American
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Eurasia
The Middle East
Who Said It?
Potpourri
100
A geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II.
What is containment?
100
This second domino did not fall in 1953, giving the U.S. false hope for an all-out invasion in Vietnam throughout the 1960s.
What is Korea (1950-53)?
100
Many historians point to these two events influencing the rise in Islamic terrorism throughout the second half of the 20th century. HINT: One took place in 1948 and other in 1990.
What is the creation of Israel and American troops in the Middle East?
100
"It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace."
What is the Marshall Plan (1948)?
Economic Recovery Act of 1948
100
The first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries became depleted.
What is Sputnik I?
200
This has become a foundational U.S. document, right up there with the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers and George Washington’s Farewell Address. As a sign of its enduring significance, on its 75th anniversary it appeared on top-ten lists of historic moments to note in 2021.
In his message to Washington, he provides U.S. policy recommendations based on his analysis of the cultural and historical forces that shaped the motives of Soviet leaders and influenced Soviet conduct around the globe.
What is George Kennan's Long Telegram(1946)?
200
What is the Cultural Revolution (1966-76)?
200
“Jihad” literally means striving, or doing one’s utmost. Within Islam, there are two basic theological understandings of the word: The “Greater Jihad” is the struggle against the lower self – the struggle to purify one’s heart, do good, avoid evil and make oneself a better person. The “Lesser Jihad” is an outward struggle. Jihad constitutes a moral principle to struggle against any obstacle that stands in the way of the good. Much of the contemporary misuse of the term “jihad” may be dated to this war, when stateless actors began to claim the right to declare jihad.
What is the Soviet-Afghan War (1979)?
200
"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free. The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.”
What is Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945)?
200
These two holy cities help tell the story of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and his struggle to create what would eventually become the second largest religion in the world.
What is Mecca (570 AD) and Medina (622 AD)?
300
A policy set forth by the fifth president indicating that further colonization by Europe in the Western Hemisphere would be considered a hostile act.
What is the Monroe Doctrine (1823)?
300
This was a watershed event of the Cold War, marking the only time the Soviet Union invaded a country outside the Eastern Bloc—a strategic decision met by nearly worldwide condemnation.
What is the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89)?
300
A ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority. Osama bin Laden’s was entitled, "Declaration of Jihad
against Americans". In this ruling, he outlined his hatred for Israel, Crusaders, and the United States of America.
What is a fatwa (1996)?
300
"One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
What is the Truman Doctrine (1947)?
300
A public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.
What is the Balfour Declaration (1917)?
400
This military alliance of Western European powers and the United States and Canada was established to defend against the common threat from the Soviet Union, marking a giant stride forward for European unity and American internationalism.
What is NATO (1949)?
400
This policy began in mid May 1986 by announcing that full details of both the cause of the Chernobyl accident and its consequences would be made available to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to the world.
What is glasnost?
400
The War in Afghanistan was an armed conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021. Launched as a direct response to the September 11 attacks, the war began when an international military coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan, declaring Operation Enduring Freedom as part of the earlier-declared war on terror, toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic State and establishing the Islamic Republic three years later. During this time, these four men served as President of the United States.
What is George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden?
400
"At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the Party now and for the future – with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party principles, of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.Because not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the individual, [or] the great harm caused by violation of the principle of collective Party direction and by the accumulation of immense and limitless power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee considers it absolutely necessary to make material pertaining to this matter available to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Allow me first of all to remind you how severely the classics of Marxism-Leninism denounced every manifestation of the cult of the individual."
What is Nikita Khrushchev(1956)?
DeStalinization Speech
400
In 1953, the United States Central Intelligence Agency and the UK were involved in overthrowing the government of this Iranian Prime Minister, so as to retain power for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
What is Mohammad Mosaddegh?
500
Entitled “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security”, this was a top-secret report completed by the U.S. Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff. The 58-page memorandum is among the most influential documents composed by the U.S. Government during the Cold War, and was not declassified until 1975. Its authors argued that one of the most pressing threats confronting the United States was the “hostile design” of the Soviet Union. The authors concluded that the Soviet threat would soon be greatly augmented by the addition of more weapons, including nuclear weapons, to the Soviet arsenal. They argued that the best course of action was to respond in kind with a massive build-up of the U.S. military and its weaponry.
What is NSC-68 (1950)?
500
This war did not immediately alter the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but it did have a significant impact on the trajectory of an eventual peace process between Egypt and Israel (1978), which culminated in the return of the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for lasting peace.
What is the Yom Kippur War (1973)?
At the 1978 Camp David Accords that followed the war, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, which led to the subsequent 1979 Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty, marking the first instance that an Arab country recognized Israel as a legitimate state.
500
These three events of 1979 made it the year that changed the Middle East forever.
What is the election of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan?
500
"In connection with the events in Czechoslovakia, the question of the relationship and interconnection between the socialist countries’ national interests and their internationalist obligations has assumed particular urgency and sharpness. The measures taken jointly by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to defend the socialist gains of the Czechoslovak people are of enormous significance for strengthening the socialist commonwealth, which is the main achievement of the international working class. At the same time it is impossible to ignore the allegations being heard in some places that the actions of the five socialist countries contradict the Marxist-Leninist principle of sovereignty and the right of the nations to self-determination."
What is the Brezhnev Doctrine (1968)?
500
In 1962 the Soviet Union began to secretly install missiles in Cuba to launch attacks on U.S. cities. The confrontation that followed, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles. These three men governed over the nations involved.
What is John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, and Nikita Khrushchev?