From 8ea9c8fc9ada2f8031b10d7dfb1a132a2ecf33e1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Holden Rohrer <hr@hrhr.dev>
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2021 02:19:57 -0500
Subject: created this nicely formatted background guide; didn't do the writing

---
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+\nopagenumbers
+\let\oldinput\input
+\input color %blue links!
+\let\input\oldinput % color tries to redefine input
+
+\def\anysplit#1{%
+  \ifx#1\relax\let\next\relax\else
+    #1\discretionary{}{}{}\let\next\anysplit
+  \fi
+  \next
+}
+
+\def\link#1#2{%
+  \leavevmode
+  \pdfstartlink
+    user{/Subtype /Link
+    /Border [ 0 0 0 ]
+    /A <<
+      /Type /Action
+      /S /URI
+      /URI (#2)
+    >>}%
+    {\tt \color{blue} \anysplit #1\relax}%
+  \pdfendlink
+}
+
+\def\selflink#1{\link{#1}{#1}}
+
+%% the godly `pre`
+
+\def\pre#1{\par\leavevmode\llap{\hbox to \parindent{\hfil #1 \hfil}}}
+
+\newcount\item
+\long\def\list#1{
+{\item=0%
+\def\li{\advance\item by 1\pre{\number\item.}}
+#1}}
+
+\input font.tex
+\input toc.tex
+
+\def\bf{\fam\bffam\bftext}
+\def\it{\fam\itfam\ittext}
+\def\rm{\fam0\rmtext}
+\def\tt{\fam\ttfam\tttext}
+\font\largerm=cmss10 at 24pt
+\font\largebf=cmssbi10 at 24pt
+\font\largezz=cmssbxo10 at 24pt
+\font\largeit=cmssi10 at 24pt
+\def\large{\let\bftext\largebf\let\ittext\largeit\let\rmtext\largerm\rm}
+\font\etrm=cmr10 at 12pt
+\font\etbf=cmb10 at 12pt
+\font\etit=cmmi10 at 12pt
+\font\ettt=cmtt10 at 12pt
+\def\text{\let\bftext\etbf\let\ittext\etit\let\rmtext\etrm\let\tttext\ettt\rm}
+\font\sectionfont=cmb10 at 18pt
+
+\spacing=180\text
+
+\pdfinfo{/Title (Berlin Cold War Crisis)
+/Author (Holden Rohrer and Radeen Dixon)}
+\pdfcatalog{%
+/PageLabels << /Nums [ 0 << /S /r >>
+                       1 << /S /D >>
+                     ]
+            >>
+/PageMode /UseOutlines
+}
+
+% Cover page
+{\leftskip.5in plus 1fil\rightskip\leftskip\parfillskip0pt\parindent0pt%
+\large\spacing150
+{\parskip 0pt plus .2fil
+Centennial High School Middle School Model UN Conference
+
+\leavevmode\pdfximage width 4.5in{logo.png}\pdfrefximage\pdflastximage
+
+{\bf Berlin Cold War Crisis Committee Background Guide}
+}
+\vfil
+
+\leftskip0pt
+
+{\it
+Chair: Radeen Abree
+
+Co-chair: Holden Rohrer
+}
+
+\eject
+}
+
+% Main content
+\pageno=1
+\headline{\vbox{%
+    \line{Cold War Crisis\hfil MiniMUN\hfil April 16, 2021}
+    \hrule
+}}
+
+\def\thesection#1{\vfil\eject\noindent{\sectionfont
+    #1}\medskip}
+\def\thesubsection#1{\vskip0pt plus .1fil\goodbreak
+    \vskip0pt plus -.1fil{\bf #1}}
+
+\section{Letter from the Chairs}
+
+\noindent Dear Delegates,
+
+We, Holden and Radeen, are pleased and excited to be your dais for the
+Berlin Cold War crisis committee.
+Radeen is a junior at Centennial High School, and has been practicing
+his rhetoric with Model UN since 6th grade.
