission" to rule the world and thus the wars and unwanted interference in world affairs.
This syndrome can be traced back to the time of Crusades in 1097 when Merovingian dynasty established its "divine right" to rule.
But it was not just the mob that has bought this notion; many of the American Presidents have included God in their arguments to support a cause. They function with the belief that if God has asked them to do something, they must be carrying out divine orders and that, they believe, should be appreciated. For example in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt tried to encourage people by saying: "We battle for the Lord," he thundered. "We stand at Armageddon."
Similarly during the days of Cold War, Senator Lyndon Johnson was found saying: "We shall, we must, with the guidance of God, embark on this course to redeem humanity and with the righteous strength which centuries of freedom under God have given us, we cannot fail."
American imperialism in the 19th century was based on racism, false sense of superiority and greed and thus "A search for personal and national wealth was put in terms of world progress, under the leadership of a supreme race," observes Reginald Horsman (p. 247) Indian removal was the more blunt form of American imperialism and worked on the idea of ethnic cleansing. Democratic Review editor John L. O'Sullivan first coined the phrase "Manifest Destiny" in 1845. He was an Irish-Catholic who had coined this slogan to explain the emergence of democracy. He was not referring to Anglo-Saxonism or its domination and neither was hinting at that. But unfortunately this slogan was stolen to reflect an intense Anglo-Saxon need for domination and was used by the racist and imperialist powers as a justification for their unethical actions. Manifest Destiny thus became nothing but "a cluster of flimsy rationalizations for naked greed," notes historian George Tindall.
Even in those days, not everyone believed in American imperialism. These people gave birth to Anti-Imperialist League in 1889. These citizens opposed American imperialist initiatives in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
The fact that Cuba has always been a stubborn challenge to the U.S. became evident during the Cuban missile crisis of 1960s. we must mention here that this incident also showed that America could no longer claim sole super power status as Soviet Union was preseting a major threat to its imperialistic domination. That is the reason we need more than one strong forces in the world so we can maintain good balance of power. However with the fall of Soviet Russia, America is only force left in the world that can claim to have all the ingredient needed to become a hyper power someday. We need to better analyze...
The project of the League of Nations is yet another relevant example for pointing out the impact the "manifest destiny" idea had on the foreign policy of the United States. In this sense the basis for an organization that would prevent another war was the concept which emerged from the idealistic beliefs of the United States and especially of its president Wilson. However, the project failed to reach its actual
Mahan, who advocated creating a colossal navy and building bases, taking more land under MD. Growth is "a vital necessity to a nation," Mahan wrote, in justifying the position that the U.S. should annex the Hawaiian Islands. Lodge was a respected writer and historian, and he put forth the notion (Merk, 237) in articles that Cuba, the Hawaiian Islands, Canada and other territories should be conquered - but not
Austin ("Westward Expansion: Manifest Destiny," Digital History, 2007). "Aggressive nationalists invoked the idea [of Manifest Destiny] to justify Indian removal, war with Mexico, and American expansion into Cuba and Central America" ("Westward Expansion: Manifest Destiny," Digital History, 2007). On one hand, Manifest Destiny did allow poorer persons to migrate West, farm land, and make their fortunes with hard work -- but it also marked the end of a vital and
We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. (O'Sullivan 1) Not all Americans believed in the concept of manifest destination. Many settlers from different
Spiritualsproject.org). Most scholars believe that the Negro Spirituals "proliferated near the end of the 18th century and during the last few decades leading up to the end of legalized slavery in the 1860s," the Spirituals Project explains on their Web site. In Africa, "music was called on to mark and celebrate virtually every event in tribal life, no matter how significant." Those traditions and values were brought over to the North American
Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny The United States has a number of defining moments or eras in history, epochs that serve as a milestone for American greatness. Two of these important moments are the Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny. The Louisiana Purchase marks the beginning of America's expansion westward, the origin of the belief that the United States future is linked with its territorial expansion. It is analogous to Manifest Destiny
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