Reference no: EM132482106

Future assignments will only ask three or four questions, but the purpose of this rather scary set of writing prompts is to get all of us up to speed on very complicated set of problems. You need not write more than three or four sentences in response to each answer, though you may want to say more, and you are welcome to do so. This assignment is due on Sunday night, February 24.

Question 1: The Soviet Union and the United States were allied with one another during the Second World War, and were on generally friendly, if suspicious terms. What happened between 1945 and 1947 to turn this friendship into enmity?

Question 2: Poland and Czechoslovakia were both "liberated" by the Soviet Army but were unable to exercise much freedom. How did the Western powers respond to Soviet actions in these countries?

Question 3: The Truman Doctrine has been described as the first policy application of Containment. What was the Truman Doctrine? What was the context in which it was first put forth? What influence would it have on American policy toward the Hungarian Revolution in 1956?

Question 4: The city of Berlin and the Island of Cuba seem to have been the focus of much of the Cold War's tensions. Why? What was the symbolic and strategic significance these two places?

Question 5: What role did Britain and the United Nations play in the establishment of the modern state of Israel? What was the response of the Arab states?

Question 6: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has proven to be intractable. Why?

Question 7: Although Japan obviously lost in its military bid to become the dominant power in Asia and the Pacific, it nonetheless became a global economic power in the post-War era. How did this come about?

Question 8: Although virtually all of the former colonial states in Africa became independent by the end of the 1960s, it proved much more difficult to shake off the lingering effects of colonialism. Provide at least three examples to support this thesis.

Question 9: Even as the Cold War demanded that everyone pick a team, the Non-Alignment movement tried to stay out of the conflict. Was this strategy realistic?