+His favorite subject is biology, where he hopes to continue doing
+research after he graduates.
+When he's not studying the cutting edge of DNA processing, Radeen
+rock-climbs, goes on hikes, and plays the guitar.
+This is his second year at MiniMUN.
+
+Holden is a senior at Centennial High School, and he has been doing
+Model UN since 7th grade.
+He will attend Georgia Tech next year for CS and Mathematics, as a
+continuation of his Dual Enrollment studies.
+Holden runs on the Centennial Cross-Country and Track teams and likes to
+cook and code in his free time.
+This will also be his second year with MiniMUN.
+% write more!!!
+
+This crisis will look at the opening of the Cold War with the Berlin
+Blockade as well as some of the crises that occurred afterward.
+This was an exciting time in history that raised many uncertainties,
+including the status of Germany after World War II and the future of
+relations between communist Eastern Europe and capitalist Western
+Europe.
+Would they engage in peaceful competition, all-out war, or something in
+between?
+As the delegates in this committee, you will be responsible for
+negotiating a solution to the many crises that emerged as World War II
+ended and a Cold War began.
+Whether these relations remain peaceful or gradually degenerate into war
+will be up to you and your actions!
+
+\bigskip
+{\obeylines\parindent0pt
+Best,
+\medskip
+{\spacing120
+Radeen Abree
+Crisis Director, Cold War Crisis, MiniMUN
+\link{radeen.abree@icloud.com}{mailto:radeen.abree@icloud.com}
+\medskip
+Holden Rohrer
+Co-Director, Cold War Crisis, MiniMUN
+\link{hr@hrhr.dev}{mailto:hr@hrhr.dev}
+\link{https://hrhr.dev}{https://hrhr.dev}
+}
+}
+
+\vfil\eject
+\toc
+
+\section{About the Committee}
+
+This committee is composed of various officials and representatives from
+both the West and the East.
+All delegates will be meeting in a secure and secret location within
+Berlin.
+As far as the outside world is aware, this committee does not exist;
+only those at the highest level in your respective governments are aware
+of its existence.
+Your actions will have a direct result on your respective government's
+course of action.
+As a result, you may assume that any directives passed by the committee
+will have a direct impact.
+
+Crisis notes may be addressed to your respective governments or agencies
+and personnel under your command or control.
+For example, if you are a general you may order your troops through
+crisis notes.
+Additionally, multiple delegates may collaborate on a crisis note.
+However, this will be limited to two to four delegates.
+Any more than that and the directive should instead be passed as a
+committee directive.
+For example, if France and Britain wanted to coordinate their
+militaries, the two or more delegates responsible for this would both
+have to sign off on this note.
+
+\section{Topic Background}
+
+In August 1945, nuclear explosions rocked Japanese cities Nagasaki and
+Hiroshima, finally ending the Second World War.
+World peace, however, was never to be restored.
+Soon after the unconditional surrender of Axis powers Japan, Germany,
+and Italy, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union
+broke out.
+In the race to become the most powerful and secure countries, the two
+world powers fought to expand their ideological spheres of influence as
+far as they could, in diplomacy, combat, and propaganda.
+
+Three years later on June 24, 1948, the Soviets imposed a blockade in
+the Committee composed of various officials and representatives from
+both the West (the United States, France, and the United Kingdom) and
+the East (the Soviet Union and its client states).
+While some politicians on both sides advocated for extreme measures, the
+goal of this committee to reach a compromise regarding the many crises
+of the period that would later be referred to as the Cold War.
+With the threat of nuclear war still lingering, delegates must see if a
+compromise can be reached between the communist-dominated east and the
+capitalist-dominated west.
+
+\section{Historical Context}
+
+\subsection{Tehran Conference}
+
+The leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United
+States met between November 28 and December 1, 1943 in Tehran, Iran to
+discuss further actions that needed to be taken against the Axis powers.
+The Big Three's leaders, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, attended the
+Tehran Conference to effectively negotiated and agree on war strategies
+to defeat Nazi Germany.
