To what extent does America's view of itself as a “defender of free people” match the reality of its actions in global affairs?

       Free people are often referred to as anyone who’s not Communist, Fascist, or any ideology considered extreme by Capitalist standards. It means that they live in a more unrestricted system when compared to totalitarian governments for chances of improved lives through competition. It also means that free people are granted some rights such as freedom of speech. The universal human rights weren’t defined until the adopting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the United Nations. As the sole Capitalist Superpower after World War II, the United States took on the responsibility as the “defender of the free people” in opposition to the rise and spread of Communism during the Cold War. It shouldn’t be surprising, as it was their main theme and foundation of the republic ever since their revolution against Britain centuries ago. A defender of free people would maintain the rights of people regardless of nationality due to the fact that the question never specified such. The definition of free people can also mean people under the Capitalist system or the people living under basic rights, although the two aren’t mutually exclusive. The United States, while aggressively trying to contain Communism to defend free people, also took away the freedom and rights of the people of other countries and even their own citizens in the process, shattering the image of itself as the defender of free people even if such was their intention. Due to the two interpretations of free people, it would be better to split this analysis into two sections, with the first explaining the maintenance of basic rights and the second explaining the maintenance of Capitalism. Due to the fact that the United States greatly increased efforts to preserve Capitalism in the Cold War, it can be seen as a counterarguement.

        The American Revolution was based upon the idea of freedom. Even now is the whole nation associated with the topic of freedom. The nation was founded under the idea that a government should place the people’s wills and rights as top priority, going as far as to saying how the people should be allowed to overthrow a government when necessary. The image as the defender of free people appeared quite early on, but situations changed after the breaking of isolation during the World Wars. Due to lack of participation in European events beforehand, the American public generally had no interest in foreign matters. The United States was developing as a major economic power and contender in the practice of Imperialism especially in Asia, and there certainly wasn’t a concern for Europe’s wellbeing. However, notice how “Imperialism” was already a practice of the nation even before the Cold War. That practice greatly benefited the “free” people of the dominant nation in a Capitalist matter, but limited the freedom of the victims. In human rights, the United States was already hypocritical from the beginning, especially with their excessive use of slavery which also benefited Capitalism. Other examples included a war with Mexico, the control of Cuba, and the conquering of Hawaii. With the context aside, some of the first few major and notable limitations imposed on all of its citizens appeared during the World Wars, just before the Cold War. It was limitation on the freedom of speech in form of war propaganda. These efforts went so far as to eliminate any anti-war propaganda. One notable example was during World War II when the Smith Act was passed in 1940, which banned any support of violent overthrows of the government. While this was also a limitation on freedom and a downright removal of one of the fundamental ideas the foundation of the nation was based upon, the concept of this act was later expanded upon during the Cold War to oppose any form of Socialism or Communism. Known as the “Red Scare”, which was the promotion of anti-Communism or leftist extremism, it greatly endangered anyone even thinking about those ideals. This was a great limitation on the freedom of speech and thought.

        The United States as the defender of Capitalism is a decent counterargument when talking about defending free people. Capitalism was generally referred to as the free system, therefore comprised of free people. This is commonly used in the Capitalist versus Communist struggle as the good against bad, freedom against totalitarian. If the United States was to defend their free people, they would have to contain Communism. On the long term, this seemed to negate all stated on the first argument above. People would lose even more rights and freedoms under a Communist system when compared to a Capitalism system. It should also be noted that all the human rights abuses stated above benefited Capitalism within the United States. However, remember how the topic is about the image compared to the reality? The Cold War consisted of excessive paranoia that would make one question the validity of the actions of the United States to oppose Communism. The numerous human rights abuses stated above would all be valid if these efforts brought no real positive effect, and even if it did, it was still an act against free people. If one was to treat the United States’ good intentions as the image, then the reality would still shatter that image. Generalization aside, some specific actions by the nation may have benefited its Capitalism and its free people, but were plagued by fundamental flaws of Capitalism: not everyone benefits. As stated before, acts of Imperialism benefited one at the cost of another. The United States took up the mantle as the defender of people for not just its own citizens, but also the world. The acts of foreign intervention in Latin America for the sake of containing Communism were simply outright attacks on national sovereignty and human rights. A famous example would be a US backed 1973 overthrow of the Chilean government, putting the infamous Augusto Pinochet in power. Many other examples in the Latin Americas like that greatly limited the foreign people’s rights and yet Chile was just as democratic as the United States before the overthrow. While that was for containing Capitalism which ultimately limited freedom, an earlier example in 1954 in Guatemala would be also for Capitalist benefits. After a long revolution to put a democratic government in place, the United States staged an overthrow due to the nationalization of land that harmed the United Fruit Company. Another dictatorship was put in place while human rights were violated and genocide was attempted. The only moment where the protection of Capitalism also benefited most of the free people was the Berlin Airlift. The Korean War was only perceived as an immediate threat while the both that and the Vietnam War had the United States supporting corrupt governments that violated human rights.

