Daniel Orr's Blog, page 81

October 30, 1941 – World War II: U.S. Congress approves $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union

On October 30, 1941, the U.S. Congress, urged on by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, approved $1 billion in Lend-Lease Aid to the Soviet Union, which at this time was reeling under the massive German offensives in Operation Barbarossa. The Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was an interest-free loan which did not have to be repaid until five years after the end of the war. The aid was passed despite anti-communist sentiment among some of the legislators.

The Lend-Lease Act was first passed on March 11, 1941 with the intent of helping Britain in its war against the Axis Powers. The act also allowed the United States to could provide weapons and other defense materials free of charge to “any country whose defense the [U.S.] President deems vital to the defense of the U.S.”  The reasoning was that providing assistance to countries facing military aggression ultimately would be in the interest of the security of the United States.

By the end of World War II, more than $50 billion in
Lend-Lease money, weapons, tanks, warplanes, and ships had been allocated to 44
countries.

(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)

The United States enters World War II In
November 1939, two months after World War II had started in Europe, the United States
declared its neutrality, which was a re-affirmation of its Neutrality Act of
1937.  The Neutrality Act maintained the United States’
long-standing position of non-involvement in European political and military
affairs.  But it also contained
provisions that favored the Western democracies, particularly Britain and France,
viewed in light of the rise of totalitarian states, e.g. Hitler’s Nazi Germany
and Stalin’s communist Soviet Union.  U.S.
foreign policy experienced a major shift in mid-1940 with Germany’s stunning victories in Western Europe,
which saw the fall in quick succession of Denmark,
Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and especially France.  Then with Germany
concentrating its efforts on the conquest of Britain,
the United States became
alarmed at the prospect that the whole of Europe
may very well come under Hitler’s control.

Although believing that Britain was doomed to fall, U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt rushed to help the government of British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill.  In September
1940, the two governments signed the “Destroyers for Bases” Agreement, where
the United States
transferred to Britain 50
old destroyers in exchange for Britain
granting the United States
long-term military leases to a number of strategic British territories in the Western Hemisphere. 
Then in March 1941, the United States permanently moved away from
neutrality when U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, where the United
States could provide weapons and other defense materials free of charge to “any
country whose defense the [U.S.] President deems vital to the defense of the
U.S.”  Armaments, food, and funds soon
arrived in Britain (and China, and later, the Soviet
Union).  The next month,
April 1941, the Pan-American Security Zone (established in October 1939) was
extended to 22° longitude to just west of Iceland.  In June 1941, following the U-boat sinking of
the American vessel, the SS Robin Moor (its crew and passengers were allowed to
board lifeboats beforehand), the U.S. government froze German assets in the
United States and ordered Germany (and Italy) to close their consulates, except
their embassies.

Finally, on December 8, 1941, the United
States entered World War II by declaring war on Japan following the attack on Pearl
Harbor.  Three days later,
December 11, Germany (and Italy) declared war on the United States; that same day, the latter
declared war on Germany (and
Italy); the United States
was now a member of the Allies.

American and British
strategic initiatives At the outset, U.S.
and British military planners agreed to concentrate most of their combined
efforts on first defeating Hitler (the “Europe First” policy) because of the
immediate danger that Germany
posed to the survival of Britain
and the Soviet Union.  By contrast, distant Japan did not directly threaten London
and Moscow.  With Germany’s
defeat, the Allies agreed to concentrate on defeating Japan.

But the two western Allies differed on the strategy for
Europe: the United States, which desired a rapid end to the war, favored an
immediate invasion of France from Britain through the English Channel, while
Britain, which saw the war in geopolitical terms, particularly with curbing
Soviet expansionism in post-war Europe, called for an invasion through the
Mediterranean region into southeastern Europe, that is, as far to the east as possible.  For British Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
an attack further east, particularly into the Balkans, would achieve
simultaneous aims: it would First, deny the Germans vital resources, especially
Romania’s oil; Second, meet up with the Soviet Red Army, and Third, allow the
Western Allies a stronger bargaining position after the war.  However, Stalin wanted the Allied invasion to
be as far to the west as possible, as he saw Eastern
Europe as falling inside his sphere of influence.

In the end, the United States went along with Britain, and
temporarily shelved its plans for a joint cross-channel invasion of France that
had been slated for 1942 and 1943, this decision influenced by the disastrous
attempt in August 1942 to seize the French port of Dieppe, where the Allies
lost 60% of its invasion force.

October 29, 1956 – Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula

On October 29, 1956, Israeli forces invaded the Sinai
Peninsula during the Suez Crisis, which pitted the alliance of Israel, Britain,
and France against Egypt for control of the Suez
Canal. The three countries had various reasons for wanting to
start the war against Egypt.  Britain
and France wanted to regain
control of the Suez Canal.  The British wanted to reassert itself in the
region.  The French were embroiled in a
colonial war in Algeria
against rebels whom they believed were being funded by President Nasser.  Israel
wanted to stop the local terrorism which it attributed to Egypt’s instigation.  Furthermore, Israeli commercial vessels were
blocked from entering the Suez Canal after Egypt seized the waterway.

In October 1956, the invasion plan had been finalized, which
was to play out this way: Israel
would invade the Sinai Peninsula, prompting Egypt to react militarily.  Britain
and France then would issue
ultimatums to Israel and Egypt to withdraw 16 miles from the Suez Canal, purportedly to prevent an escalation of the
conflict.  Britain
and France then would take
control of the Suez Canal, declaring that
their presence in the region was necessary to protect the vital waterway.

The Suez Crisis was a war between Egypt against the alliance of Britain, France, and Israel for control of the politically and economically vital Suez Canal, a man-modified shipping channel that connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

(Taken from Suez Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background The
Suez Canal in Egypt is a
man-made shipping waterway that connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian
Ocean via the Red Sea (Map 7).  The Suez Canal was completed by a French
engineering firm in 1869 and thereafter became the preferred shipping and trade
route between Europe and Asia, as it
considerably reduced the travel time and distance from the previous circuitous
route around the African continent.  Since
1875, the facility was operated by an Anglo-French private conglomerate.  By the twentieth century, nearly two-thirds
of all oil tanker traffic to Europe passed through the Suez
Canal.

In the late 1940s, a wave of nationalism swept across Egypt,
leading to the overthrow of the ruling monarchy and the establishment of a
republic.  In 1951, intense public
pressure forced the Egyptian government to abolish the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of
1936, although the agreement was yet to expire in three years.