+For example, at the height of the war, the three agreed that a second
+front needed to be opened in Western Europe.
+This would divert German forces from their hold on Northern France, to
+relieve some of the stress on the exhausted Soviet troops.
+The delay in opening the Western front contributed to Stalin's distrust
+of the Western powers and sowed the seeds of the Cold War.
+Although the Tehran Conference succeeded in making significant war
+changes, this conference represents the last significant meeting between
+the Big Three that displayed mutual goals among the Allies.
+
+\subsection{Morgenthau Plan}
+
+By the end of the Second World War, the Allied powers were adamant to
+never allow Germany to rise to the power or status it had before and
+during the war.
+To ensure that Germany would never be a threat, the Allied forces began
+a rigorous process of demilitarization and deindustrialization.
+The original plan was that Germany would be partitioned into two
+separate and independent states.
+Additionally, the Saar Protectorate, the Ruhr, and Upper Silesia, the
+main German centers of mining and industry, were to be either
+internationalized or occupied by bordering countries.
+Furthermore, all heavy industries within those regions were to be
+demolished.
+At the Second Quebec Conference in 1944, Roosevelt and the US Secretary
+of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. convinced Churchill to accept the
+plan with the help of the Lend-Lease agreement.
+However, Churchill made amendments to the plan, and the version with his
+amendments was the one signed.
+The plan's main aim was to turn Germany into a predominantly agrarian
+and pastoral state.
+In September 1946, the US government formally discarded the Morgenthau
+Plan, after Secretary of State James Francis Byrnes' ``Restatement of
+Policy on Germany'' speech.
+The four occupational zones that Germany was split into replaced the
+idea.
+
+\subsection{The Iron Curtain}
+
+On March 5, 1946, Churchill delivered a speech at Westminster College in
+the United States, claiming that Stalin was building up his belt of
+satellite states.
+Russia had been heavily invaded twice in the same century, and Stalin
+wanted to secure its borders completely.
+The West, however, saw this as part of his expansionist policy of
+spreading communism throughout the world.
+Churchill remarked, ``an Iron Curtain has descended across the
+continent''
+and that the The entire area was under Moscow's influence.
+The territory of the Eastern Bloc marked the Iron Curtain.
+The Soviet Union had already seized Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.
+By 1945, eastern Poland, parts of eastern Finland, Northeast Prussia, and Northern Romania were also taken.
+From 1945 onwards, Stalin also annexed The German Democratic Republic, the People's Republics of Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic became Soviet-dependent states.
+Many of these states joined the economic and military coalitions called COMECON and the Warsaw Pact.
+To the west of the Iron Curtain lay northern, southern, and western Europe.
+All of these regions were run under market economies.
+Apart from brief authoritarian rule in Portugal, Spain, and Greece, all of these countries were democracies.
+The ideological split on either side of the Curtain became a tangible
+reality, frightening to communist, capitalist, and third world countries
+alike.
+
+
+\section{Current Situation}
+
+Presently Europe is grappling with a multitude of issues.
+In the aftermath of World War II, much of the most productive farmland
+in Europe is devastated, factories lie in ruins, and without
+reconstruction, its future looks bleak.
+Starvation and food shortages are a real concern, and there is a
+continuing debate over whether or not to restore Germany to prosperity.
+From the perspective of the Soviet Union, they have been invaded by
+Germany twice over the past 30 years, resulting in some of the largest
+wars and battles in human history.
+From this standpoint, there is a deep fear in allowing Germany to
+rebuild and maintain the industry that has enabled it to launch these
+wars in the first place.
+France is another country with a history of conflict with Germany and
+they also fear allowing Germany to rebuild its massive industrial power.
+Consequently, France has expressed its desire to maintain control of
+Saarland and for the internationalization of the Ruhr industrial area to
+de-fang Germany.
+At the same time, others in the US administration favor a strong and
+prosperous Germany as a check against communist expansion.
