US Intervention in Third World Countries - Book Report/Review Example

Asia Contemporary global issues have a large effect on the overall relations between nations. Additionally, these relations extend to affect the way that conflicts are resolved, and any inappropriate conflict resolution method can easily lead to a worse situation and further degeneration of world peace. Overall, there are various internal politics that form the core of any international intervention of whatever kind. While in some instances it is for the betterment of the society in question, in other instances it leads to devastation and turns out to be retrogressive.

Both of these instances are touched on in Arne Westad’s The Global Cold War. In Creating the Third World: The United States Confronts Revolution, the author outlines the economic, political, and even social conditions that the US was in, and that facilitated its intervention into the third world environment, a forte that was mainly for the European countries1. This was especially after the Second World War, and most nations were just from major combat and it was a major opportunity for the US to capitalize on the cold war and essentially lay a firm ground for political as well as economic domination.

This was generally disguised as being a defensive intervention since the security and propensity of the American people was a sure way of earning their support in any activity. Consequently, the US intervention was a well-orchestrated move that ultimately resulted in creating a third world environment and subsequently resulting in a shift in the dynamics of international politics2. The negative bit was in the radicalization that came along with the formation of the third world, and this was made worse by the solidarity that this new bloc had.

While the plans went well most of the areas targeted by Washington, Cuba, and Vietnam proved to be challenging as they failed to conform to the preset expectations of the master plan. While both the US and Soviet Russia had agendas up their sleeves with respect to the cold war, Cuba and Vietnam were the main forces behind activism that threw these agendas into jeopardy3. This ultimately led to the Vietnam War, which greatly exposed American susceptibility to attack especially since Vietnam was a third-world country while the US was the world superpower.

In Between a River & a Mountain, the author takes a similar approach and looks at the politics that characterized the post-World War II era. Particular focus is on US politics after the Second World War, and how its agenda shaped the political landscape, leading to the cold war and even resulting in the Vietnam War4. Economics also played a very vital role in the different decisions that the US took during this period, as it is economic might that enabled it to implement most of the founding ideologies that laid the ground for its long-term agenda5.

The article profiles the buildup of US politics, touching on almost all the periods and all the leaders and their major decisions. Essentially, Between a River & a Mountain is an insightful look into the shaping of the labor environment of the US from a time of world chaos up to a time when the world gains some form of control and a sense of direction. BibliographyWestad, Odd. The Global Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Wehrle, Edmund. Between a River & a Mountain. Michigan: University of Michigan, 2005.