        It can be ultimately stated that the goal of the United States was to defend free people- or Capitalists that is. One appeal of Capitalism however was the freedom and the lack of restriction. This was the only major part of Capitalism that actually was aligned with the definition of free people, while the rest were all about competition. The efforts of the destruction of human rights for the sake of preserving and enhancing Capitalism were directly contradictory to the simple term of freedom. Only a segment of Capitalism was about freedom, and taking that away just to benefit the elite would mean that the United States no longer supported freedom. Their intentions were to boost the economy and preserve Capitalism, but the immediate threat of Communism easily twisted perception and left out a fundamental ideal. The simple idea of freedom and rights were absolutely violated by the United States during the Cold War.

Korean War: Continuity or Change?

The Korean War was one of the first major conflicts between the two superpowers of US and USSR. It happened just half a decade after the end of WWII and was present with many themes that would apply to the rest of the Cold War. Now here's the question of whether these themes were new at the time or simply repeating. Did the Korean War represent the pattern of change or continuity?

The Korean War from June 25th, 1950 to July 27th, 1953 was an armed conflict fought between North Korea and South Korea. However, it was fought primarily between the major actors of the Cold War, including the United States, China, and the USSR. Communist North Korea, led by Kim Il-sung and backed by the USSR, attacked South Korea, led by Syngman Rhee and backed by the United States. Both leaders of each Korea wanted to unify the peninsula, but the USSR heavily supported North Korea with equipment while the US appeared to loosen their grip on South Korea by not giving as much support. This was apparent when North Korea had a highly organized government and was more successful financially and militarily compared to South Korea. It seemed like a sign for no US intervention should the north attack, and so with the support of Stalin and Mao of People's Republic of China, Kim Il-sung invaded across the 38th Parallel and swept past the inferior South Korean forces. The US proposed and managed to pass Resolution 82 in the Security Council due to the USSR's boycotting of the UN meetings, and gained the support of the UN to defend South Korea. The South Koreans have already lost most of the land to North Korea, although UN (mostly US) intervention quickly pushed back the 38th Parallel and reversed the situation to overwhelming most of North Korea. China saw the intervention as a threat to their security and with the support of USSR air force, helped North Korea push back to the 38th Parallel. After repelling another major North Korean offensive that swept across most of South Korea, the US began attempting peace talks with North Korea. The talks resulted in an armistice in 1953 that created a demilitarized zone to separate each country.

To summarize the events, both Koreas wanted to unify the peninsula. Stalin supported Kim Il-sung to invade South Korea as a part of the policy to expand Communism. The US continued their policy of containing Communism as originally part of the Truman Doctrine, although it wasn't until the beginning of the war when they realized the threat of North Korea. They sought to rebuild and unify all of Korea in their ideal, democratic methods. Mao Zedong of People's Republic of China agreed to support North Korea under the promise that the USSR would help rebuild and strengthen China alongside a Communist-unified Korea, although they were hesitant at first. It wasn't until the UN intervention when Mao viewed it as a direct threat from the US to control land directly bordering China. While the USSR supported North Korea, they were unwilling to send troops against the US to avoid direct confrontations between the two superpowers. The question of continuity or change comes with whether these themes were present here in the Cold War for the first time.

It's difficult to deny the fact that it wasn't the first time the USSR tried to expand its influence or the first time the US tried to contain any sign of Communism. It's also difficult to deny that it wasn't the first time that each tried their best to avoid direct confrontations. After WWII, Germany became a major symbol of the Cold War for a reason, while the Korean War was often known as the "forgotten war" due to the infamy of WWII and the Vietnam War before and after. Germany was split between the four victors of WWII, although it eventually was split primarily into east and west. This split was much like the Capitalist and Communist split present later in Korea's situation. Both superpowers wanted to rebuild all of Germany the way they envisioned, with the US focused on free trade while the USSR focused on establishing Communism. North Korea requested help from the USSR just like how west Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany was heavily reliant on the US and its allies.