With the rise in power of the Egyptian nationalists led by
Gamal Abdel Nasser (who later became president in 1956), Britain agreed to withdraw its military forces
from Egypt
after both countries signed the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1954.  The last British troops left Egypt
in June 1956.  Nevertheless, the
agreement allowed the British to use its existing military base located near
the Suez Canal for seven years and the possibility of its extension if Egypt
was attacked by a foreign power.  The
Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1954 and foreign control of the Suez Canal were
resented by many Egyptians, especially the nationalists, who believed that
their country was still under semi-colonial rule and not truly sovereign.

Furthermore, President Nasser was hostile to Israel,
which had dealt the Egyptian Army a crushing defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli
War.  President Nasser wanted to start
another war with Israel.  Conversely, the Israeli government believed
that Egypt was behind the
terrorist activities that were being carried out in Israel.  The Israelis also therefore were ready to go
to war against Egypt
to put an end to the terrorism.

Egypt and
Israel sought to increase
their weapons stockpiles through purchases from their main suppliers, the United States, Britain,
and France.  The three Western powers, however, had agreed
among themselves to make arms sales equally and only in limited quantities to Egypt and Israel, to prevent an arms race.

Friendly relations between Israel
and France,
however, were moving toward a military alliance.  By early 1955, France
was sending large quantities of weapons to Israel.  In Egypt,
President Nasser was indignant at the Americans’ conditions to sell him arms:
that the weapons were not to be used against Israel,
and that U.S. advisers were
to be allowed into Egypt.  President Nasser, therefore, approached the
Soviet Union, which agreed to support Egypt militarily.  In September 1955, large amounts of Soviet
weapons began to arrive in Egypt.

The United States
and Britain
were infuriated.  The Americans believed
that Egypt was falling under
the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union,
their Cold War enemy.  Adding to this
perception was that Egypt
recognized Red China.  Meanwhile, Britain
felt that its historical dominance in the Arab region was being
undermined.  The United States and Britain withdrew their earlier
promise to President Nasser to fund his ambitious project, the construction of
the massive Aswan Dam.

Egyptian troops then seized the Suez
Canal, which President Nasser immediately nationalized with the
purpose of using the profits from its operations to help build the Aswan
Dam.  President Nasser ordered the
Anglo-French firm operating the Suez Canal to leave; he also terminated the
firm’s contract, even though its 99-year lease with Egypt still was due to
expire in 12 years, in 1968.

The British and French governments were angered by Egypt’s seizure of the Suez
Canal.  A few days later, Britain and France
decided to take armed action: their military leaders met and began to prepare for
an invasion of Egypt.  In September 1956, France
and Israel also jointly
prepared for war against Egypt.

October 27, 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Nuclear war is averted when a Russian submarine does not fire its nuclear torpedoes at U.S. warships

On October 27, 1962, all-out war between the United States and the Soviet Union was averted when Soviet flotilla commander Vasily Arkhipov refused to allow the Russian submarine B-59 to fire its nuclear torpedoes at a U.S. Navy flotilla. The American flotilla, consisting of nine destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph had detected the B-59 and dropped depth charges to force the Soviet submarine to surface to be identified. The refusal by Arkhipov to retaliate by firing the B-59‘s nuclear torpedoes, as suggested by the other two senior officers aboard (agreement of all three was required), prevented the incident from escalating into an all-out nuclear war, as the United States would have reacted militarily to the B-59’s action. Instead, the Soviet submarine surfaced.

In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane detected a Soviet nuclear missile site under construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the continued presence of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a U.S. military facility located at the eastern end of Cuba, greatly infuriated Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(Taken from Cuban Missile Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background In the
nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, the United
States held a decisive edge over the Soviet
Union, both in terms of the number of nuclear missiles (27,000 to
3,600) and in the reliability of the systems required to deliver these
weapons.    The American advantage was
even more pronounced in long-range missiles, called ICBMs (Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles), where the Soviets possessed perhaps no more than a dozen
missiles with a poor delivery system in contrast to the United States that had about 170, which when
launched from the U.S.
mainland could accurately hit specific targets in the Soviet
Union.

The Soviet nuclear weapons technology had been focused on
the more likely war in Europe and therefore consisted of shorter range
missiles, the MRBMs (medium-range ballistic missiles) and IRBMs
(intermediate-range ballistic missiles), both of which if installed in Cuba,
which was located only 100 miles from southeastern United States, could target
portions of the contiguous 48 U.S. States. 
In one stroke, such a deployment would serve Castro as a powerful
deterrent against an American invasion; for the Soviets, they would have
invoked their prerogative to install nuclear weapons in a friendly country,
just as the Americans had done in Europe.  More important, the presence of Soviet nuclear
weapons in the Western Hemisphere would radically alter the global nuclear
weapons paradigm by posing as a direct threat to the United States.

In April 1962, Premier Khrushchev conceived of such a plan,
and felt that the United
States would respond to it with no more than
a diplomatic protest, and certainly would not take military action.  Furthermore, Premier Khrushchev believed that
President Kennedy was weak and indecisive, primarily because of the American president’s
half-hearted decisions during the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961,
and President Kennedy’s weak response to the East German-Soviet building of the
Berlin Wall in August 1961.

A Soviet delegation sent to Cuba met with Fidel Castro, who
gave his consent to Khrushchev’s proposal. 
Subsequently in July 1962, Cuba
and the Soviet Union signed an agreement
pertinent to the nuclear arms deployment. 
The planning and implementation of the project was done in utmost
secrecy, with only a few of the top Soviet and Cuban officials being informed.  In Cuba, Soviet technical and military
teams secretly identified the locations for the nuclear missile sites.

In August 1962, U.S.
reconnaissance flights over Cuba
detected the presence of powerful Soviet aircraft: 39 MiG-21 fighter aircraft
and 22 nuclear weapons-capable Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers.  More disturbing was the discovery of the S-75
Dvina surface-to-air missile batteries, which were known to be contingent to
the deployment of nuclear missiles.  By
late August, the U.S.
government and Congress had raised the possibility that the Soviets were
introducing nuclear missiles in Cuba.

By mid-September, the nuclear missiles had reached Cuba
by Soviet vessels that also carried regular cargoes of conventional
weapons.  About 40,000 Soviet soldiers
posing as tourists also arrived to form part of Cuba’s
defense for the missiles and against a U.S. invasion.  By October 1962, the Soviet Armed Forces in Cuba
possessed 1,300 artillery pieces, 700 regular anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks,
and 150 planes.

