Guy Yedwab

The Game Of Who Annoys Who The Most

The passage attests that the United States was the aggressor during the major conflicts of the

Cold War. The United States attempted to cow its Communist enemies as it pursued its own agenda for

dominance in the world. The passage brings up MacArthur's advance on the Yalu River, as well the

CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion, and continues by accusing America of imperialist intentions in Vietnam.

Lastly, the passage states that American testing and use of hydrogen bombs underscored its aggressive

posture.

My first reaction to the passage is that the author started from a belief that the United States was

at fault in the Cold War, and then worked backwards toward the reasons for such blame. Looking at the

facts as a whole, however, the picture is less black and white than the tidy picture of blame the author

leaves at the American doorstep. While America does bear some guilt for the escalations of the Cold

War, it is hard to ignore Soviet actions during the Cold War.

The author leaves out at least two very significant Cold War confrontations: the first, at the very

beginning of the war, was the Soviet blockade of Berlin. The encirclement was not a reaction to

American aggression – rather, the United States had simply introduced a more effective economic

system in Western Germany. And America, who might have been justified in returned aggression,

responded by a large humanitarian effort to bring supplies to the West Berliners. The second significant

Cold War engagement comes from the other end of the war, under the Carter Administration, when the

Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, betraying promises made to President Carter. Here, America could

not be seen to be the instigating power. Rather, the events of the Cold War are better seen as two forces

applying nearly equal forces upon each other; each act of aggression can be linked to a similar act of

aggression the other side perpetrated at some point.

As for the charges themselves, the author still plays a tricky game with the facts. For instance,

although MacArthur did approach the Yalu River, he did not actually have the intention of invading

China. Granted, the Chinese couldn't have known that at the time, but that proves that lack of
communication was likely a bigger cause of that heightening of the conflict, rather than American

interference. The Bay of Pigs was indeed an act of aggression on Cuba by the United States, but

remember that America was not actively involved, only through weapons, supplies, and training – and

on the night of the event, needed ammunition was denied to the invasion force by President Kennedy. It

could be argued that Kennedy's dictum to withdraw American support for the Bay of Pigs in the Nth

hour not only led to the failure of the invasion itself, but largely to the failure of the anti-Castro Cuban

movement.

The author also uses Bay of Pigs as an instigating force of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I believe

that this is unfair. The Bay of Pigs was an example of American half-way support of an anti-

Communist regime (the balance to Soviet empowerment of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe,

which America had accepted with largely little protest) through conventional means. The Soviet

response, which came later, was to install nuclear weapons in Cuba capable of striking most of the

United States. The Soviet Union could be justified in supplying Castro with conventional weapons, and

even training or lending forces to Castro, but to say that the Bay of Pigs was significant instigation for

introducing weapons of mass destruction to a Communist regime in the American backyard.

As for Vietnam, it is easy to say that the United States was imposing its own ideas on a country

largely hostile to its form of government. This would not be incorrect. However, this is similar to the

Soviet control of countries like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, denying them the right to find their

'own path to communism.' Yes, Vietnam was American interference in a sovereign nation, but the

Soviet Union is not blameless of its own sin.

This is not to say that America bears no responsibility for some major conflicts. The Cuban

Missile Crisis was merely the mirror to Soviet nervousness about nuclear weapons installed in Turkey.

The intervention in Vietnam was a largely imperialistic urge, and American pressures on countries like

Cuba, South Korea, China (to defend Taiwan), and many Latin American and Middle Eastern countries

are responsible for some aspects of the war. But similar interferences were occurring in Asia, the

Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. In the end, if either side remembers the
proverb “Let he who is without sins throw the first stone,” then neither side will be so quick to blame

the other.