US in WWI

    At the start of the World War, the United States sought to remain neutral. Nevertheless, it later entered the war in 1917for several reasons.

    First, the German submarines were used tosink American ship going to England, which would greatly injure American interest.

    Second, Germany promised the Mexicans a chance to regain its lost territory by going to war against the US.

    Third, after more than two years of fighting, both sides grew weary. This was a good chance for the US to successfully influence the result of the war.

     American troops played an important role in turning the tide of the war. In the face of combined attacks, the German government was forced to seek a peace negotiation.President Wilson personally attended the peace treaty meeting at Versailles, France, where he proposed his Fourteen Points. In his Fourteen Points, hedefined a new world order of justice, peace and property, promoting freedom of seas and removal of trade barriers. However, his attempt was actually an effort to establish the US domination in the world. This met with strong opposition from Britain and France. The Versailles Treaty was later signed in June 1919, but the US Congress refused toratify the treaty in which many points Wilson had proposed were rejected.

   By selling arms to both sides of the war, US imperialism（帝国主义） reaped a huge fortune and American industry reached a high degree of prosperity. It not only repaid all its foreign debts, but also granted loans and credit to the Allied countries. The gold reserves of the US amounted to half the world’s stock of the precious metal.

Great Depression （大萧条）

   After the First World War, America saw a short-term development in the 1920s, but unexpectedly, a deep economic crisis broke out in 1929. The stock market was the beginning of the Great Depression, followed by the closing of thousands of plants and banks. The depression kept growing worse from 1929 to 1932. About 13-15 million worker were lost their jobs. At least 5,000 banks and 85,000 businesses had been closed down. The production of coal, iron, steel, and automobiles was dropped by 40 to 80 percent. The whole country was in the economic collapse.

President Roosevelt and His “New Deal”（罗斯福新政）

   In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as the President. In order to deal with the economic depression, he put forward many emergency measures, known as the New Deal. The measures aims to create more employment, assist businesses and agriculture, regulate banking and stockmarket, and provide security for the needy.    

    The New Deal helped the country get out of the depression to some extent. But it failed to produce recovery and solve the problem of unemployment. The crisis didn’t turn around until the breakout of the Second World War.

US in WWII

   In the early days of World War II, the US government still remained neutral. The American capitalists wanted to continue their profitable trade with the warring countries, including the aggressors.

    The American policy underwent great changes in 1940. In Europe, the British had been driven out of the continent and suffered repeated air raids（空袭） by the German air force. In Asia, Japan had openly announced its “New Order” in an attempt to extend its control to the Pacific.The American government feared that the Axis countries（轴心国） were winning the war and that would threaten its security and interests.

   The Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor（珍珠港） was the direct cause that brought the United States into the war. It suffered defeats in the first few months. The Philippines and several other islands in the Pacific were taken by Japan. The US troops were forced to retreat to Australia. In 1943, the United States turned its strength to the Pacific war area and regained the islands nearer to Japan.

    In 1944, American, British and Canadian forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, opening the long-delayed western front to attack the Germans. Germany surrendered in May 1945. On August 6 and9, American airplane dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima（广岛） and Nagasaki（长崎）. Japan surrendered on August 14 and the World War II ended.

   Since it entered the war, the United States had played an important role in defeating the fascist powers. It had supplied the anti-fascist countries with food and military materials.

    However, the nature of US imperialism had been exposed. The US monopolists sold arms and ammunition to the aggressors with no scruples. Its economy benefits a lot from the war and its depression was brought to an end. The United States became the strongest power in the Western world.

Cold War

    The Cold War refers to the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition between theSoviet Unionand the powers of the Western world,primarily the United States after the Second World War. The main features ofthis period were international tension and conflict without bloody “hot war”between the two sides.

    Although the primary participants’ military forces never officially clashed directly, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, nuclear arms race, and technological competition, such as the space race.

    In 1947, President Truman declared the “Truman Doctrine”（杜鲁门主义） in order to establish the US hegemony in the post-war world.This marked the beginning of the Cold War. The Cold War exerted great influence in Europe and two Germans were founded. In 1949, the US allied with otherWestern countries, forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), so as to contain and compete with the Soviet Union and communism.

   The US was superior to the Soviet both in its economic and political position andin military power, but because of the defeats it suffered in China and Korea, US imperialism soon fell during the war. The large-scale war in Vietnam cost the US over 120 billion dollars and over 58,000 soldiers killed or missing. The war greatly weakened America and sharpened the country’s internal conflicts.Besides the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1959-1971), some otherconflicts, such as the Berlin Crises, the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-1989), also see the international high tension between the two sides. The tension continued until the Soviet Union dissolved.With the Soviet power in Eastern Europe collapsed, the Cold War period ended.