The process of transporting the missiles overland from Cuban
ports to their designated launching sites required using very large trucks,
which consequently were spotted by the local residents because the oversized
transports, with their loads of canvas-draped long cylindrical objects, had
great difficulty maneuvering through Cuban roads.  Reports of these sightings soon reached the
Cuban exiles in Miami, and through them, the U.S.
government.

October 26, 1991 – Slovenian War of Independence: The last Yugoslav Army units leave Slovenia

On October 26, 1991, the last Yugoslav Army units departed
from Slovenia
following the end of the three-month Brioni Peace Agreement. Slovenia (and neighboring Croatia) had declared independence from Yugoslavia
on June 25, 1991, which led to the outbreak of their independence wars. A
ceasefire was declared on July 3. Then in the Brioni Peace Agreement brokered
by the European Community and signed on July 7, 1991, Slovenia (and Croatia) agreed to defer their
independences for three months.  In
return, Yugoslavia would
cease all military operations in Slovenia
and Croatia.

The peace agreement assured Slovenia’s
independence, as the Yugoslav Army, in the following months, shifted its
attention to the independence wars in Croatia, and later,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, both of which contained large Serbian populations.  The last Yugoslav Army units departed from Slovenia
on October 26, 1991.

Slovenia
soon consolidated its sovereignty by implementing major economic programs,
which gained international approval.  In
January 1992, Slovenia’s
independence was recognized by the European Community; in May of that year, Slovenia
joined the United Nations.

Compared to the other Yugoslav Wars that followed shortly,
the Slovenian War of Independence was much less severe in terms of casualties,
atrocities, financial cost, and material damage.  When viewed on a regional scale where other
East European countries and the Soviet Union’s constituent republics were
moving away from communism and becoming independent states, Yugoslavia was faced with an
awkward position with regards to its seceding republics.

Yugoslavia’s
decision to disengage in Slovenia
was less difficult, however, in part because of Slovenia’s
near ethnic homogeneity compared to, say, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
which had greater populations of ethnic Serbs. 
Another aspect of the Slovenia’s
independence war was the Slovenian government’s meticulously planned media
strategy aimed at generating broad international sympathy and support.  As a result, the European Community exerted
diplomatic pressure on Yugoslavia
to end the war quickly.

Yugoslavia comprised six republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and Macedonia, and two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.

(Taken from Slovenian War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background The
Slovenian War of Independence was the first in a series of wars during the
period of the breakup of Yugoslavia (previous article), when Yugoslav
constituent republics seceded and became independent countries.Geographically,
Slovenia was the most westerly located republic of Yugoslavia, and had through
the centuries, assimilated many Western European influences from neighboring
Italy and Austria into its Slavic culture. 
And unlike the other Yugoslav republics, Slovenia was nearly ethnically
homogeneous, with Slovenes comprising 90% of the population.

As communist ideology tottered in the Soviet Union and
Central and Eastern Europe during the second half of the 1980s, Yugoslavia’s
apparent Slavic unity began to fragment as nationalistic and democratic ideas
seeped into its many ethnic groups. 
Economic factors also played into the independence aspirations in Slovenia and Croatia, the two most prosperous
Yugoslav republics that contributed a fairly large share to the national
economy and also subsidized the less affluent regions of the country.  In the late 1980s, the constituent assemblies
of the Yugoslav republics called on the national government to decentralize and
allow greater regional autonomy.

In September 1989, Slovenia’s regional government took
the radical step of abolishing communism and adopting democracy as its official
ideology.  Then in January 1990,
delegates of Slovenia and Croatia
walked out of an assembly of Yugoslav communists over a disagreement with
Serbian representatives regarding the future direction of the national
government.  From this moment on,
Yugoslav unity was shattered and the end of Yugoslavia became imminent.  A pro-independence coalition government was
established in Slovenia
following democratic, multi-party elections in March 1990.  Then in a general referendum held nine months
later, 88% of Slovenes voted for independence. 
On June 25, 1991, Slovenia
(together with Croatia)
declared independence.

Because of the high probability that the Yugoslav Army would
oppose the secession, the Slovenian government prepared contingency plans many
months before declaring independence. 
For instance, Slovenia
formed a small regular army from its police and local defense units.  Weapons and ammunitions stockpiles in Slovenia
were seized; these were augmented with arms purchases from foreign sources.

Nevertheless, at the start of the war, Slovenia’s war arsenal consisted
mainly of infantry weapons, bolstered somewhat with a small number of portable
anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. Slovenia had no artillery pieces,
battle tanks, or warplanes.  And because
the Yugoslav Army, the fourth largest in Europe,
would be overwhelming in battle, the Slovenians worked out in great detail a
strategy for guerilla action.

When Slovenia
declared independence on June 25, this was one day earlier than its previous
announced date of June 26.  This was done
to mislead the Yugoslav Army, which was prepared to attack on June 26.

Immediately after declaring independence, Slovenian forces
took control of the airport near Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, and the border crossings
with Austria, Hungary, Italy,
and Croatia.  No opposition was encountered in these
operations because the personnel manning these stations were Slovenes, who in
fact, promptly joined the ranks of the Slovenian Army.

Meanwhile, in Belgrade (in Serbia), the Yugoslav Armed
Forces high command ordered limited military action in Slovenia in the belief
that small-scale intervention would encounter little or no resistance.  And since the Yugoslav Army did not commit
significant forces in Slovenia, the resulting Slovenian War of Independence was
brief (lasting only ten days, therefore its more common name, “The Ten-Day
War”), and consisted of skirmishes and small-scale battles.

October 25, 1997 –Republic of the Congo Civil War: Denis Sassou Nguesso takes over Congo-Brazzaville

On October 25, 1997, Denis Sassou Nguesso took over power
and formed a new government, declaring himself the new president of the
Republic of the Congo
(also known as “Congo-Brazzaville”).  In
January 1998, he convened an assembly called the “Forum for National Unity and
Reconciliation”, which was attended by the country’s political elite (except
those who were in exile).  The Forum
reached an agreement with the following provisions: establish a three-year
transitional period before holding elections in 2001, form a transitional
legislative assembly, and draft a new constitution.

Congo-Brazzaville (officially: Republic of the Congo) are nearby countries.

(Taken from Republic of the Congo Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Background Congo-Brazzaville,
officially known as the “Republic of the Congo”, is a West African country
that gained its independence in 1960. 
The country began as a democracy, but within four years after achieving
statehood, it was leaning towards socialism and had adopted socialist
policies.    Multi-party politics were
ended, an official state political party was introduced, and the country’s
free-market capitalism was placed under state controls.  Then in 1970, Congo-Brazzaville officially
adopted Marxism as its state ideology, changed its name to the “People’s
Republic of the Congo”, and
established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union
and other communism countries.

