document_title: Declaration of war by the United States

question_text: congress has formally declared war times in u.s. history

text: Declaration of war by the United States

text: History[edit]

text: The United States has formally declared war against foreign nations five separate times, each upon prior request by the President of the United States. Four of those five declarations came after hostilities had begun.[3] James Madison reported that in the Federal Convention of 1787, the phrase "make war" was changed to "declare war" in order to leave to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks but not to commence war without the explicit approval of Congress.[4] Debate continues as to the legal extent of the President's authority in this regard. Public opposition to American involvement in foreign wars, particularly during the 1930s, was expressed as support for a Constitutional Amendment that would require a national referendum on a declaration of war.[5] Several Constitutional Amendments, such as the Ludlow Amendment, have been proposed that would require a national referendum on a declaration of war.

text: After Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in January 1971 and President Richard Nixon continued to wage war in Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (Pub.L. 93–148) over the veto of Nixon in an attempt to rein in some of the president's claimed powers. The War Powers Resolution proscribes the only power of the president to wage war which is recognized by Congress.[6]

text: Declarations of war[edit]

text: Formal[edit]

text: The table below lists the five wars in which the United States has formally declared war against eleven foreign nations.[7] The only country against which the United States has declared war more than once is Germany, against which the United States has declared war twice (though a case could be made for Hungary as a successor state to Austria-Hungary).

text: In World War II, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Germany and Italy, led respectively by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, declared war on the United States, and the U.S. Congress responded in kind.[8][9]

text:
War
Declaration
Opponent(s)
Date of declaration
Votes
President
Result

Senate
House

War of 1812
Declaration of War upon the U.K.
 United Kingdom
June 18, 1812
19–13
79–49
James Madison
Treaty of Ghent (December 24, 1814)

Mexican–American War
"An Act providing for the Prosecution of the existing War between the United States and the Republic of Mexico."[10]
 Mexico
May 13, 1846
40–2
173–14
James K. Polk
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848)

Spanish–American War
Declaration of War upon Spain
 Spain
April 25, 1898
42–35
310–6
William McKinley
Treaty of Paris (December 10, 1898)

World War I
Declaration of War upon Germany
 Germany
April 6, 1917
82–6
373–50
Woodrow Wilson
Treaty of Berlin (August 25, 1921)

Declaration of War upon Austria-Hungary[11][12]
 Austria-Hungary
December 7, 1917
74–0
365–1
1921 U.S.–Austrian Peace Treaty (August 24, 1921), 1921 U.S.-Hungarian Peace Treaty (August 29, 1921)

World War II
Declaration of War upon Japan
 Japan
December 8, 1941
82–0
388–1
Franklin D. Roosevelt
V-J Day, Japanese Instrument of Surrender (September 2, 1945), Treaty of San Francisco (September 8, 1951)

Declaration of War upon Germany
 Germany
December 11, 1941
88–0
393–0
V-E Day, German Instrument of Surrender (May 8, 1945), Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (September 12, 1990), Treaty of Vienna with Austria (May 15, 1955)

Declaration of War upon Italy
 Italy
90–0
399–0
Paris Peace Treaty (February 10, 1947)

Declaration of War upon Bulgaria
 Bulgaria
June 5, 1942
73–0
357–0

Declaration of War upon Hungary[11]
 Hungary
360–0

Declaration of War upon Romania[11]
 Romania
361–0

text: Undeclared wars[edit]

text: Military engagements authorized by Congress[edit]

text: In other instances, the United States has engaged in extended military combat that was authorized by Congress.

text:
War or conflict
Opponent(s)
Initial authorization
Votes
President
Result

Senate
House

Quasi-War
 France
An Act further to protect the commerce of the United States
July 9, 1798
18–4

John Adams
Treaty of Mortefontaine

First Barbary War
 Morocco
 Tripolitania

February 6, 1802[13]

Thomas Jefferson
War ended 1805

Second Barbary War
 Algiers
May 10, 1815[14]

James Madison
War ended 1816

Enforcing 1808 slave trade ban; naval squadron sent to African waters to apprehend illegal slave traders
 Slave traders and pirates
"Act in addition to the acts prohibiting the Slave Trade" 1819

James Monroe
1822 first African-American settlement founded in Liberia, 1823 U.S. Navy stops anti-trafficking patrols

Redress for attack on U.S. Navy's USS Water Witch
 Paraguay
1858.[15]

James Buchanan

Mexican Revolution

United States occupation of Veracruz

 Mexico
H.J.R. 251, 38 Stat. 770
April 22, 1914

337–37
Woodrow Wilson
Force withdrawn after six months. However, the Joint Resolution was likely used to authorize the Pancho Villa Expedition. In the Senate, "when word reached the Senate that the invasion had gone forward before the use-of-force resolution had been approved, Republicans reacted angrily" saying it was a violation of the Constitution, but eventually after the action had already started, a resolution was passed after the action to "justify" it since Senators did not think it was a declaration of war.[16][17]

