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\pdfinfo{/Title (Berlin Cold War Crisis)
/Author (Holden Rohrer and Radeen Dixon)}
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{\fourteenbf Centennial High School Model UN Conference}

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{\twentyfourbf Berlin Cold War Crisis Committee Background Guide}
}
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{\it
Chair: Radeen Abree

Co-chair: Holden Rohrer
}

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\headline{\vbox{%
    \line{Cold War Crisis\hfil MiniMUN\hfil April 16, 2021}
    \hrule
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\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