In the early 1990s, the global political and security
climates changed dramatically, as the Soviet Union
and other East European countries shed off communism and adopted
democracy.  In 1990, Congo-Brazzaville
yielded to international pressure and moved to transition back to democracy and
multi-party politics.  Although socialist
Congo-Brazzaville emulated the Soviet Union’s centralized governmental
infrastructures, its economy continued to be largely capitalist driven, and the
government regularly took out loans from international private commercial bands
and encouraged foreign investments (particularly from France,
Congo-Brazzaville’s former colonizer) to the country in order to develop
Congo-Brazzaville’s oil and mineral resources.

Also in the early 1990s, Congo-Brazzaville was experiencing
an economic recession and the government of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso was
being accused of corruption by political critics.  In February 1991, President Sassou-Nguesso
convened the “Sovereign National Conference”, an assembly of 200 members of the
country’s political elite.  The
Conference unanimously agreed to restore democracy and establish a transitional
government to run the country until free elections could be held.

In March 1992, Congo-Brazzaville ratified a new constitution
that instituted multi-party democracy. 
Then in elections held in August 1992, former Prime Minister Pascal
Lissouba became the country’s new president, defeating the incumbent, President
Sassou-Nguesso, and the other main candidate, former President Bernard Kolelas.  These three political figures would play the
major roles in the bloody conflicts that followed.

In the legislative elections held in May 1993, President
Lissouba’s political party won a majority of the parliamentary seats, but the
two main opposition leaders, Sassou-Nguesso and Kolelas, disputed the results,
claiming that fraud had been committed to allow the ruling party to win.  As tensions rose, the three political leaders
formed armed groups along ethnic lines: President Lissouba organized the Cocoye
militia from members of his Nibolek tribe, Sassou-Nguesso formed the Cobra
militia from his Mbochi tribe, and Kolelas organized the Ninja militia from his
Lari tribe.

The country’s armed forces were also divided by ethnicity;
in particular, Sassou-Nguesso, who was a former army colonel, retained the
loyalty of some Mbochi servicemen. 
Mbochi officers also helped Sassou-Nguesso organize the Cobra
militia.  While Congo-Brazzaville had
experienced a long history of political unrest since independence, including
three violent overthrows of government and a presidential assassination, the
militarized climate generated by the 1993 elections portended the country’s
descent into greater violence.

In June 1993, fighting broke out between President
Lissouba’s Cocoye fighters and the combined forces of Cobra and Ninja
militias.  In January 1994, a truce was
signed which ended hostilities.  The
fighting caused some 5,000 mostly civilian deaths and tens of thousands of
people left without homes.  In 1994, the
Organization of African Unity and the governments of France
and Gabon
brought together the three rival political parties of Congo-Brazzaville to sign
a peace agreement, which took effect in December 1995.  The agreement contained two major
stipulations: formation in Congo-Brazzaville of a power-sharing government
consisting of the three political parties, and disarming and demobilization of
all militias.  The agreement failed to be
implemented, however.  As a result, the
militarized, confrontational climate remained, setting the stage for a
full-blown civil war.

October 24, 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: The Soviet Union condemns the U.S. for imposing a naval “quarantine” of Cuba

On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy announced in a
nationwide television broadcast to the American people the presence of nuclear
missiles in Cuba.  He also warned Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
that using the missiles against any country in the Western Hemisphere would be
equivalent to an attack against the United States,
and which would force the U.S. Armed Forces to retaliate against the Soviet Union. 
President Kennedy then called on the Soviet Union
to remove the missiles.  He also
announced a naval “quarantine” of offensive weapons into Cuba, i.e. the U.S. Navy would
seize offensive weapons before they reached the island.  The quarantine was to prevent Soviet ships
from bringing more nuclear missiles to Cuba.  President Kennedy chose to use the word
“quarantine” instead of “naval blockade” since the latter was an act of war
under international law.    Some 300 U.S.
Navy ships were tasked to enforce the quarantine.  The United States Armed Forces worldwide (except
in Europe) were placed on a higher state of
readiness.

On October 23, 1962 the United States gained the approval of
the Organization of American States (OAS), which voted 20–0 (with Cuba not
participating) to endorse the naval quarantine; a number of OAS member
countries pledged to provide soldiers, ships, logistical support, and naval
bases for the quarantine.

The Soviets reacted strongly against the naval quarantine,
with Premier Khrushchev, on October 24, calling it a violation of international
law and declaring that the blockade was an “act of aggression” that would lead
to war and that Russian warships would ignore the American “piracy”.  The Soviet leader declared that the
“armaments…in Cuba,
regardless of classification…are solely for defensive purposes…to secure Cuba
against the attack of an aggressor.” 
Escorted by submarines, Soviet freighters bound for Cuba appeared determined to ignore
the quarantine.  However, Premier
Khrushchev soon ordered the cargo ships to change course or turn back.  The next day, Adlai Stevenson, U.S Ambassador
to the United Nations, presented the U-2 aerial photographic evidence of the
nuclear missiles to the UN Security Council. 
Stevenson asked Valerian Zorin, the Soviet Ambassador to the UN, about
the missiles, but the latter refused to confirm or deny their deployment.

In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane detected a Soviet nuclear missile site under construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the continued presence of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a U.S. military facility located at the eastern end of Cuba, greatly infuriated Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(Taken from Cuban Missile Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

In August 1962, U.S.
reconnaissance flights over Cuba
detected the presence of powerful Soviet aircraft: 39 MiG-21 fighter aircraft
and 22 nuclear weapons-capable Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers.  More disturbing was the discovery of the S-75
Dvina surface-to-air missile batteries, which were known to be contingent to
the deployment of nuclear missiles.  By
late August, the U.S.
government and Congress had raised the possibility that the Soviets were
introducing nuclear missiles in Cuba.

By mid-September, the nuclear missiles had reached Cuba
by Soviet vessels that also carried regular cargoes of conventional
weapons.  About 40,000 Soviet soldiers
posing as tourists also arrived to form part of Cuba’s
defense for the missiles and against a U.S. invasion.  By October 1962, the Soviet Armed Forces in Cuba
possessed 1,300 artillery pieces, 700 regular anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks,
and 150 planes.

The process of transporting the missiles overland from Cuban
ports to their designated launching sites required using very large trucks,
which consequently were spotted by the local residents because the oversized
transports, with their loads of canvas-draped long cylindrical objects, had
great difficulty maneuvering through Cuban roads.  Reports of these sightings soon reached the
Cuban exiles in Miami, and through them, the U.S.
government.