Russian Civil War

Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

 Commune of Estonia
 Far Eastern Republic
 Latvia
 Mongolian People's Party
 Russia
 Ukraine

1918[18]

Woodrow Wilson

Lebanon crisis of 1958
 Lebanese Opposition

 Al-Mourabitoun
 Lebanese Communist Party
 Progressive Socialist Party

H.J. Res. 117, Public Law 85-7, Joint Resolution "To promote peace and stability in the Middle East", March 9, 1957[19]
72–19
355–61
Dwight D. Eisenhower
U.S. forces withdrawn, October 25, 1958

Vietnam War

Laotian Civil War

Cambodian Civil War

 China
National United Front of Kampuchea

 Khmer Rouge
 Khmer Rumdo
 Khmer Việt Minh

 North Korea
 North Vietnam
 Pathet Lao
 South Vietnam

Việt Cộng

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, August 7, 1964
88–2
416–0
Lyndon B. Johnson
U.S. forces withdrawn under terms of the Paris Peace Accords signed January 27, 1973

Multinational Force in Lebanon
Shia and Druze militias; Syria
S.J.Res. 159
Pub.L. 98–119
September 29, 1983
54–46
253–156
Ronald W. Reagan
Forces withdrawn in 1984

Persian Gulf War
 Iraq
H.J.Res. 77
January 12, 1991.
52–47
250–183
George H.W. Bush
The United Nations Security Council drew up terms for the cease-fire, April 3, 1991

War in Afghanistan

Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan
Operation Freedom's Sentinel

al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen

Yemeni Civil War

Somali Civil War

Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa

War in North-West Pakistan

Moro conflict

Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines

Iraqi Civil War

Operation Inherent Resolve

Syrian Civil War

Operation Inherent Resolve

Second Libyan Civil War

 Afghanistan

Quetta Shura

Taliban

Haqqani network
Mullah Dadullah Front

 al-Qaeda

055 Brigade
Al-Nusra Front

Khorasan group

al-Qaeda Emirate in Yemen

Aden-Abyan Islamic Army
Islamic Jihad of Yemen

al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Ansar al-Sharia

al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
Lashkar al-Zil

 Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya
 Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
 Islamic Jihad Union
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar
Jundallah
Lashkar-e-Islam
 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
 Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
 Turkistan Islamic Party
 Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan

 High Council of the Islamic Emirate
 Fidai Mahaz

 al-Itihaad al-Islamiya
 Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia
 Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahedeen
 Hizbul Islam
 Islamic Courts Union
 Jabhatul Islamiya
 Mu'askar Anole
 Ras Kamboni Brigades

 Abu Sayyaf
 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters
 Islamic State
 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
 Maute group
 Khalifa Islamiyah Mindanao

S.J. Res. 23
September 14, 2001
98–0
420–1
George W. Bush

Iraq War[20]
 Iraq
H.J. Res. 114,
March 3, 2003
77–23
296–132
George W. Bush
Ba'athist Iraqi government deposed April 2003. U.S. combat operations ended August 31, 2010. War ended December 15, 2011. Destabilization of Iraq and emergence of ISIL in the region 2011–present.[21]

text: Military engagements authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolutions and funded by Congress[edit]

text: In many instances, the United States has engaged in extended military engagements that were authorized by United Nations Security Council Resolutions and funded by appropriations from Congress.

text:
Military engagement
Opponent(s)
Initial authorization
President
Result

Korean War
 China
 North Korea
 Soviet Union

UNSCR 84, 1950
Harry S. Truman
Korean Armistice Agreement,[22] 1953

Multinational Force in Lebanon
Shia militias, Druze militias, Syria
UNSCR 425, 1978
UNSCR 426, 1978

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan
U.S. forces withdrew in 1984

Persian Gulf War
 Iraq
UNSCR 678, 1990
George H. W. Bush
UNSCR 689, 1991

Bosnian War
 Republika Srpska
UNSCR 770, 1992
UNSCR 776, 1992
UNSCR 836, 1993
Bill Clinton
Reflagged as IFOR in 1995, Reflagged as SFOR in 1996, Completed in 2004

Second Liberian Civil War
Peacekeeping
UNSCR 1497, 2003
George W. Bush
U.S. forces are withdrawn in 2003 after the UNMIL is established.