+
+While the allies have made agreements in the past regarding the
+prosecution of war criminals there has been discord over how far
+denazification should go.
+The Soviets who suffered the most are in favor of harsh measures, while
+the US is more lenient and generally looking for a way to pragmatically
+govern Germany.
+
+At the same time, there are concerns for the future of Europe.
+Some believe that a future World War could be prevented by tying
+countries together through trade agreements that would make war
+illogical.
+However, at the same time, there is a deep ideological divide between
+capitalism and communism, where capitalist countries fear the spread of
+communism.
+While the US has articulated the desire for self-determination and
+democracy for all countries within Europe, the Soviet Union desires the
+expansion of communism and fears allowing the development of potentially
+hostile states on the borders.
+Therefore, the Soviet Union has sought to retain its influence over the
+countries it has liberated from the Nazis during World War II.
+
+These disagreements have culminated in the Soviet decision to blockade
+Berlin and cut off all land routes to the city as of yesterday, or June
+24, 1948.
+Militarily speaking, the situation favors the Soviets.
+Their army is quite large and experienced, having reformed and fought
+its way from Moscow to Berlin.
+The American army, on the other hand, has shrunk dramatically as a
+result of demobilizing, and many of its veteran troops have returned to
+civilian jobs in America.
+At the same time, America is presently the only nuclear power in the
+world.
+While it is not known how many nuclear weapons America possesses, it is
+believed to be anywhere from just a dozen to over a hundred.
+France and Britain continue to maintain significant armies as well,
+however, their armies are also caught up in the struggles of
+decolonization and at the moment they continue to have significant
+detachments stationed abroad.
+This leaves open the question of how the present crisis will be decided,
+as well as how to tackle the underlying divisions between capitalist
+Western Europe and communist Eastern Europe.
+
+\section{Questions to Consider}
+
+\list{
+\li What will be the future of Germany? Will it be one state, two, or
+many?
+\li How should denazification be handled? What should the economic
+future of Germany look like? Should a harsh approach be adopted, or
+should a more lenient approach be taken?
+\li How can a balance of power be constructed in Europe to prevent
+another World War?
+\li For the Soviet Union, how can they achieve security from the
+possibility of another invasion such as occurred during WWII? What
+measures might be necessary to achieve this?
+\li For the Western European countries, how can they prevent the spread
+of communism and secure themselves from Soviet influence?
+\li What will be the future of relations between Communist states and
+Capitalist states, will they be peaceful, or will it be war?
+\li If Europe is to be divided between communist area and capitalist
+areas, how will it be divided? Will the agreements made at the end of
+WWII be respected, or should they be changed? 
+\li Should any new agreements be negotiated governing nuclear weapons
+and their use?
+\li How will Yugoslavia fit into these agreements? Will it be communist,
+capitalist, or something else?
+}
+
+\section{Bibliography}
+
+\emergencystretch=.1in
+
+The Tehran Conference, 1943 - 1937–1945 - Milestones - Office of the
+Historian. N.p., n.d. Web.  21 Jan. 2016.
+\selflink{https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/tehran-conf}.
+
+Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.
+\selflink{https://web.archive.org/web/20130531235410/%
+http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box31/t297a01.html}.
+
+The Yalta Conference, 1945 - 1937–1945 - Milestones - Office of the
+Historian. N.p., n.d. Web.  21 Jan. 2016.
+\selflink{https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/yalta-conf}.
+United Nations. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.
+\selflink{https://web.archive.org/web/20030303022458/%
+http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/17604.htm}.
+
+The Potsdam Conference, 1945 - 1937–1945 - Milestones - Office of the
+Historian. N.p., n.d.  Web. 21 Jan. 2016.
+\selflink{https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/potsdam-conf}.
+
+Avalon Project - Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the
+Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers; June 5, 1945. N.p.,
+n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.
+\selflink{http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/ger01.asp}.
+
+``Sinews of Peace." Westminster College, Fulton, MO. 5 Mar. 1946. Web.
+
+\bye
-- 
cgit 