The weight of circumstantial evidence reaching the United States prompted the Kennedy
administration to increase air reconnaissance missions over Cuba.  On October 14, 1962, a U-2 spy plane took
hundreds of photographs which, after being filtered and analyzed by the CIA, revealed
the construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio Province (Map 23) of a Soviet
nuclear missile site for MRBMs that were capable of striking within a range of
2,000 kilometers, including Washington, D.C. and the whole southeastern United
States.

On October 16, 1962, President Kennedy was informed of the
findings; he formed a panel consisting of members of the National Security
Council, or NSC (the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Secretary
of Defense, Chairman of the U.S. Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, among
others) and advisers.  This panel would
later (October 22, 1962) be officially established as the ExComm (Executive
Committee) of the NSC and tasked to formulate the United
States’ appropriate response to the Soviet missile deployment
in Cuba.

The military members of ExComm believed that the missiles
changed the strategic balance of power between the United
States and the Soviet Union, but President Kennedy and
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara disagreed, saying that the Russians already
possessed ICBMS and nuclear submarines that could target the United States, with or without the missiles in Cuba.  However, all ExComm members agreed that the
missiles changed the political balance and would damage the credibility of
President Kennedy with the American people, his western allies, and the
international community, as it would appear that the United
States was incapable of standing up to the Soviet Union.

The military members of ExComm advocated a military
solution, including air strikes to destroy the missiles before they became
ready, and a full-scale invasion of Cuba.  President Kennedy demurred, believing that
American military action might provoke the Soviets to invade West Berlin or
destroy the American Jupiter missiles in Turkey; in turn, NATO would be
forced to respond, thereby escalating the conflict into a full-blown war.  West Berlin, administered jointly by the United States, Britain,
and France, was located
within the territory of East Germany and long desired by the Soviet and East
German governments to be merged with East
Berlin, East Germany’s
capital.

ExComm unanimously agreed that the missiles must be removed.
President Kennedy authorized the military to prepare for war, although he
wanted to explore non-combat options first. 
The armed forces were placed on alert status, with 250,000 troops
transferred to Florida and Georgia; three battalions were sent to
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba
to reinforce the existing forces there. 
In the following days, more U-2 flights, including low-level aerial
reconnaissance, showed that three other missile sites were being established
and nearly completed, two of which were for IRBMs which, with a flight radius
of 4,800 kilometers, could target all of the continental United States, except
Alaska, Oregon and Washington states.

On October 18, 1962, ExComm decided to pursue one of two
options: an air strike or a naval blockade. 
The U.S. Air Force could not guarantee that American air strikes would
destroy all the missiles, however, thereby pushing most of the ExComm members
to go for a naval blockade, which also was President Kennedy’s first option.

Without revealing that he was aware of the missile
deployments, President Kennedy met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko,
who assured the American president that only Soviet defensive weapons were
being delivered to Cuba.  Many Soviet pronouncements leading up to the
delivery of the missiles had been aimed to assure the United States that no Soviet offensive weapons
would reach Cuba.
 Fidel Castro, without mentioning the
missiles, declared that Cuba
had the right to defend itself from foreign, i.e. American, aggression.

October 23, 1991 – Cambodian-Vietnamese War: Paris Peace Accords are signed

On October 23, 1991, representatives from Cambodia and Vietnam signed the Paris Peace
Accords, officially titled, “Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement
of the Cambodia Conflict”), which ended their twelve-year war.

As stipulated in the Accords, all four parties (State of
Cambodia government and the three resistance groups), formed a provisional
coalition government called the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, with
Prince Sihanouk as its president, and thus the country’s head of state.  In November 1991, Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh, with large
crowds greeting his arrival.  However,
Khieu Samphan, a high-ranking Khmer Rouge leader, was nearly killed when he
returned to Phnom Penh
by an angry mob that wanted to exact revenge for the genocidal Khmer Rouge
regime.  Then in December 1991, violent
anti-government riots and demonstrations rocked the capital, threatening the
peace process.

In November 1991, the United Nations Advance Mission in
Cambodia (UNAMIC) arrived to assist in enforcing the ceasefire.  In March 1992, the United Nations Transitional
Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), a peacekeeping force which also absorbed UNAMIC,
became operational in Cambodia, and was tasked with implementing the 1991 Paris
Peace Accords, including enforcing the ceasefire, disarming the various armed
militias, and repatriating Cambodian refugees. 
UNTAC also was given the unique mandate of administering several
Cambodian government agencies.

In May 1993, Cambodia held elections for its Constituent
Assembly (legislature), which were marred by violence as the Khmer Rouge
refused to disarm and demobilize (all other armed groups had voluntarily
disarmed to UNTAC) and set up road blocks in their controlled areas, and also
attacked ethnic Vietnamese civilians in the period before the elections.  In July 1993, the newly elected Constituent
Assembly began to work on a new constitution, which was completed and ratified
in September 1993.

Under the new constitution, the country became a
constitutional monarchy and was renamed as the “Kingdom of Cambodia”,
with Sihanouk restored as king (he first became king in 1941 but abdicated in
1955) and head of state, with a Prime Minister as the head of government.

Soon thereafter, the Khmer Rouge, isolated and abandoned by
its military backers, particularly China, started to decline in power,
with its officers and soldiers accepting the government’s offers of amnesty and
returning to the fold of the law.  Then
in April 1998, with the death of its long-time leader Pol Pot, who had been
deposed, tried and found guilty for murdering a subordinate Khmer Rouge
official, and placed under house arrest by his own commanders, the Khmer Rouge
ceased to exist.  After three decades of
war, Cambodia
was at peace.

(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)

Background of the
Cambodian-Vietnamese War On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge overthrew the
West-aligned government in Cambodia
(Cambodian Civil War, separate article), and then turned the country into a
communist state.  Nearly two weeks later,
on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and ended the
West-aligned South Vietnamese government (Vietnam War, separate article) and
later merged the two Vietnams into a single state, the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam.

In the aftermath of these communist victories, the international
community believed that the two Marxist states would establish close relations
due to their shared ideological ties. 
Instead, shortly after achieving their revolutionary victories, fighting
began to break out between their forces. 
These countries’ respective main ethnic groups, the Khmers (Cambodians)
and Vietnamese, have a long history of animosity and conflict since the 12th
century, when their ancient feudal monarchies fought over land and resources.