Haitian coup d'état
UNSCR 1529, 2004
UNSCR 1542, 2004

2004

First Libyan Civil War

2011 military intervention in Libya

Operation Odyssey Dawn
Operation Unified Protector

 Libya
UNSCR 1973, 2011
Barack Obama
Debellation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, October 31, 2011

text: Other undeclared wars[edit]

text:
Military engagement
Opponent(s)
President
Result

American Revolutionary War
 Great Britain

Quebec
Loyalists

German auxiliaries

 Hesse-Kassel
 Hesse-Hanau
 Hanover
 Waldeck
 Brunswick
 Ansbach
 Anhalt-Zerbst

Native Americans[23]

 Iroquois Confederacy

None
Peace of Paris

text: On at least 125 occasions, the President has acted without prior express military authorization from Congress.[24] These include instances in which the United States fought in the Philippine–American War from 1898–1903, in Nicaragua in 1927, as well as the NATO bombing campaign of Yugoslavia in 1999, and the 2017 missile strikes on Syria.

text: The United States' longest war was fought between approximately 1840 and 1886 against the Apache Nation. During that entire 46-year period, there was never more than 90 days of peace.[citation needed]

text: The Indian Wars comprise at least 28 conflicts and engagements. These localized conflicts, with Native Americans, began with European colonists coming to North America, long before the establishment of the United States. For the purpose of this discussion, the Indian Wars are defined as conflicts with the United States of America. They begin as one front in the American Revolutionary War in 1775 and had concluded by 1918. The United States Army still maintains a campaign streamer for Pine Ridge 1890–1891 despite opposition from certain Native American groups.[25]

text: The American Civil War was not an international conflict under the laws of war, because the Confederate States of America was not a government that had been granted full diplomatic recognition as a sovereign nation by other sovereign states.[26][27] The CSA was recognized by the United States government as a belligerent power, a different status of recognition that authorized Confederate warships to visit non-U.S. ports. This recognition of the CSA's status as a belligerent power did not impose any duty upon the United States to recognize the sovereignty of the Confederacy, and the United States never did so.[citation needed]

text: The War Powers Resolution[edit]

text: In 1973, following the withdrawal of most American troops from the Vietnam War, a debate emerged about the extent of presidential power in deploying troops without a declaration of war. A compromise in the debate was reached with the War Powers Resolution. This act clearly defined how many soldiers could be deployed by the President of the United States and for how long. It also required formal reports by the President to Congress regarding the status of such deployments, and limited the total amount of time that American forces could be deployed without a formal declaration of war.

text: Although the constitutionality of the act has never been tested, it is usually followed, most notably during the Grenada Conflict, the Panamanian Conflict, the Somalia Conflict, the Persian Gulf War, and the Iraq War[clarification needed]. The only exception was President Clinton's use of U.S. troops in the 78-day NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.[citation needed] In all other cases, the President asserted the constitutional authority to commit troops without the necessity of Congressional approval, but in each case the President received Congressional authorization that satisfied the provisions of the War Powers Act.

text: On March 21, 2011, a number of lawmakers expressed concern that the decision of President Barack Obama to order the U.S. military to join in attacks of Libyan air defenses and government forces exceeded his constitutional authority because the decision to authorize the attack was made without Congressional permission.[28] Obama explained his rationale in a two-page letter, stating that as commander in chief, he had constitutional authority to authorize the strikes, which would be limited in scope and duration, and necessary to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Libya.


document_title: Mind your Ps and Qs

question_text: what does the saying mind your p's and q's mean

question_tokens: what does the saying mind your p 's and q 's mean

root

text: Mind your Ps and Qs

text: Look up mind one's ps and qs in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

tag: table

text: Mind your Ps and Qs is an English expression meaning "mind your manners", "mind your language", "be on your best behaviour" or similar.

tag: p

text: Attempts at explaining the origin of the phrase go back to the mid-19th century. One explanation favoured in a letter to the editors of Notes and Queries dated 1851, as well as by the Oxford English Dictionary upon their revision of the relevant entry in 2007, is literal interpretation of the saying, concerning the distinction of the lowercase letters p and q in the context of the school-room or the printing-office.[1] As noted by W. D. Henkle in Educational Notes and Queries in 1876, in this case the proper spelling of the phrase should be "note your p's and q's", because the distinction of majuscule P and Q does not pose a problem.[2]

text: Nevertheless, a number of alternative explanations have been considered as more or less plausible. Another explanation suggests that "Ps and Qs" is short for "pleases" and "thank-yous", the latter of which contains a sound similar to the pronunciation of the name of the letter "Q". Another proposed origin is from the English pubs and taverns of the 17th century. Bartenders would keep a watch on the alcohol consumption of the patrons; keeping an eye on the pints and quarts that were consumed. As a reminder to the patrons, the bartender would recommend they "mind their Ps and Qs".[3] This may also have been a reminder to bartenders not to confuse the two units, written as "p" and "q" on the tally slate.[4]

