US Military Actions after World War II
Huang Zhi-Wei Student’s ID: s06148
Paper Supervisor : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2007 Academic year
Before World War II, except participating in the World War I, the United States launched few external military actions. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became the superpowers. The United State’ strategic interests spread throughout all over the world. The United States began to launch frequently external military actions. According to statistics, during the Cold War, the United States has launched 125 large-scale military actions.[1]
In order to introduce the brief history of US military actions after World War II, I divide this piece of history into three stages:
1. the Cold War (1945-1991)
2. the post-Cold War (1991-2001)
3. the War on Terrorism (2001-Present)
I will introduce the backgrounds, and give a list of US military actions of each stage. Then I will analyze the characteristics, and the main influences of the US military actions of each stage.
Finally, I will try to come to some conclusions, and forecast the future trends.
1. The 1st Stage: the Cold War (1945-1990)
1.1 Background:
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were the two equal superpowers. In order to prevent the expansion of the Soviet Union and communism, the United States deployed a large number of troops in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. For example, with its allies the United States occupied West Germany and Japan, send troops to enter mainland China, South Korea, South Vietnam.
Therefore, during this period, the most obvious background is: because of the conflict of the ideologies and the global strategic interests, the United States and the Soviet Union together with their respective allies, made deployment of a large number of troops in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
The direct confrontation of the two camps inevitably leaded to conflicts. On the terms of the socialist camp, the Soviet Union rarely directly involved in the military conflict. But China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba involved in the conflict. On the terms of the capitalist camp, the United States involved in a variety of scale military conflicts.
1.2 List of US main military actions in this stage:
1945-1949 Occupation of part of Germany
1945-1955 Occupation of part of Austria
1945-1946 Occupation of part of Italy
1945-1952 Occupation of Japan
1945-1946 Temporary reoccupations of the Philippines in preparation for independence
1945-1949 Occupation of South Korea
1945-1947 US Marines garrisoned in Mainland China to oversee the removal of Soviet and Japanese forces after World War II.
1948 In Palestine, A marine consular guard was sent to Jerusalem to protect the US Consul General.
1948 In Germany, Berlin Airlift After the Soviet Union established a land blockade of the US, British, and French sectors of Berlin on June 24, 1948, the United States and its allies airlifted supplies to Berlin until after the blockade was lifted in May
1948-49 In China, Marines were dispatched to Nanjing to protect the American Embassy when the city fell to Communist troops and to Shanghai to aid in the protection and evacuation of Americans.
1950-1953 Korean War. The United States responded to North Korean invasion of South Korea by going to its assistance, pursuant to United Nations Security Council resolutions. US forces deployed in Korea exceeded 300,000 during the last year of the conflict. Over 36,600 US military were killed in action.
1950-1955 In Taiwan, in June 1950 at the beginning of the Korean War, President Truman ordered the US Seventh Fleet to prevent Chinese Communist attacks upon Taiwan and Chinese Nationalist operations against mainland China.
1955-1963 US sends military advisers to assist President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.
1956 In Egypt, a marine battalion evacuated US nationals and other persons from Alexandria during the Suez crisis.
1959-1960 In Cuba, the US Second Marine Ground Task Force was deployed to protect US nationals following the Cuban revolution.
1962 In Thailand, the Third Marine Expeditionary Unit landed on May 17, 1962 to support that country during the threat of Communist pressure from outside.
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
1962-1975 In Laos, from October 1962 until 1975, the United States played an important role in military support of anti-Communist forces.
1964 In Congo, the United States sent four transport planes to provide airlift for Congolese troops during a rebellion and to transport Belgian paratroopers to rescue foreigners.
1959-1975 Vietnam War. The war claimed 58,000 U.S. combat dead and the lives of between 2 and 5.1 million Vietnamese, a large number of whom were civilians.
1967 In Congo, the United States sent three military transport aircraft with crews to provide the Congo central government with logistical support during a revolt.
