Question 1:
Did American society after 1945 fulfill the promise of FDR’s Four Freedoms?
In 1945, America’s president at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, gave a speech entitled “Four Freedoms”. His speech consisted of FDR saying that not only were American’s warranted to these certain four freedoms, but all countries are. These basic four freedoms, as described by author Alan Brinkley, in his biography of FDR, were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of want, and freedom from fear. It is important to note that FDR was stating all nations were deserving of these rights, as not explicitly, but these four freedoms would influence US foreign policy for years to come. Although the meaning of each freedom can be interpreted differently and many factors play into them, American society did fulfill the promise of FDR’s Four Freedoms.
The first of FDR’s Four Freedoms is the freedom of speech. This Freedom comes from the U.S. very own Bill of Rights and it means that this is the freedom of one being able to express their own thoughts or feelings without the fear of being censored or punished. A way society was able to maintain this idea was through the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Although the civil rights movement was a domestic event, this was crucial for America. This held so much significance to the Four Freedoms because as the president was announcing that all other nation’s citizens were entitled to this freedom, it should be a right everyone in our own country has. This correlates with the demands of the civil rights protest because one of the main rights being protested was for freedom of speech. Also, at this time a foreign affair persisting at this time for America was the Cold War. But through the use of detente, as professor Suri explained, political leaders would begin to use their own language of dissent at this period of time to support their own causes, which made detente rise, as it was an outcome of governments responding to domestic disputes. This demonstrates the power of the freedom of speech because this resulted in the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States to decrease.
The second of FDR’s Four Freedoms is freedom of worship, meaning it supports the idea of an individual or group of individuals to be able to worship their own religion in private or public without government influence. This was an important concept, like freedom of speech its mentioned in the US Bill of Rights, and as author Jefferson Cowie describes in his book soon to come after FDR’s speech, the US would find itself in a third great awakening in during the 1970’s within the working class. This great awakening was described by cowie as pivotal because of the downfall of the US working class during this time that turned the social norm of collectivism into individualism. On the foreign side of things, with the idea of freedom of worship during the time of the cold war that spanned from the end of WWII until the 1990s, the US feared the spread of communism that did not support the idea of religious freedom. With this threatening the freedom of worship of foreign nations that communist powers such as China or the Soviet Union were trying to influence, the US decided to interfere within the nations to try and prevent the suppression of religious freedom to those nations individuals. And instead, promote the idea of democracy that did support this fundamental freedom.
The third freedom to look at is the Freedom from Want. This means an individual is entitled to basic needs such as clothing, housing, food, etc. One of the biggest examples of this affected both the US and other foreign nations. This was the Immigration Act of 1965. The new act set in place during the 1960s affected the US directly as it abolished the quota system. Many different quota systems had been placed throughout US history and author Mae Ngai discusses the different ones in her book and how they would be based on discriminatory thoughts and feelings against other races and immigrants trying to come to America, as she stated that the quotas would set amounts for the number of immigrants that could immigrate from a certain country, or if they could come at all. But with the quotas lifted it placed new rules on immigration and had a main focus on reunited families that were separated by such quota systems during the immigration process and bringing skilled workers into the US.
Lastly, the Fourth freedom is Freedom from Fear. This freedom is described to protect the freedom that no individual or nation should be positioned in a way that requires a physical act of aggression against any neighbor. The concept of containment is a notable attempt for the US to protect nations such as Vietnam and Korea from attacks from communist nations. The idea of containment as defined by Professor Suri is US foreign policy on attempts to stop the spread of communism. Within the foreign policy of containment it can be looked as a contradiction to the freedom from fear as wars such as the Vietnam war and Korean war began because of US used physical aggression on these nations, but it can be looked as an exception as the US was doing this in attempt to protect these countries. The US believed this was a way of protection as the losses from being a communist nation and the possibility that those nations would inevitably cause more nations to become communist, was greater than the losses that happened within the war.
Through different events after FDR’s 1945 speech describing the Four Freedoms everyone is deserving of no matter what nation you are in, American society was able to fulfill these promises through attempts domestically and foreign. These Four Freedoms have influenced many foreign policies, as well as policy at home, and they will continue as they are basic principles that are believed everyone should be entitled to.
Question 2:
The United States fought numerous wars between the Civil War and the present. Why did the United States fight so many wars? How did they change American society and politics?
Ever since the civil war, the United States has managed to find itself in many different wars. Whether it be self-initiated or attacks upon the United States conflict seems to be drawn to America as if a moth was drawn to a light. It is important to note that there is always more than just one sole cause to a war, but with all the wars the US has fought there tends to be an underlying theme to why we got involved in all. This is for the protection of American politics and society, but with fighting a war this tends to bring changes to both society and politics. Although the US has fought in many wars since the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korean and Vietnam wars, and the global war on terror have been the most significant in changing American society and politics.
From 1865 to the beginning of the first World War the US fought in some wars, but none came close in significance to when the US got involved in WWI. WWI was in full swing without the US involvement and as Professor Suri discussed in lecture America’s policy for the war was to remain neutral. But as Author James McPherson argues the US ended up getting involved for two reasons. The first being the US wanting to defend our land from countries wanting to encroach on it. The other reason being we believed the countries in Europe had the right to self-govern, but couldn’t because of the German monarchy taking them over. Soon after America began to send troops to Europe, the war ended, and America along with the other allies won the war and this erupted a change in American society. This began a time of progressivism that began critical events that would change America’s society such as the prohibition, women’s suffrage, and income tax expansions as progressivism was meant to be a time of improvements for society through reform movements like those. But author Michael Mcgerr argues, this had to be put all on pause when WWII began and the US had once again failed to remain neutral. Progressivism had to be put on pause because the country as a whole had to become centralized around the war effort in order to be successful in the war. When WWII ended, our society had to transition from a physical war to being in a cold war. This turned into a nationwide fear of communism that influenced events like the red scare.
WWII led to what Professor Suri describes as a battle of ideologies during the aftermath of the war. These differing ideologies can be seen as the basis of the next two wars fought. Firstly, the Korean war, America got involved in because of the Domino Theory. As described by Professor Suri, the Domino Theory said that if communist are able to take control of one country, they would take more and more, creating a domino effect. Suri further argued that the US believed that if the bad guys acted aggressively and the US did nothing, it would only increase the amount of aggression. So with all this, the US attempted to protect anti-communist South Korea from the communist North Korea. The aftermath of this war caused American politics to become more connected to the rest of world, decreasing our idea of independence. With America’s increasing interest in foreign politics, this can be seen as the draw to the Vietnam war for the US, as like in Korea, they were trying to save Vietnam from the threat of communist control. But unlike Korea, the aftermath of this war was much different. Professor Suri discussed in lecture about how after the Vietnam war a major unrest was cause within American society, mainly within the country’s youth also called by Suri as the “Restless Youth”.
Lastly, the Global war on terror is the war the US is currently facing. Just like the other wars the war on terror is about politics as well. As stated by Professor Suri that terrorism is just an extension of politics as its an act of protest and pressure to change politic of society. A major example of the US efforts on the war on global terrorism is the attacks of 9/11. After the attacks on September 11th, America’s society, unlike after the Vietnam war, became united and had one common enemy. This made support for the war easier for the government which in turn helped American politics as this war was accepted in the beginning.
The United States has been in many different conflicts over seas and domestically, but these conflicts are driven by one main thing and that’s protecting the politics of the country. As long as the United States remands a country, it will continue to fight wars in order to protect itself, but it’s important to be able to understand the reasoning behind them to understand the United States motives.