text: Other origin stories, some considered "fanciful",[4] could come from French instructions to mind one's pieds (feet) and queues (wigs) while dancing. However, there is no French translation for this expression.[5] Another origin could be from sailors in the 18th century who were reminded to pay attention to their peas (pea coat) and queues (pony tail).[5]

text: Another proposal concerns the use of Norman French in medieval England; as the English dialect of the 11th century had no qs,[dubious – discuss] one must watch their usage in court or discourse with the French Norman conquerors. [6][dubious – discuss]

text: Quinion cites an apparently related expression of pee and kew for "highest quality" used in 17th-century English.[7]


document_title: Iron Curtain

question_text: what country was divided by the iron curtain

question_tokens: what country was divided by the iron curtain

text: Iron Curtain

text: Pre–Cold War usage[edit]

text: Various usages of the term "iron curtain" (Russian: Железный занавес Zheleznyj zanaves; German: Eiserner Vorhang; Georgian: რკინის ფარდა Rkinis pharda; Czech and Slovak: Železná opona; Hungarian: Vasfüggöny; Romanian: Cortina de fier; Italian: Cortina di ferro; Serbian: Гвоздена завеса Gvozdena zavesa; Estonian: Raudne eesriie; Bulgarian: Желязна завеса Zhelyazna zavesä) pre-date Churchill's use of the phrase. The concept goes back to the Babylonian Talmud of the 3rd to 5th centuries CE, where Tractate Sota 38b refers to a "mechitza shel barzel", an iron barrier or divider: "אפילו מחיצה של ברזל אינה מפסקת בין ישראל לאביהם שבשמים" (Even an iron barrier cannot separate [the people of] Israel from their heavenly father).

text: The term "iron curtain" has since been used metaphorically in two rather different senses – firstly to denote the end of an era and secondly to denote a closed geopolitical border. The source of these metaphors can refer to either the safety curtain deployed in theatres (the first one was installed by the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1794[8]) or to roller shutters used to secure commercial premises.[9]

text: The first metaphorical usage of "iron curtain", in the sense of an end of an era, perhaps should be attributed to British author Arthur Machen (1863–1947), who used the term in his 1895 novel The Three Impostors: "...the door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the brief passage of my life".[10] It is interesting to note the English translation of a Russian text shown immediately below repeats the use of "clang" with reference to an "iron curtain", suggesting that the Russian writer, publishing 23 years after Machen, may have been familiar with the popular British author.

text: Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians used the term "Iron Curtain" in the context of World War I to describe the political situation between Belgium and Germany in 1914.[11]

text: The first recorded application of the term to Communist Russia, again in the sense of the end of an era, comes in Vasily Rozanov's 1918 polemic The Apocalypse of Our Times, and it is possible that Churchill read it there following the publication of the book's English translation in 1920. The passage runs:

text: With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, an iron curtain is lowering over Russian History. "The performance is over." The audience got up. "Time to put on your fur coats and go home." We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing.[12]

text: (Incidentally, this same passage provides a definition of nihilism adopted by Raoul Vaneigem,[13] Guy Debord and other Situationists as the intention of situationist intervention.)

text: The first English-language use of the term iron curtain applied to the border of communist Russia in the sense of "an impenetrable barrier" was used in 1920 by Ethel Snowden, in her book Through Bolshevik Russia.[14][15]

text: G.K. Chesterton used the phrase in a 1924 essay in The Illustrated London News. Chesterton, while defending Distributism, refers to "that iron curtain of industrialism that has cut us off not only from our neighbours' condition, but even from our own past".[16]

text: The term also appears in the 1933 satirical novel England, Their England; used there to describe the way an artillery barrage protected the infantry from an enemy assault: "...the western sky was a blaze of yellow flame. The iron curtain was down". Sebastian Haffner used the metaphor in his book Germany: Jekyll & Hyde, published in London in 1940, in introducing his discussion of the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933: "Back then to March 1933. How, a moment before the iron curtain was wrung down on it, did the German political stage appear?"[17]

text: All German theatres[when?] had to install an iron curtain (eiserner Vorhang) as an obligatory precaution to prevent the possibility of fire spreading from the stage to the rest of the theatre. Such fires were rather common because the decor often was very flammable. In case of fire, a metal wall would separate the stage from the theatre, secluding the flames to be extinguished by firefighters. Douglas Reed used this metaphor in his book Disgrace Abounding: "The bitter strife [in Yugoslavia between Serb unionists and Croat federalists] had only been hidden by the iron safety-curtain of the King's dictatorship".[18]