In the 1800s, the Vietnamese Nguyen Dynasty took control of
the Cambodian region of the Mekong Delta (present-day southernmost region of Vietnam) after
a period of settlement by ethnic Vietnamese. 
As well, the Vietnamese conquerors in Cambodia tried to replace the
Indian-influenced Khmer culture of the Cambodians with their own
Chinese-influenced Vietnamese culture.

During the period 1887-1893, France
gained control of the Indochina region, imposing direct rule or entering into
protectorate treaties that virtually turned into colonies the territories of Cambodia, Vietnam,
and Laos
(which were collectively called French Indochina).  Thereafter, the Cambodians and Vietnamese
turned their nationalist struggles against the French, sometimes forming
alliances to defeat and expel their common enemy.  Even so, Cambodians continued to harbor a
mistrust of the Vietnamese – which would become a major cause of the
Cambodian-Vietnamese War.

The revolutionary movements that eventually prevailed in Vietnam and Cambodia
(as well as in Laos)
trace their origin to 1930 when the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) was
formed.  VCP soon reorganized itself into
the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) to include membership to Cambodian and
Laotian communists into the Vietnamese-dominated movement.  The great majority of ICP Khmers were not
indigenous to Cambodia;
rather they consisted mostly of ethnic Khmers who were native to southern Vietnam, and ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia.

In 1951, the ICP split itself into three nationalist
organizations for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos respectively, i.e. Workers Party
of Vietnam, Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP), and Neo Lao Issara.  In December 1946, the Viet Minh (or League
for the Independence of Vietnam), a Vietnamese nationalist group that was
formed in World War II to fight the Japanese, began an independence war against
French rule (First Indochina War, separate article).  The Viet Minh prevailed in July 1954.  The 1954 Geneva Accords, which ended the war,
divided Vietnam into two
military zones, which became socialist North
Vietnam and West-aligned South Vietnam.  War soon broke out between the two Vietnams, with North
Vietnam supported by China
and the Soviet Union; and South Vietnam
supported by the United
States. 
This Cold War conflict, called the Vietnam War (separate article) and
which included direct American military involvement in 1965-1970, ended in
April 1975 with a North Vietnamese victory. 
As a result, the two Vietnams
were reunified, in July 1976.

Meanwhile in Cambodia,
the local revolutionary struggle ended with the 1954 Geneva Accords, which gave
the country, led by King Sihanouk, full independence from France.  The Accords also ended both French rule and
French Indochina, and independence also was granted to Laos and Vietnam.  Following the First Indochina War, most of
the Khmer communists moved into exile in North
Vietnam, while those who remained in Cambodia formed
the Pracheachon Party, which participated in the 1955 and 1958 elections.  However, government repression forced
Pracheachon Party members to go into hiding in the early 1960s.

By the late 1950s, the Cambodian communist movement
experienced a resurgence that was spurred by a new generation of young,
Paris-education communists who had returned to the country.  In September 1960, ICP veteran communists and
the new batch of communists met and elected a Central Committee, and renamed
the KPRP (Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party) as the Worker’s Party of
Kampuchea (WPK).

In February 1963, following another government suppression
that led to the arrest of communist leaders, the WPK soon came under the
control of the younger communists, led by Saloth Sar (later known as Pol Pot),
who sidelined the veteran communists whom they viewed as pro-Vietnamese.  In September 1966, the WPK was renamed the Kampuchean
Communist Party (KCP).

The KCP and its members, as well its military wing, were
called “Khmer Rouge” by the Sihanouk government.  In January 1968, the Khmer Rouge launched a
revolutionary war against the Sihanouk regime, and after Sihanouk was overthrown
in March 1970, against the new Cambodian government.  In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge triumphed and
took over political power in Cambodia,
which it renamed Democratic Kampuchea.

During its revolutionary struggle, the Khmer Rouge obtained
support from North Vietnam,
particularly through the North Vietnamese Army’s capturing large sections of
eastern Cambodia,
which it later turned over to its Khmer Rouge allies.  But the Khmer Rouge held strong
anti-Vietnamese sentiment, and deemed its alliance with North Vietnam only as a temporary expedient to
combat a common enemy – the United
States in particular, Western capitalism in
general.  The Cambodian communists’
hostility toward the Vietnamese resulted from the historical domination by
Vietnam of Cambodia during the pre-colonial period, and the perception that
modern-day Vietnam wanted to
dominate the whole Indochina region.

Soon after coming to power, the Khmer Rouge launched one of
history’s most astounding social revolutions, forcibly emptying cities, towns,
and all urban areas, and sending the entire Cambodian population to the
countryside to become peasant workers in agrarian communes under a feudal-type
forced labor system.  All lands and
properties were nationalized, banks, schools, hospitals, and most industries,
were shut down.  Money was
abolished.  Government officials and
military officers of the previous regime, teachers, doctors, academics,
businessmen, professionals, and all persons who had associated with the Western
“imperialists”, or were deemed “capitalist” or “counter-revolutionary” were
jailed, tortured, and executed.  Some 1½
– 2½ million people, or 25% of the population, died under the Khmer Rouge
regime (Cambodian Genocide, previous article).

In foreign relations, the Khmer Rouge government isolated
itself from the international community, expelling all Western nationals,
banning the entry of nearly all foreign media, and closing down all foreign
embassies.  It did, however, later allow
a number of foreign diplomatic missions (from communist countries) to reopen in
Phnom Penh.  As well, it held a seat in the United Nations
(UN).

The Khmer Rouge was fiercely nationalistic and xenophobic,
and repressed ethnic minorities, including Chams, Chinese, Laotians, Thais, and
especially the Vietnamese.  Within a few
months, it had expelled the remaining 200,000 ethnic Vietnamese from the
country, adding to the 300,000 Vietnamese who had been deported by the previous
Cambodian regime.

October 22, 1947 – Indian-Pakistani War of 1947: Kashmiri Muslims break out in revolt

On October 22, 1947, when rumors surfaced that Kashmir would merge with India, Kashmiri Muslims in the state’s western regions broke out in rebellion.  The rebels soon were joined by Pakistani fighters who entered the Kashmiri border from Pakistan.  The rebels and Pakistanis seized the towns of Muzzafarabad and Dommel where they disarmed the Kashmiri troops, who thereafter also joined the rebels.

Within a few days, the rebellion had spread to Baramula and
threatened Srinagar, Kashmir’s
capital.  The Kashmiri ruler fled to India, where he
pleaded with the Indian government for military assistance.  The Indians agreed on the condition that
Kashmir be merged with India,
to which the Kashmiri ruler gave his consent. 
Soon thereafter, Kashmir’s status as a
sovereign state ended.  On October 27,
1947, Indian forces arrived in Srinagar
and expelled the rebels, who by this time, had entered the capital.

