President Eisenhower and the NATO Essay Example for Free

President Eisenhower and the NATO Essay Stephen Ambrose, in his book Eisenhower: The President (pp. 215 – 216) gives a picture of the president as the driving force behind the NATO solution embodied in the Paris accords of late 1954. Is he right or wrong? The abrupt end of the World War II following the bombing of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki using atomic bombs heralded a period of heightened tension between the Western World represented by the US and the Eastern World represented by Soviet Union. Each of the two sides formed a myriad of alliances in bid to assert themselves across the face of the world. NATO was one such alliance that was purposely formed by the Capitalists (US and allies) to contain Communists (Soviet and allies). Though initially the alliance was more of a political organization than a military one, subsequent happenings in Europe, particularly the Korean War electrified the member states into forming a strong military alliance, with an integrated military structure built under the direction of two US military commanders, one of them Eisenhower. The militarization of the alliance was necessary especially having in mind that the opposing blocs (communists) were in the process of building their own strong military arsenals and therefore there was need for a balance of power between the two blocs. Again, this was a period marked by costly defense spending, immense conventional and nuclear arms race, and a number of proxy wars. [Rosenberg, 1979] In his book, Ambrose seeks to differ with Eisenhower’s friends as well as critics who regarded him as largely unprepared for the presidency. He depicts Eisenhower as one person who carried the best credentials among persons to ever been elected to the Presidency, particularly in matters concerning foreign affairs. Ambrose has got all the reasons to throw his weight behind Eisenhower’s foreign relations capabilities, given the success that he (Eisenhower) achieved when he served at various military ranks in international duty during the World Wars and the Cold War, the most notable one being his appointment as the first commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). [Ambrose, 1984] Until his election as the 34th US President, Eisenhower was serving as the supreme commander of the NATO forces in Europe. Moreover, in his inaugural speech he vowed to use his experience to end the Korean War. Being an experienced soldier and therefore understanding the painful impact of the modern weapons than any other person, he resolved to appeal for peace. To achieve this he advocated for high level of cooperation among the nations even among those who disagreed. He rejected the notion of an isolated America from the rest of the world, save behind its nuclear shield. He harbored the argument that active participation of the US in the world affairs was the most appropriate method of making sure that democracy was achieved in nations that were susceptible to the encroachment of Communism. He also harbored the belief that sustained dialogue between the US and the Soviet would be the best option for the provision of security to the entire world. To achieve this, he advocated for military and economic unification of the nations that formed the Western alliance, since according to him that was the only avenue for providing the much needed peace and freedom in the Western Europe. For example, he pursued the reinforcement of NATO’s southern flank by helping Italian-Yugoslavian struggle over Trieste and proposed at the Geneva summit meeting a shared aerial inspection, a move that was aimed at preventing a surprise nuclear attack. He also proposed for a project known as ‘atoms for peace’ program, that sought to provide loans to American uranium to ‘have not’ nations for peaceful purposes. [Boll, 1988] In what seems to a support for the argument that Eisenhower understood the painful repercussions of war, Campbell Craig claims that Eisenhower used the policy of nuclear weapons deterrence to scare his advisors to shy from pushing him to declare war against the communists, and also to deter the communists themselves into going into war with the West, represented by the US. In his book Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War; Campbell Craig argues that Eisenhower’s policy of defending the United States international interests was through general thermonuclear war. [Craig, 1998: p. xi] He reasons that between 1956 and 1957 Eisenhower rearranged the official American basic security policy in a way that, in the event of a war with the Soviet Union, the war would automatically escalate into general thermonuclear war. [p. 67]. The very threat of a thermonuclear war would serve as a deterrence of such a war on a national level since the US policy makers will definitely resist escalation in a crisis. Craig puts it this way, â€Å"Eisenhower’s strategy to evade nuclear war was to make American military policy so dangerous that his advisors would find it impossible to push Eisenhower towards war and away from compromise. † [p. 69]. This also served as deterrence to the Soviet Union as the prospect of going into a war that would escalate into thermonuclear war was so scarring. A fair analysis on Craig’s work is that, it is short of neither supporting the use of rigid defense of nuclear weapons nor rejecting their strategic use. Consequently, Craig does not seem to support or refute the claim that Eisenhower was directly behind the NATO solution to the encroachment of the Soviet Union and its allies. He lets his audience to make a conclusion; however, his arguments seem to lean more on the notion that Eisenhower used nuclear weapon diplomacy and the strengthening of the NATO and unification of the states that formed the treaty. He argues that â€Å"American avoidance of nuclear war †¦ did not just â€Å"happen. † Actual people, above all Eisenhower, sought to evade nuclear war; many powerful figures at the center of decision believed that such a war was justifiable and regularly called for steps that would have begun one. [P. xii] Soman argues that, during the period of crisis, between the years 954-1955, the Eisenhower’s administration was mainly concerned on the fate of the treaty for the Western European Union and the admission of Germany to NATO, which was to be ratified by the European nations. Particularly, the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles was filled with the fear that any event leading to a war with China that would involve nuclear weapons would move the European opinion away from the United States and therefore leading doubts on the ratification of the treaty. Soman argues that Eisenhower’s success just like many other US Presidents of post-World War II era in maintaining the United States national security and the strengthening of the NATO in the face of military threats from the Soviets was through the use of nuclear weapon diplomacy. For instance, he explains how American atomic capabilities contributed to the working out of a truce in the North Korean war. He reasons that, Eisenhower had no option in the use of nuclear diplomacy to counter the encroachment of the Soviet Union and its allies: he had inherited â€Å"†¦ a stalemated war in the Korea, a costly military build up, and armed forces that despite nearly three years of massive conventional rearmament still left the United States heavily dependent on atomic arsenal. † [Soman, 2000: p. 36] He therefore chose to reject any Soviet proposal to ban nuclear weapons knowing very well that this was his only trump card.