1970 In Cambodia, the US troops were ordered into Cambodia to clean out Communist sanctuaries from which Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacked US and South Vietnamese forces in Vietnam.
1973 The CIA funds and helps orchestrate a military coup against the democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende; General Augusto Pinochet becomes the military dictator until 1990.
1976 In Korea, additional forces were sent to Korea after two American soldiers were killed by North Korean soldiers in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea while cutting down a tree.
1980 Iran Hostages Crisis.
1981 The First Gulf of Sidra Incident.
1983 In Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury, Citing an imminent Soviet threat, the U.S. invades the sovereign island nation of Grenada. Grenada is defended only by several hundred lightly armed troops and policemen.
1986 In Bolivia, the U.S. Army personnel and aircraft assisted Bolivia in anti-drug operations.
1987-1988 In Persian Gulf, after the Iran-Iraq War resulted in several military incidents in the Persian Gulf, the United States increased US joint military forces operations.
1988 In Panama, the United States sent 1,000 troops there, to "further safeguard the canal, US lives, property and interests in the area." The forces supplemented 10,000 US military personnel already in the Panama Canal Zone.
1989 Second Gulf of Sidra Incident On January 4, 1989.
1990 In Liberia, on August 6, 1990, President Bush reported that a reinforced rifle company had been sent to provide additional security to the US Embassy in Monrovia, and that helicopter teams had evacuated US citizens from Liberia.
1990 In Saudi Arabia, On August 9, 1990, President Bush made deployment of the US armed forces into the Persian Gulf region to help defend Saudi Arabia after the August 2 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.
(Resource: www.Answers.com, List of United States military history events)
1.3 The characteristics of US military actions in this stage:
Basted on the list of US military actions above, we can see the main characteristics of US military actions during Cold War include:
1. Involved in the certain country's domestic war (such as Vietnam, Korean, and China civil wars).
2. Used various forms of military means, such as sending troops in the name of the United Nations (Korea War), invading foreign country directly (Vietnam War), providing the country or regime military aids (China Civil War), and implementing air strike or sea blockade (in the Middle East).
3. In many countries the United States went into the quagmire of war, suffered heavy casualties and spend lots of money.
1.4 The main influences:
As the United States frequently launched military actions, the risk of the World War ??/span> between the two camps was always in high degree. Fearing the breaking of the World War ??/span>, the Soviet Union, China and other socialist countries intensified their own military power, ignored the economic construction. Those countries were on the verge of economic crisis in the long-term. Finally, in the end of 1980s, due to the economic crisis and the outbreak of internal conflicts, The Soviet Union suddenly disintegrated. The socialist camp also eventually dissolved.
In the United States, because of the huge casualties and the high military spending, the anti-war movement rose in the 1960s. Finally, the United States withdrew all army from Vietnam in 1973. Subsequently, the United States has begun to change the military and diplomatic strategies; they reduce the number of military actions. They established the diplomatic relations with People’s Republic of China and made more and more diplomatic contacts with the Soviet Union. The United States treated the socialist countries with the Tactics of Peaceful Evolution.
Conversely, the Soviet Union had no changed in strategy, continued to expand armaments and sent troops to some countries, such as Czechoslovakia (1968), Afghanistan (1979).
Ultimately, the US’s tactics of Peaceful Evolution succeed. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the socialist camp, the Cold War ended in 1991.
2. The 2nd Stage: the Post-Cold War era (1991-2001)
2.1 Background:
Because the United States and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers’ control and repression, a number of regional and internal conflicts have not erupted during the Cold War. After the Cold War, the two superpowers’ control and repression on these areas and the states weakened, these regional and internal conflicts broke out. For example, in Yugoslavia, the civil war broke out, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia spitted into many countries; In the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict intensified, the war between Iran and Iraq break out.
The international community was very concerned about humanitarian crisis triggered by these regional and internal conflicts. In order to maintain peace and [...]
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