AP Euro Today Jan. 14 • Reviewing 755-61: The Congress of Vienna Crossword! Use your reading notes, text and a study buddy to solve as many clues as you can! • Class Notes: Cold War containment theory and how it’s similar to the Congress System • HW: 761-64. Those Darned Isms The Congress System (1815-48) vs. the American containment system (1945-90) A quick word on terms… •The “Concert of Europe” • (Austria, Russia, Prussia, later, France) 1. How were Containment and the Congress System similar? ? 1. Both the Congress System and Containment were aimed at maintaining peace in a Europe been torn apart by wars—wars carried out by ambitious dictators. 2. And, most important… Both systems were aimed at stopping the spread of “dangerous” ideas. The Congress System—led by Austria’s Metternich—hated everything about the new ideas that came out of the French Revolution •Liberalism •Nationalism •Socialism It’s almost as if, if it was modern… •Metternich hated it! •And he would use military force to stop threatening new ideas. Why stop new ideas? One reason: The U.S., too, would use its military power to stop communism from spreading. • So, another similarity: In both systems, military force would be sued to stop these new ideologies from taking hold. The most familiar example of using force to stop communism under containment policy? This was part of the policy of Containment, begun by President Truman in 1945, guided America and its allies for 45 years. •Containment was aimed at stopping the spread of Soviet communism. Europe, 1945 “Iron Curtain” Nations, 1945 So, these years of Containment— of trying to contain Communism-1945 to 1990 • Were the years of the “Cold War,” a constant state of near war between the Soviet Union and the United States. • That’s why my generation’s so weird—we lived under the threat of nuclear war with the communists. • Now, let’s get to those notes questions… Here’s what many Americans feared: • The communists had taken over eastern Europe in 1945—might not they eventually try to do the same to the United States? • You can see this fear of communism throughout American culture in the 1950s and 1960s. So, both the Congress System and Containment… • Were aimed at halting the spread of ideologies (political philosophies) that were seen as dangerous. • Containment, again, was dedicated to containing (stopping the spread of) communism. It’s helpful to me… • To visualize both the Congress System, or Concert of Europe, and the term you’ll learn today— Containment—as alliances of nations that acted kind of international “cops.” 2. In what nations was the Congress system first applied to stop the new “isms?” ? Congress powers sent in troops to end liberal revolts in The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Spain. (Spanish Flag Fish) • In both cases, revolutionaries wanted to replace monarchies with representative democracies. Why were these revolts put down? •Metternich saw liberalism and nationalism as dangerous to order and peace--and these ideas were contagious. 3. How were both Containment and the Congress System successful? ? The good news: Under both containment and The Congress System Major wars were averted! They were a success! This is really good news in the 20th century because a “major war” would’ve looked like THIS—from a test explosion of a nuclear bomb… 4. Then why did both of these systems generate tremendous resentment? ? Hey, what if your country wanted to try out some of those new “isms?” People who wanted to try out the new “isms” after 1815 or during the Cold War years Saw the Congress powers— or the United States—as, essentially, bullies— especially when those powerful nations intervened militarily. This map illustrates American military intervention in Latin American since 1945— because we feared communist influence there. Another example: Our troubles with Iran… • Go back to 1953, when the U.K. and the U.S. overthrew a democraticallyelected socialist leader and replaced him with a dictator—the Shah or Iran, a staunch anti-communist. 5. What year signaled the end of the Congress System? What kind of system replaced it? ? After a huge wave of European revolutions in 1848, the Congress System end with a wave of revolutions—Metternich would be one of that year’s victims. The Congress System would be replaced by a Balance of Power System where two powerful European alliances would be formed to keep the peace Balance of Power? Using my fight to explain the term… So, a “Balance of Power…” • …means that, in self-defense, nations will seek alliances to discourage the “Bad Guys” from attacking. 6. What even ended the (relative) peace Europe had enjoyed since 1815 (Thanks to the Congress System and, later, the Balance of Power System)? ? But the balance of power system failed spectacularly when World War I broke out in 1914: A 99-year peace ended in a catastrophe that would kill 8 million men. 7. Why did Soviet-style communism itself help to bring and end to the Cold War—and the need for Containment policy? ? By the mid 1980s… • The cracks in the façade of Russian communism began to show because of the inefficiency and hardship that accompanied communist economies… A Quick Summary of the Communist economic system: •Da! •Nyet! Another way to show you why communism failed? • Shopping at an American grocery store. • Shopping at a 1970s grocery store in the Soviet Union. So the Cold War—and the need to contain communism-ended in 1989-90… • Because Soviet-style communism collapsed. It could not meet the needs of its own citizens. Your job: • Turn to a partner and take turns explaining your answers to each other—one person takes the oddnumbered questions, the other the evens. • Then begin the HW in your McKay text. Just one more…