Influence of Culture on Human Technology :: Sanders The Men We Carry in Our Minds

Influence of Culture on Human Technology The influence that culture has had on human technology is undeniable. One could even go as far as to say that sometimes, it is difficult to distinguish between the two. The term â€Å"culture† is extremely difficult to define because of the vast array of meanings that people attach to it. For this very reason, it is imperative to examine the most basic notion of culture, namely: â€Å"the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought† (as taken from www.dictionary.com). Given this definition, it seems reasonable to conclude that human technologies fall under the category of â€Å"all other products of human work and thought†. Yet, although human technologies are closely linked to culture, we must draw certain distinctions between the two. Today, for example, pop culture is thought of as the exportation of American music, food, and cinema. This is a legitimate example of a culture because it encompasses the ideas/beliefs/traditions of a vast group of people. Computers on the other hand, although great as inventions, cannot be considered a culture. One might argue that computers are part of a culture, or may have even led to a culture (namely, the information age), but in and of themselves, computers and other such human technologies are just that, technologies. Technologies can either be of the mechanical/scientific sort (such as the car) or they can be a type of innovative idea that changes life in some profound way. Having established workable definitions for both culture and human technology, we can now deal with the question of how culture has affected human technology. Given the broad scope of the question, there are several ways to answer it. One way of doing this would be to examine several different cultural movements or characteristics (i.e. art, religion, etc.) and see how they have helped create different human technologies. Another way of analyzing the relationship between the two however, is to look at a human technology and see how culture has altered it. This will be the method employed in this essay. I) Religion and War One of the most obvious examples of a culture or a cultural aspect influencing a human technology is the relationship between religion and the nation-state.

