Sharing the Burden

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
International Role ◽  
American Society

The destruction of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire was an unprecedented tragedy. Theodore Roosevelt was adamant that it was the “greatest crime” of the First World War. The mass killing of approximately one million Armenian Christians was the culmination of a series of massacres that Winston Churchill would recall had roused publics on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired fervent appeals to see the Armenians “righted.” This book explains why the Armenian struggle for survival became so entangled with the debate over the United States’ international role as it rose to world power at the turn of the twentieth century. In doing so, it provides a fresh perspective on the role of humanitarian intervention in US foreign policy, Anglo-American relations and the emergence of a new international order after World War One. The clash over the US responsibility to protect the Armenians encapsulated the nation’s conflict over its global position and was a central preoccupation of both Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. For American and British leaders, a US intervention in the Near East to secure an independent Armenia was key to establishing a revised international system and to their visions for the new League of Nations. The debate over safeguarding the Armenians reveals the values that animated American society during a pivotal period in its history. In forcing US politicians to grapple for the first time with atrocities on this scale, it also demonstrates dilemmas in humanitarian politics that continue to bedevil policymakers today.

The Wilsonian Solution

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-139
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
British Empire ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
World War ◽  
System P ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
First World

This chapter examines Woodrow Wilson’s pragmatic decision not to declare war on the Ottoman Empire after American entry into the First World War. It explains why this policy choice offers important insights into Wilson’s attitude toward the Allied powers, particularly the British Empire. It evaluates Wilson’s broader attitude to Britain and his attitude toward an Anglo-American alliance. The chapter emphasizes the clash between Wilson and Roosevelt over whether the United States should declare war on the Ottoman Empire, and what this reveals about their humanitarian visions and broader conceptions of international order. In doing so, it traces the emergence of Wilson’s own solution to the Armenian question as part of a reformed, American-led international system.

I

1986 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 896-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Lachs
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
Second World ◽  
Shed Light

To write of Philip Jessup means to survey the history of the teaching of international law in the United States throughout the last half century; to cover all important events concerning the birth of international organizations on the morrow of the Second World War; to visit the halls of the General Assembly and the Security Council; to attend meetings of the American Society of International Law and the Institute of International Law, where he so frequently took the floor to shed light on their debates; to attend sittings of the International Court of Justice in the years 1960-1969. I could hardly undertake this task; there are others much more qualified to do so. What I wish to do is to recall him as a great jurist I knew and a delightful human being; in short, a judge and a great friend whom I learned to admire.

The Anti-Aryan Moment: Decolonization, Diplomacy, and Race in Late Pahlavi Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-702
Author(s):  
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

In 1946, the entertainer and activist Paul Robeson pondered America's intentions in Iran. In what was to become one of the first major crises of the Cold War, Iran was fighting a Soviet aggressor that did not want to leave. Robeson posed the question, “Is our State Department concerned with protecting the rights of Iran and the welfare of the Iranian people, or is it concerned with protecting Anglo-American oil in that country and the Middle East in general?” This was a loaded question. The US was pressuring the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops after its occupation of the country during World War II. Robeson wondered why America cared so much about Soviet forces in Iranian territory, when it made no mention of Anglo-American troops “in countries far removed from the United States or Great Britain.” An editorial writer for a Black journal in St. Louis posed a different variant of the question: Why did the American secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, concern himself with elections in Iran, Arabia or Azerbaijan and yet not “interfere in his home state, South Carolina, which has not had a free election since Reconstruction?”

Dr. Radan Angelov Sarafov and his sacrifice for democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-247
Author(s):  
Ilko Drenkov
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The People ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Public Audience ◽  
The Cold War

Dr. Radan Sarafov (1908-1968) lived actively but his life is still relatively unknown to the Bulgarian academic and public audience. He was a strong character with an ulti-mate and conscious commitment to democratic Bulgaria. Dr. Sarafov was chosen by IMRO (Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) to represent the idea of coop-eration with Anglo-American politics prior to the Second World War. Dr. Sarafov studied medicine in France, specialized in the Sorbonne, and was recruited by Colonel Ross for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), remaining undisclosed after the with-drawal of the British legation in 1941. After World War II, he continued to work for foreign intelligence and expanded the spectrum of cooperation with both France and the United States. After WWII, Sarafov could not conform to the reign of the communist regime in Bulgaria. He made a connection with the Anglo-American intelligence ser-vices and was cooperating with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for more than a decade. Sarafov was caught in 1968 and convicted by the Committee for State Securi-ty (CSS) in Bulgaria. The detailed review of the past events and processes through personal drama and commitment reveals the disastrous core of the communist regime. The acknowledgment of the people who sacrificed their lives in the name of democrat-ic values is always beneficial for understanding the division and contradictions from the time of the Cold War.

scholarly journals ’Det er easy at tale engelsk også’. Amerikadansk i 1960’erne og 1970’erne

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (47) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karoline Kühl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
World War ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Society

The conditions for the Danish language among Danish emigrants and their descendants in the United States in the first half of the 20th century were tough: The group of Danish speakers was relatively small, the Danes did not settle together as other immigrant groups did, and demographic circumstances led many young, unmarried Danish men to marry non-Danish speaking partners. These were all factors that prevented the formation of tight-knit Danish-speaking communities. Furthermore, US nationalistic propaganda in the wake of World War I and the melting-pot effect of post-war American society in the 1950s contributed to a rapid decline in the use of Danish among the emigrants. Analyses of recordings of 58 Danish-American speakers from the 1970s show, however, that the language did not decline in an unsystematic process of language loss, only to be replaced quickly and effectively by English. On the contrary, the recordings show contactinduced linguistic innovations in the Danish of the interviewees, which involve the creation of specific lexical and syntactical American Danish features that systematically differ from Continental Danish. The article describes and discusses these features, and gives a thorough account of the socioeconomic and linguistic conditions for this speaker group.