India and Pakistan. Diagram shows India and the two “wings” of Pakistan (West Pakistan and East Pakistan) on either side. Kashmir, the battleground during the Indian-Pakistani War of 1947, is located in the northern central section of the Indian subcontinent.

(Taken from Indian-Pakistani War of 1947 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background On
August 15, 1947, the new state of Kashmir (Map 1) found itself geographically
located next to India and Pakistan, two
rival countries that recently had gained their independences after the
cataclysmic partition of the Indian subcontinent.  Fearing the widespread violence that had
accompanied the birth of India
and Pakistan, the Kashmiri
monarch, who was a Hindu, chose to remain neutral and allow Kashmir
to be nominally independent in order to avoid the same tragedy from befalling
his mixed constituency of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs.

Pakistan
exerted diplomatic pressure on Kashmir, however, as the Pakistani government
had significant strategic and economic interests in the former Princely State. 
Most Pakistanis also shared a common religion with the overwhelmingly
Muslim Kashmiri population.  India also nurtured ambitions on Kashmir and
wanted to bring the former Princely
State into its sphere of
influence.  After Kashmir gained back its
sovereignty, the British colonial troops departed; consequently, Kashmir was left only with a small native army to enforce
peace and order.

October 21, 1983 – U.S. Invasion of Grenada: The U.S. is asked to intervene in Grenada

On October 21, 1983, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean
States asked the United States
to intervene militarily in Grenada,
fearing that the political instability in that island could spread across the Caribbean region. 
The United States Armed Forces then revised its plan from an evacuation
to include an invasion of Grenada.

Diagram showing location of Grenada in the Caribbean Sea and just north of the South American mainland. Grenada consists of the main island (Grenada) and six very small islands located in its northern and southern ends.

The U.S.
military identified three targets for the invasion: Point Salines, Pearls Airport
in Grenville, and St. George’s.  Just before dawn on October 25, 1983, a
battalion of U.S. Rangers was airdropped at the Point Salines
Airport construction
site.  The soldiers succeeded in taking
control of the facility.  The Rangers
originally were planned to be landed by plane; the plan was aborted when U.S.
reconnaissance detected that the airport runway was littered with
obstacles.  The anti-aircraft gunfire
from the Grenadian defenses was silenced by strikes from U.S. helicopter
gunships.  The U.S. Rangers soon secured
and cleared the Point
Salines Airport
site, allowing American planes to land more troops, weapons, and supplies.

(Taken from U.S. Invasion of Grenada – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background Grenada is a small island country located in the southeastern section of the Caribbean Sea (Map 36).  In 1974, the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom and thereafter experienced a period of political unrest starting with the contentious general elections of 1976.  After the 1976 elections, a government was formed, which imposed repressive policies to curb political opposition and dissent.  Then on March 13, 1979, communist politicians staged a coup that overthrew the government.

A socialist government was formed led by Maurice Bishop, who
took the position of prime minister.  The
new government opened diplomatic relations with communist countries.  In particular, Grenada
became allied with Cuba and
the Soviet Union, and supported their foreign
policy initiatives.  Prime Minister
Bishop dissolved the Grenadian constitution, banned elections and multi-party
politics, and suppressed free expression and all forms of dissent.

The government began many social and economic projects,
which ultimately proved successful.  For
instance, sound financial policies allowed Grenada’s economy to grow and
reduce the country’s dependence on imported goods.  The government made major advances in
upgrading the educational system, health care, and socialized housing
programs.  Public infrastructure projects
were implemented.

Despite being officially socialist, the Grenadian government
maintained its traditional ties to the West. 
Grenada retained its British Commonwealth membership, with Queen Elizabeth II
as its symbolic head of state, and the British-inherited position of Governor
General being maintained.  Western
foreign investments were encouraged, and investors from the United States, the United
Kingdom, and Canada – among other countries –
operated freely in the islands.  Foreign
tourists, who brought in substantial revenues to the local economy, were welcomed
by the Grenadian government.

However, hardliners in Grenada’s communist party (called
the New Jewel Movement) disagreed with Prime Minister Bishop’s double-sided
policies.  They demanded that he step
down from office or agree to rule jointly with staunch communist party
members.  Prime Minister Bishop rejected
both suggestions.  On October 12, 1983,
the communist hardliners overthrew the government in a coup, and Prime Minister
Bishop and other high-ranking government officials were arrested and jailed.  A military council was formed to rule the
country.

Widespread
street protests and demonstrations broke out as a
result of the coup, as Prime Minister Bishop was extremely popular with the
people.  The protesters demanded that
Bishop be set free.  Bishop’s military
captors acquiesced, and released the ex-prime minister.  But in the ensuing chaos, government troops
opened fire on the protesters, killing perhaps up to a hundred persons.  Bishop and other top government officials
were rounded up and executed by firing squad.

The U.S.
administration of President Ronald Reagan, following the events in Grenada with grave concern, believed that Cuba had
planned the overthrow of Prime Minister Bishop’s moderately socialist
government in order to install a staunchly communist regime.  The United
States believed that Cuba
would then take full control of Grenada.  Four years earlier in 1979, when the
Grenadian communists took over power, U.S.
president Jimmy Carter’s government had moved diplomatically to isolate Grenada by stopping U.S. military support and
discouraging Americans from travelling there.

But President Reagan took an aggressive approach against Grenada: he ordered joint military exercises and
mock amphibious operations in U.S.-allied countries in the Caribbean
region.  He also warned of Soviet-Cuban
expansionism in the Western Hemisphere.  Of particular concern to President Reagan was
the construction of an airport at Point Salines at the southern tip of Grenada, which the U.S. military believed would be a
Soviet airbase because its extended runway could land big, long-range Russian
bombers.  The U.S.
government surmised that the Soviets planned to use Grenada
as a forward base to supply communists in Central America, i.e. the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua and
the communist rebels in El Salvador
and Guatemala.  Increasing the Americans’ suspicion was the
presence of Cuban construction workers at the Point Salines site – after the
war, the U.S.
military learned that these were Cuban Army soldiers.

However, the Grenadian government insisted that the Point
Salines facility would be used as an international airport for commercial
airliners.  As diplomatic relations
deteriorated between the United States
and Grenada, President
Reagan ordered the evacuation of American citizens living in Grenada, the majority of whom were the 800
medical students enrolled at the American-owned
St. George’s University.  The U.S. government feared for the
safety of the students, as the Grenadian Army had posted soldiers at the school
grounds and a nighttime curfew had been imposed on the island, with a
shoot-to-kill order imposed against violators. 
As commercial flights to Grenada
were cancelled already, President Reagan decided that the U.S. Armed Forces
should implement the evacuation.