Introduction to Baby Thesis Essay

Heavy metals such as lead, zinc, copper, can often be found in industrial wastewater and their discharge to the environment poses a serious threat due to their acute toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial life which includes humans. As a result of increasing industrialization more heavy metals are continually released to the environment and this has prompted environmental engineers and scientists to think of better methods by which heavy metal-bearing wastewaters can be treated effectively and economically. The most used way of removing heavy metals in wastewater is through the use of activated carbon which is used as an adsorbent. This is due to the adsorptive properties of activated carbon(Cecen & Aktas, 2011). Agricultural by-products represent a considerable quantity of harvested commodity crops. The use of by-products as precursors for the production of widely used adsorbents, such as activated carbons, may impart a value-added component of the overall biomass harvested. In most developing countries, the activated carbon is imported at high cost, limiting the quantities of safe drinking water available to the people (Gray, 2010, p. 72). In recent years, there has been research focusing on the use of appropriate, low cost technology for the treatment of drinking water in the developing world. Research has also been focused on the indigenous production of water treatment chemicals using locally available raw materials. Generally, the raw materials for the production of Activated Carbon are those with high carbon but low inorganic contents such as wood, lignite, peat and coal. Activated carbons form a large and important class of porous solids, which have found a wide range of technological applications. The characteristics of activated carbon depend on the physical and chemical properties of the precursor as well as on the activation method. In addition to the starting material and the oxidizing agent, activation time and temperature affect the structural properties of the resulting activated carbon (Hassler, 2009). A wide range of carbonaceous materials can be used as the carbon precursors such as coal, peat, wood and various agricultural by-products. Recently, agricultural by-products have received an increasing attention for the production of activated carbon due to their low-cost, renewability and wide prevalence (March & Reinoso, 2006). The production of value-added products such as activated carbon will enlarge its application, reduce waste materials and generate income to rural communities in Valenzuela. Heavy metal contamination exists in aqueous waste streams of many industries such as metal plating facilities, mining operations and tanners. Activated carbons were used as adsorbent materials because of their extended surface area, microporous structure, high adsorption capacity and high degree of surface reactivity. Furthermore, the presence of different surface functional groups on activated carbon, especially oxygen groups, leads to the adsorption of ions of heavy metals (Ilango, 2012, p. 22). One of the fastest growing research areas is the environmental applications of activated carbon, such as wastewater treatment. In the treatment of wastewater, it is used for purification, decolorization and the removal of toxic organics and heavy metal ions. year Chernicharo and Sperling (2005) stated that the demand of activated carbon increased over the years and the market growth was estimated at 4. 6 % per. This demand can be satisfied considering the large number of raw material available for the production of activated carbon (Bansal, & Goyal, 2005). The aim of the study was to produce activated carbon from local agroforestry wastes and assess the efficiency of the produced carbons in removing dyes and metal ions from wastewater. The researchers decided to use corncobs as the source of activated carbon to be used in the adsorption of heavy metals present in the waters of Manila Bay, this is because corncobs are widely available and inexpensive macromolecular waste in the agriculture in the Philippines. Bandosz (2006) studied the thermochemical reaction between corncob and CA and obtained a modified corncob, which had a large cation exchange capacity than natural corncob. Chemical analysis of the corncobs showed that it mostly consisted of 38. 4%, cellulose; 40. %, hemicelluloses; and 9. 1%, lignin. Modified ground corncobs using either 0. 6 M CA or phosphoric acid have improved natural adsorption capacity. Physical and chemical agents generated by human activities may often have various adverse effects on both aquatic and terrestrial Iife. Lead is an ubiquitous material in the environment and its presence in varying concentrations can be found in diverse locations. The Water Environment Federation (2010) reported that human exposure to lead has harmful effects on kidney, central nervous and reproductive systems. Air, food and water generally do not usually contain large amounts of lead, however excessive contamination of these natural sources by industrial activities can result in continuous toxic levels of exposure and consequently clinical poisoning (Ilango, 2012). In order to develop poisoning from organic lead, one has to be continuously exposed to concentrations higher than those in the general environment for some week or months. Lead exposure has both acute and chronic effects (Hassler, 2009). Another pertinent health problem of lead is bioaccumulation or magnification, which may elevate its concentration to toxic levels (Ilango, 2012). National Research Council Canada reported that fish could absorb lead through their body surface and the food they consume. As a case study the liver of sea bass caught near California Coast at Los Angeles was found to contain about 22 ppm Pb which is considerably higher than the permitted level of 10 ppm for human consumption and twice as high as the concentration in fishes found 300 km away; the major* of the lead was attributed to automotive aerosol (Bandosz 2006).

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