Dwight Eisenhower

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Nuclear Arsenal ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

Assessments of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s performance as the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and the nation’s thirty-fourth president have evolved across the more than seventy-five years from the conclusion of World War II in 1945 to the dedication in 2020 of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC. Historians have sought to explain Eisenhower’s unlikely rise from his modest upbringing in Abilene, Kansas, to his ascendance to command of western allies in the European theater. Selected over several senior officers in 1942 to command the invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch), Eisenhower initially experienced a series of setbacks and controversies resulting from inexperienced troops, incompetent subordinate leaders, a formidable enemy, and political deals with leaders of Vichy France. Although historians continue to debate his decisions regarding command and strategy in the European theater, they generally praise Eisenhower’s ability to maintain the western alliance amid national rivalries, professional jealousies, strong personalities, and competing political ambitions. Assessments of Eisenhower’s performance as president have undergone a remarkable transformation. Initially ranked in 1961 near the bottom in assessments of presidential leadership, he currently appears within the top tier. Initial accounts in the 1960s portrayed Eisenhower as a bumbling, docile president who appeared to be out of touch with the basic policies and operations of his administration. He appeared unwilling to address the major issues confronting American society, and to defer to his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, on matters of foreign policy and national security. For his critics, Eisenhower perilously, inflexibly, and imprudently relied upon the superiority of the nation’s nuclear arsenal to contain communist expansion, then allowed the Soviet Union to beat the United States into space and create a missile gap. Scholars collectively labeled “Eisenhower Revisionists” assessing declassified documents beginning in the mid-1970s forged a revised consensus that Eisenhower was clearly thoughtful, informed, and firmly in command of his administration. Moreover, the nation’s nuclear arsenal retained and even strengthened its predominance of power. “Postrevisionist” analysts generally concur that Eisenhower was clearly the dominant decision-maker and developed an effective policy development process, but they question the efficacy of some of his decisions and policies, including his management of crises in this dangerous period of the Cold War, his increased use of covert operations and propaganda, his approach to decolonization, and his efforts to ease tensions and slow the nuclear arms race.

Broadway Goes to War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. McLaughlin ◽  
Sally E. Parry
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
American Theater ◽  
History Of ◽  
Battle Fatigue ◽  
The Rich ◽  
American Society

The American theater was not ignorant of the developments brought on by World War II, and actively addressed and debated timely, controversial topics for the duration of the war, including neutrality and isolationism, racism and genocide, and heroism and battle fatigue. Productions such as Watch on the Rhine (1941), The Moon is Down (1942), Tomorrow the World (1943), and A Bell for Adano (1944) encouraged public discussion of the war's impact on daily life and raised critical questions about the conflict well before other forms of popular media. American drama of the 1940s is frequently overlooked, but the plays performed during this eventful decade provide a picture of the rich and complex experience of living in the United States during the war years. McLaughlin and Parry's work fills a significant gap in the history of theater and popular culture, showing that American society was more divided and less idealistic than the received histories of the WWII home front and the entertainment industry recognize.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
World War ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The One ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Second World

The Second World War marked the apex of industrial war and was nothing short of the most costly and destructive conflict ever experienced. It was total in its conduct and global in its scale—a true World War. The scale of the conflict may be explained by virtue of the fact that it was the product of numerous regional conflicts and theaters of operation that increasingly became woven into a contiguous war. In Western Europe the conflict began as a rerun of the Great War. In Eastern Europe it evolved into an ideological war of extermination between the polar opposites of fascism and communism. Parts of Africa and the Middle East became battlegrounds where European colonial ambitions clashed while other parts provided men and material. Maintaining access to resources more generally was indispensable for all belligerents in order to sustain their war efforts, thus attempting to stem the flow of their opponents’ resources was a central facet of most wartime strategies. Farther east, Japanese imperial ambitions clashed with the dynamics of a civil war in China in the attempt to create a new “Asian” international system free of American and European encroachments. In this respect, the war in the Asia-Pacific region that broke out in December 1941 should be separated from the one conducted in China up until that point. Japanese operations in China and on the Mongolian border before 1941 certainly had an impact on, but were different from, the vast new front that opened up in the Pacific following the Japanese attacks on Anglo-American positions from Pearl Harbor to Singapore. It was the events of December 1941 that brought these disparate strands formally together and linked them to events in Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. The result was a single war with very few areas formally out of bounds to armed conflict....

The Missionary Solution

2019 ◽  
pp. 80-110
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
American Missionaries ◽  
The World

This chapter examines the attempt by American missionaries to help remold the Ottoman state into a constitutional political system in the aftermath of the 1909 Young Turk Revolution. It explains why Americans, who had long regarded their missionaries as humanitarian aid agents helping to support and uplift the Armenians through their mission stations, now looked to them to extend their “civilizing mission” across the Empire. It explores the growth of the Protestant missionary lobby in the United States and the ways in which it developed support for an attempt to build a civil society in the Ottoman Empire that would ensure security for the Armenians within a reformed Ottoman polity. It explains why missionaries and their supporters viewed this as part of a larger mission to spread Christian ideals and representative government around the world alongside British evangelists. Missionary dreams of a new Ottoman nation collapsed when, amidst World War One, the Ottoman Armenians faced wholesale destruction. This chapter concludes by exploring how Woodrow Wilson’s administration and the missionaries responded to this “Crime Against Humanity,” and why their determination to maintain American neutrality so infuriated Theodore Roosevelt. It examines how the missionary lobby pioneered an unprecedented relief operation, and worked in partnership with the leading British champion of the Armenians, James Bryce, to publicize the atrocities and plan for Armenia’s ultimate liberation from Ottoman rule.

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