text: A May 1943 article in Signal, a Nazi illustrated propaganda periodical published in many languages, bore the title "Behind the Iron Curtain". It discussed "the iron curtain that more than ever before separates the world from the Soviet Union".[7] The German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote in his weekly newspaper Das Reich that if the Nazis should lose the war a Soviet-formed "iron curtain" would arise because of agreements made by Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference: "An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered".[6][19] The first recorded oral intentional mention of an Iron Curtain in the Soviet context occurred in a broadcast by Lutz von Krosigk to the German people on 2 May 1945: "In the East the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward".[20]

text: Churchill's first recorded use of the term "iron curtain" came in a 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind".[21] He was further concerned about "another immense flight of the German population westward as this enormous Muscovite advance towards the centre of Europe".[21] Churchill concluded "then the curtain will descend again to a very large extent, if not entirely. Thus a broad land of many hundreds of miles of Russian-occupied territory will isolate us from Poland".[21][22]

text: Churchill repeated the words in a further telegram to President Truman on 4 June 1945, in which he protested against such a U.S. retreat to what was earlier designated as, and ultimately became, the U.S. occupation zone, saying the military withdrawal would bring "Soviet power into the heart of Western Europe and the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything to the eastward".[23] At the Potsdam Conference, Churchill complained to Stalin about an "iron fence" coming down upon the British Mission in Bucharest.

text: The first American print reference to the "Iron Curtain" occurred when C.L. Sulzberger of The New York Times first used it in a dispatch published on 23 July 1945. He had heard the term used by Vladko Maček, a Croatian politician, a Yugoslav opposition leader who had fled his homeland for Paris in May 1945. Maček told Sulzberger, "During the four years while I was interned by the Germans in Croatia I saw how the Partisans were lowering an iron curtain over Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] so that nobody could know what went on behind it".[24]

text: The term was first used in the British House of Commons by Churchill on 16 August 1945 when he stated "it is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain".[25]

text: Allen Dulles used the term in a speech on 3 December 1945, referring to only Germany, following his conclusion that "in general the Russians are acting little better than thugs", had "wiped out all the liquid assets", and refused to issue food cards to emigrating Germans, leaving them "often more dead than alive". Dulles concluded that "[a]n iron curtain has descended over the fate of these people and very likely conditions are truly terrible. The promises at Yalta to the contrary, probably 8 to 10 million people are being enslaved".[citation needed]

text: During the Cold War[edit]

text: Building antagonism[edit]

text: The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that came to be described as the "iron curtain" had various origins.

text: During the summer of 1939, after conducting negotiations both with a British-French group and with Nazi Germany regarding potential military and political agreements,[26] the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (which provided for the trade of certain German military and civilian equipment in exchange for Soviet raw materials)[27][28] and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (signed in late August 1939), named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries (Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop), which included a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between the two states.[29][30]

text: The Soviets thereafter occupied Eastern Poland (September 1939), Latvia (June 1940), Lithuania (1940), northern Romania (Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, late June 1940), Estonia (1940) and eastern Finland (March 1940). From August 1939, relations between the West and the Soviets deteriorated further when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany engaged in an extensive economic relationship by which the Soviet Union sent Germany vital oil, rubber, manganese and other materials in exchange for German weapons, manufacturing machinery and technology.[31][32] Nazi-Soviet trade ended in June 1941 when Germany broke the Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

text: In the course of World War II, Stalin determined[citation needed] to acquire a buffer area against Germany, with pro-Soviet states on its border in an Eastern bloc. Stalin's aims led to strained relations at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) and the subsequent Potsdam Conference (August 1945).[33] People in the West expressed opposition to Soviet domination over the buffer states, and the fear grew that the Soviets were building an empire that might be a threat to them and their interests.

text: Nonetheless, at the Potsdam Conference, the Allies assigned parts of Poland, Finland, Romania, Germany, and the Balkans to Soviet control or influence. In return, Stalin promised the Western Allies that he would allow those territories the right to national self-determination. Despite Soviet cooperation during the war, these concessions left many in the West uneasy. In particular, Churchill feared that the United States might return to its pre-war isolationism, leaving the exhausted European states unable to resist Soviet demands. (President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced at Yalta that after the defeat of Germany, U.S. forces would withdraw from Europe within two years.)[34]

text: Iron Curtain speech[edit]

text:
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Iron Curtain Speech

text: Winston Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College, used the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe:

text: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.[35]

text: Much of the Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the recent defeat of Nazi Germany and of Japan. Although not well received at the time, the phrase iron curtain gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War strengthened. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out, and people throughout the West eventually came to accept and use the metaphor.[36]