October 20, 1962 –Sino-Indian War: Chinese forces launch simultaneous offensives in Aksai Chin and the North-East Frontier Agency

Fighting broke out on October 20, 1962, with Chinese forces
launching offensives in two main sectors: in the eastern sector (North-East
Frontier Agency; NEFA) north of the McMahon Line, and in the western sector in
Aksai Chin.  Some fighting also occurred
in the Nathu La Pass, Sikkim near the China-India border.  The Chinese government called the operation a
“self-defensive counterattack”, implying that India had started the war by
crossing north of the McMahon Line.

(Taken from Sino-Indian War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)

Background In the 19th century, the British and Russian Empires were locked in a political and territorial rivalry known as the Great Game, where the two powers sought to control and dominate Central Asia.  The Russians advanced southward into territories that ultimately would form the present-day countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, while the British advanced northward across the Indian subcontinent.  By the mid-1800s, Britain had established full control over territories of British India and the Princely States (present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh).  Just as it did with the Russians regarding British territories in northwest India, the British government sought to establish its territorial limits in the east with the other great regional power, China.  British authorities particularly wanted to delineate British India’s boundaries in Kashmir in the north with China’s Xinjiang Province, as well as British India’s borders in the east with Tibet (a semi-autonomous state under Chinese suzerainty), thereby establishing a common British India-China border across the towering Himalaya Mountains. 

In 1865, the Survey of India published a boundary for Kashmir that included the 37,000 square-kilometer Aksai
Chin region (Figure 43), a barren, uninhabited high-altitude (22,000 feet)
desert containing salt and soda flats. 
However, this delineation, called the Johnson Line (named after William
Johnson, a British surveyor), was rejected by the British government.

In 1893, a Chinese official in Kashgar proposed to the
British that the Laktsang Range serve as the British India-China border, with
the Lingzi Tang Plains to its south to become part of Kashmir and Aksai Chin to
its north to become part of China.  The proposal found favor with the British,
who in 1899, drew the Macartney-MacDonald Line (named after George Macartney,
the British consul-general in Kashgar and Claude MacDonald, a British
diplomat), which was presented to the Chinese government.  The latter did not respond, which the British
took to mean that the Chinese agreed with the Line.  Thereafter, up until about 1908, British maps
of India
featured the Macartney-MacDonald Line (Figure 44) as the China-India
border.  However, by the 1920s, the
British published new maps using the Johnson Line as the Kashmir-Xinjiang
border.

Similarly, British authorities took steps to establish
British India’s boundaries with Tibet
and China.  For this purpose, in 1913-1914, in a series
of negotiations held in Simla (present-day Shimla in northern India), representatives from China, Tibet,
and British India agreed on the territorial limits between “Outer Tibet” and British India. 
Outer Tibet
was to be formed as an autonomous Tibetan polity under Chinese suzerainty.  However, the Chinese delegate objected to the
proposed border between “Outer Tibet” and “Inner Tibet”, and walked out of the
conference.  Tibetan and British
representatives continued with the conference, leading to the Simla Accord
(1914) which established the McMahon Line (named after Henry McMahon, the
Foreign Secretary of British India). In
particular, some 80,000 square kilometers became part of British
India, which later was administered as the North-East Frontier
Agency (NEFA).  The Tawang area, located
near the Bhutan-Tibet-India junction, also was ceded to British
India and would become a major battleground in the Sino-Indian
War.

The Chinese government rejected the Simla Accord, stating
that Tibet, as a political
subordinate of China,
could not enter into treaties with foreign governments.  The British also initially were averse to
implementing the Simla Accord, as it ran contrary to the 1907 Anglo-Russian
Convention which recognized China’s
suzerainty over Tibet.  But with Russia
and Britain
agreeing to void the 1907 Convention, the British established the McMahon Line
(Figure 44) as the Tibet-India border. 
By the 1930s, the British government had begun to use the McMahon Line
in its British Indian maps.

In August 1947, British rule in India
ended with the partition of British India into the independent countries of India and Pakistan.  Meanwhile, for much of the first half of the
20th century, China convulsed in a multitude of conflicts: the Revolution of
1911 which ended 2,000 years of imperial rule; the fracturing of China during
the warlord era (1916-1928); the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria
in 1931, and then of other parts of China in 1937-1945; and the Chinese Civil
War (1927-1949) between Communist and Nationalist forces.  By 1949, communist forces had prevailed in
the civil war and in October of that year, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the
Communist Party of China, proclaimed the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The government of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was
among the first in the international community to recognize the PRC, and in the
years that followed, sought to cultivate strong Indian-Chinese relations.

In the early 1950s, a series of diplomatic and cultural
exchanges between India and China led in April 1954 to an eight-year agreement
called the Panchsheel Treaty (Sanskrit, panch, meaning five, and sheel, meaning
virtues), otherwise known as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which
was meant to form the basis for good relations between India and China.  The Panscheel five principles are: mutual respect
for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression;
mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and
cooperation for mutual benefit; and peaceful co-existence.  The slogan “Indians and Chinese are brothers”
(Hindi: Hindi China bhai bhai) was popular and Prime Minister Nehru advocated a
Sino-Indian “Asian Axis” to serve as a counter-balance to the American-Soviet
Cold War rivalry.

However, the poorly defined India-China border would
overcome these attempts to establish warm bilateral relations.  From the outset, India
and China
claimed ownership over Aksai Chin and NEFA. 
India released maps
that essentially duplicated the British-era maps which showed both areas as
part of India.  China likewise claimed sovereignty
over these areas, but also stated that as it had not signed any border treaties
with the former British Indian government, the India-China border must be
resolved through new negotiations.

Two events caused Sino-Indian relations to deteriorate
further.  First, in the 1950s, China built a road through Aksai Chin that
linked Xinjiang and Tibet.  Second, in 1959, in the aftermath of a failed
Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation forces in Tibet, the Indian government provided refuge in India for the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s
political and spiritual leader.  Earlier
in 1950, China had invaded
and annexed Tibet.  The Indian government had hoped that Tibet would remain an independent state (and a
buffer zone between India
and China, as it had been in
the colonial era), but in the early 1950s period of friendly Sino-Indian
relations, India did not
oppose Chinese military action in Tibet.