Unit Three: National Sovereignty and Collective Security

Overview

A priority of any national government is to protect national sovereignty. Both internal actions and external events will affect impact a nation's sovereignty and the well-being of its people. At times, nations find it necessary to seek arrangements with other nations to ensure their respective security. Nations, that do not share common ideologies, values and agendas, are sometimes forced to seek alliances, to address a common and compelling danger.

This unit will examine:

• the major political and military events associated with the Second World War, in particular, the nature of the wartime alliance of Western democracies and the Soviet Union;
• the differing postwar political agendas of the Western democracies and the Soviet Union which led to a global-wide struggle;
• particular events of the Cold War including the development of the atomic bomb, the formation of rival alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Berlin Blockade, the Chinese Revolution, the Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis; and,
• how the nuclear threat, inherent in superpower confrontation, was to significantly affect the decision making and foreign policies choices made by the major powers.

The alliance of western democracies and the communist Soviet Union, formed to resist Hitler, was not an alliance based on trust and shared values. It was an alliance of necessity. The alliance existed to secure the national sovereignty of its members. To accomplish this, the members had to join to defeat the Axis Powers.

This unit will explore the nature of that wartime alliance noting that beyond the goal of defeating Hitler, there was no commonality of political goals/agendas among the members. As the War neared its end, the political agendas/goals of the members re-emerged and ultimately led to the dissolution of the alliance. The new post-war relationship between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, particularly the United States, was to greatly influence international affairs in the following decades.

The Cold War, from its beginning in the latter years of World War II to the Khrushchev era, serves as the historical context for this unit. The ideological contest between the superpowers influenced the major international events of that period. The development of the atomic bomb, the formation of the United Nations, the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Chinese Revolution, the Korean War, and the nuclear threat inherent in a superpower confrontation, are some of the major developments investigated in this unit.

Unit Three: Foundation Objectives

Concept: National Sovereignty and Collective Security

Knowledge Objectives The student will:

• Know that an essential and traditional function of government is to protect society and its territory from invasion or interference by other peoples.
• Know that a nation and its leadership's response to international events/conditions will reflect domestic considerations.
• Know that genocide is a plan to destroy an entire distinct population.
• Know that nations sometimes claim primary influence over a geographic area that they consider of strategic importance to their well-being.
• Know that each nation will identify certain factors which are deemed to be essential to the security and well-being of the nation.
• Know that contemporary events/emergencies can temporarily supersede or submerge outstanding points of contention between nations.
• Know that nations sometimes perceive that their security/sovereignty can be best secured through the mechanisms of alliances or membership in international organizations dedicated to preserving the integrity of their member states.
• Know that nations sometimes view their national sovereignty as being threatened by their membership in collective security organizations.

Skills The student will:

• Learn and practise the following analytical skills:
• defining the main parts;
• describing cause and effect relationships; and,
• describing how the parts of the whole are related to each other.
• Learn and practise applying criteria as a basis for making evaluations.
• Learn and practise defining a problem, stating a hypothesis that can be used to deal with the problem, and finding data that will confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis.
• Learn and practise using facts, good argumentation, and sound reasoning to support your opinions.
• Learn and practise using the criteria of paradigms as a basis for making evaluations.

Value Issues The student will discuss:

• Whether there are there situations/conditions that may confront a democratic society in which civilian authorities should become subservient to military authorities?
• Whether there are circumstances such as national emergencies that justify the curtailing the civil rights of a segment of a nation's population?
• Whether a particular nation has the moral right to impose its political values on another nation by intruding on the sovereignty of that nation?
• What criteria should national leaders apply in making decisions which impact on the lives of their citizens and the citizens of other nations?
• Whether a nation's media should be dependent/controlled by a nation's government during national crises?

Core Material for Unit Three

Core Content	Core Concepts	Suggested Time Allotment
Leadership and National Decision Making Responses to the Outbreak of the War Poland: Blitzkreig and Total War The War in Eastern Europe: Operation Barbarossa The Final Solution: Racial Genocide	Leadership Decision Making Total War Holocaust Attrition	4 hours
The Allies: An Alliance of Necessity Growing Mistrust: Differing Agendas The Atomic Bomb and the Alliance Collective Security and the United Nations	Political Expediency Ideology Collective Security National Sovereignty	4 hours
The Iron Curtain and the End of the Grand Alliance Truman Doctrine: The Policy of Containment The Cold War: The Asian Theatre	Public Opinion Containment Alliances Military Deterrence	5 hours
Khrushchev and Peaceful Co-existence Eastern Europe: Resistance to Communism Spheres of Influence: Hungary	Peaceful Co-existence Spheres of Influence	3 hours

Time to cover the core material	16 hours
Time available to teach optional concepts, to enrich or reinforce, or to accommodate modifications to the pacing and timing factors through the use of the Adaptive Dimension	4 hours
Total class time	20 hours

The core material appears in bold type on the pages that follow. The remainder of the material in this unit is not core; teachers may choose to work through all, some or none of these items. This material should be seen as an opportunity to individualize instruction for students with different levels of intellectual ability and motivation. Teachers may also choose to substitute locally developed material in optional areas where it is appropriate. Such material should reflect community interests and must also meet the concepts, skills, and Values Objectives

of the course.