text: Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address was to strongly criticise the Soviet Union's exclusive and secretive tension policies along with the Eastern Europe's state form, Police State (Polizeistaat). He expressed the Allied Nations' distrust of the Soviet Union after the World War II. In September that year, US-Soviet Union cooperation collapsed due to the US disavowal of the Soviet Union's opinion on the German problem in the Stuttgart Council, and then followed the announcement by US President, Harry S. Truman, of a hard line anti-Soviet, anticommunist policy. After that the phrase became more widely used as anti-Soviet term in the West.[37]

text: In addition, Churchill mentioned in his speech that regions under the Soviet Union's control were expanding their leverage and power without any restriction. He asserted that in order to put a brake on this ongoing phenomenon, the commanding force of and strong unity between the UK and the US was necessary.[38]

text: Stalin took note of Churchill's speech and responded in Pravda soon afterward. He accused Churchill of warmongering, and defended Soviet "friendship" with eastern European states as a necessary safeguard against another invasion. He further accused Churchill of hoping to install right-wing governments in eastern Europe with the goal of agitating those states against the Soviet Union.[39] Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's chief propagandist, used the term against the West in an August 1946 speech:[40]

text: Hard as bourgeois politicians and writers may strive to conceal the truth of the achievements of the Soviet order and Soviet culture, hard as they may strive to erect an iron curtain to keep the truth about the Soviet Union from penetrating abroad, hard as they may strive to belittle the genuine growth and scope of Soviet culture, all their efforts are foredoomed to failure.

text: Political, economic and military realities[edit]

text: Eastern Bloc[edit]

text: While the Iron Curtain remained in place, much of Eastern Europe and parts of Central Europe (except West Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria) found themselves under the hegemony of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union annexed:

text:
Estonia,[41][42]
Latvia[41][42]
Lithuania[41][42]

tag: ul

text: as Soviet Socialist Republics within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

text: Germany effectively gave Moscow a free hand in much of these territories in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, signed before Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

text: Other Soviet-annexed territories included:

text:
Eastern Poland (incorporated into Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs),[43]
Part of eastern Finland (became part of the Karelo-Finnish SSR)[44]
Northern Romania (part of which became the Moldavian SSR).[45][46]
Kaliningrad Oblast, the northern half of East Prussia, taken in 1945.

text: Between 1945 and 1949 the Soviets converted the following areas into Soviet satellite states:

text:
The German Democratic Republic[47]
The People's Republic of Bulgaria
The People's Republic of Poland
The Hungarian People's Republic[48]
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic[49]
The People's Republic of Romania
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania[50] (which re-aligned itself in the 1960s away from the Soviet Union and towards the People's Republic of China)

text: Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which retained its full independence.

text: The majority of European states to the east of the Iron Curtain developed their own international economic and military alliances, such as COMECON and the Warsaw Pact.

text: West of the Iron Curtain[edit]

text: To the west of the Iron Curtain, the countries of Western Europe, Northern Europe and Southern Europe – along with Austria, West Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland – operated market economies. With the exception of a period of fascism in Spain (until 1975) and Portugal (until 1974) and a military dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974), democratic governments ruled these countries.

text: Most of the states of Europe to the west of the Iron Curtain – with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Malta and Republic of Ireland – allied themselves with the United States and Canada within NATO. Economically, the European Community and the European Free Trade Association represented Western counterparts to COMECON. Most of the nominally neutral states were economically closer to the United States than they were to the Warsaw Pact.[citation needed]

text: Further division in the late 1940s[edit]

text: In January 1947 Harry Truman appointed General George Marshall as Secretary of State, scrapped Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) directive 1067 (which embodied the Morgenthau Plan) and supplanted it with JCS 1779, which decreed that an orderly and prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."[51] Administration officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets.[52]

text: After five and a half weeks of negotiations, Molotov refused the demands and the talks were adjourned.[52] Marshall was particularly discouraged after personally meeting with Stalin, who expressed little interest in a solution to German economic problems.[52] The United States concluded that a solution could not wait any longer.[52] In a 5 June 1947 speech,[53] Marshall announced a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe, called the Marshall Plan.[52]

text: Stalin opposed the Marshall Plan. He had built up the Eastern Bloc protective belt of Soviet controlled nations on his Western border,[54] and wanted to maintain this buffer zone of states combined with a weakened Germany under Soviet control.[55] Fearing American political, cultural and economic penetration, Stalin eventually forbade Soviet Eastern bloc countries of the newly formed Cominform from accepting Marshall Plan aid.[52] In Czechoslovakia, that required a Soviet-backed Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948,[56] the brutality of which shocked Western powers more than any event so far and set in a motion a brief scare that war would occur and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress.[57]

text: Relations further deteriorated when, in January 1948, the U.S. State Department also published a collection of documents titled Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939 – 1941: Documents from the Archives of The German Foreign Office, which contained documents recovered from the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany[58][59] revealing Soviet conversations with Germany regarding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, including its secret protocol dividing eastern Europe,[60][61] the 1939 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement,[60][62] and discussions of the Soviet Union potentially becoming the fourth Axis Power.[63] In response, one month later, the Soviet Union published Falsifiers of History, a Stalin-edited and partially re-written book attacking the West.[58][64]

text: After the Marshall Plan, the introduction of a new currency to Western Germany to replace the debased Reichsmark and massive electoral losses for communist parties, in June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off surface road access to Berlin, initiating the Berlin Blockade, which cut off all non-Soviet food, water and other supplies for the citizens of the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin.[65] Because Berlin was located within the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, the only available methods of supplying the city were three limited air corridors.[66] A massive aerial supply campaign was initiated by the United States, Britain, France and other countries, the success of which caused the Soviets to lift their blockade in May 1949.

text: Emigration restrictions[edit]

text: One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the western Allies would return all Soviet citizens who found themselves in their zones to the Soviet Union.[67] This affected the liberated Soviet prisoners of war (branded as traitors), forced laborers, anti-Soviet collaborators with the Germans, and anti-communist refugees.[68]

text: Migration from east to west of the Iron Curtain, except under limited circumstances, was effectively halted after 1950. Before 1950, over 15 million people (mainly ethnic Germans) emigrated from Soviet-occupied eastern European countries to the west in the five years immediately following World War II.[69] However, restrictions implemented during the Cold War stopped most East-West migration, with only 13.3 million migrations westward between 1950 and 1990.[70] More than 75% of those emigrating from Eastern Bloc countries between 1950 and 1990 did so under bilateral agreements for "ethnic migration."[70]

text: About 10% were refugees permitted to emigrate under the Geneva Convention of 1951.[70] Most Soviets allowed to leave during this time period were ethnic Jews permitted to emigrate to Israel after a series of embarrassing defections in 1970 caused the Soviets to open very limited ethnic emigrations.[71] The fall of the Iron Curtain was accompanied by a massive rise in European East-West migration.[70]

text: As a physical entity[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: The Iron Curtain took physical shape in the form of border defenses between the countries of western and eastern Europe. These were some of the most heavily militarised areas in the world, particularly the so-called "inner German border" – commonly known as die Grenze in German – between East and West Germany. The inner German border was marked in rural areas by double fences made of steel mesh (expanded metal) with sharp edges, while near urban areas a high concrete barrier similar to the Berlin Wall was built. The installation of the Wall in 1961 brought an end to a decade during which the divided capital of divided Germany was one of the easiest places to move west across the Iron Curtain.[72]

text: The barrier was always a short distance inside East German territory to avoid any intrusion into Western territory. The actual borderline was marked by posts and signs and was overlooked by numerous watchtowers set behind the barrier. The strip of land on the West German side of the barrier – between the actual borderline and the barrier – was readily accessible but only at considerable personal risk, because it was patrolled by both East and West German border guards.

text: Several villages, many historic, were destroyed as they lay too close to the border, for example Erlebach. Shooting incidents were not uncommon, and a total of 28 East German border guards and several hundred civilians were killed between 1948 – 1981 (some may have been victims of "friendly fire" by their own side).

text: Elsewhere along the border between West and East, the defense works resembled those on the intra-German border. During the Cold War, the border zone in Hungary started 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the border. Citizens could only enter the area if they lived in the zone or had a passport valid for traveling out. Traffic control points and patrols enforced this regulation.

text: Those who lived within the 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) border-zone needed special permission to enter the area within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) of the border. The area was very difficult to approach and heavily fortified. In the 1950s and 1960s, a double barbed-wire fence was installed 50 metres (160 ft) from the border. The space between the two fences were laden with land mines. The minefield was later replaced with an electric signal fence (about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from the border) and a barbed wire fence, along with guard towers and a sand strip to track border violations.

text: Regular patrols sought to prevent escape attempts. They included cars and mounted units. Guards and dog patrol units watched the border 24/7 and were authorised to use their weapons to stop escapees. The wire fence nearest the actual border was irregularly displaced from the actual border, which was marked only by stones. Anyone attempting to escape would have to cross up to 400 metres (1,300 ft) before they could cross the actual border. Several escape attempts failed when the escapees were stopped after crossing the outer fence.

text: In parts of Czechoslovakia, the border strip became hundreds of meters wide, and an area of increasing restrictions was defined as the border was approached. Only people with the appropriate government permissions were allowed to get close to the border.

text: The Soviet Union built a fence along the entire border to Norway and Finland. It is located one or a few kilometres from the border, and has automatic alarms detecting if someone climbs over it.

text: In Greece, a highly militarised area called the "Επιτηρούμενη Ζώνη" ("Surveillance Area") was created by the Greek Army along the Greek-Bulgarian border, subject to significant security-related regulations and restrictions. Inhabitants within this 25 km wide strip of land were forbidden to drive cars, own land bigger than 60 m2 and had to travel within the area with a special passport issued by Greek military authorities. Additionally, the Greek state used this area to encapsulate and monitor a non-Greek ethnic minority, the Pomaks, a Muslim and Bulgarian-speaking minority which was regarded as hostile to the interests of the Greek state during the Cold War because of its familiarity with their fellow Pomaks living on the other side of the Iron Curtain.[73]

text: The Hungarian outer fence became the first part of the Iron Curtain to be dismantled. After the border fortifications were dismantled, a section was rebuilt for a formal ceremony. On 27 June 1989, the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyula Horn, ceremonially cut through the border defences separating their countries.

text: The creation of these highly militarised no-man's lands led to de facto nature reserves and created a wildlife corridor across Europe; this helped the spread of several species to new territories. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, several initiatives are pursuing the creation of a European Green Belt nature preserve area along the Iron Curtain's former route. In fact, a long-distance cycling route along the length of the former border called the Iron Curtain Trail (ICT) exists as a project of the European Union and other associated nations. The trail is 6,800 km (4,200 mi) long and spans from Finland to Greece.[74]

text: The term "Iron Curtain" was only used for the fortified borders in Europe; it was not used for similar borders in Asia between communist and capitalist states (these were, for a time, dubbed the Bamboo Curtain). The border between North Korea and South Korea is very comparable to the former inner German border, particularly in its degree of militarisation, but it has never conventionally been considered part of any Iron Curtain.

text: Helmstedt-Marienborn crossing[edit]

text: Fall of the Iron Curtain[edit]

text: Following a period of economic and political stagnation under Brezhnev and his immediate successors, the Soviet Union decreased its intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary from 1985) decreased adherence to the Brezhnev Doctrine,[75] which held that if socialism were threatened in any state then other socialist governments had an obligation to intervene to preserve it, in favor of the "Sinatra Doctrine". He also initiated the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring). A wave of Revolutions occurred throughout the Eastern Bloc in 1989.[76]

text: In April 1989 the People's Republic of Poland legalised the Solidarity organisation, which captured 99% of available parliamentary seats in June.[77] These elections, in which anti-communist candidates won a striking victory, inaugurated a series of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe[78][79][80] that eventually culminated in the fall of communism.[81][82]

text: On 19 August 1989, more than 600 East Germans attending the "Pan-European Picnic" on the Hungarian border broke through the Iron Curtain and fled into Austria. Hungarian border guards had threatened to shoot anyone crossing the border, but when the time came, they did not intervene and allowed the people to cross. In a historic session from 16 to 20 October, the Hungarian parliament adopted legislation providing for multi-party parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election.[83]

text: The legislation transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensured separation of powers among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government. In November 1989, following mass protests in East Germany and the relaxing of border restrictions in Czechoslovakia, tens of thousands of East Berliners flooded checkpoints along the Berlin Wall, crossing into West Berlin.[83]

text: In the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the day after the mass crossings across the Berlin Wall, leader Todor Zhivkov was ousted.[84] In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, following protests of an estimated half-million Czechoslovaks, the government permitted travel to the west and abolished provisions guaranteeing the ruling Communist party its leading role, preceding the Velvet Revolution.[85]

text: In the Socialist Republic of Romania, on 22 December 1989, the Romanian military sided with protesters and turned on Communist ruler Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was executed after a brief trial three days later.[86] In the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, a new package of regulations went into effect on 3 July 1990 entitling all Albanians over the age of 16 to own a passport for foreign travel. Meanwhile, hundreds of Albanian citizens gathered around foreign embassies to seek political asylum and flee the country.

text: The Berlin Wall officially remained guarded after 9 November 1989, although the inter-German border had become effectively meaningless. The official dismantling of the Wall by the East German military did not begin until June 1990. In July 1990, the day East Germany adopted the West German currency, all border-controls ceased and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl convinced Gorbachev to drop Soviet objections to a reunited Germany within NATO in return for substantial German economic aid to the Soviet Union.

text: Monuments[edit]

text: There is an Iron Curtain monument in the southern part of the Czech Republic at approximately 48°52′32″N 15°52′29″E / 48.8755°N 15.87477°E / 48.8755; 15.87477 (Iron Curtain monument). A few hundred meters of the original fence, and one of the guard towers, has remained installed. There are interpretive signs in Czech and English that explain the history and significance of the Iron Curtain. This is the only surviving part of the fence in the Czech Republic, though several guard towers and bunkers can still be seen. Some of these are part of the Communist Era defences, some are from the never-used Czechoslovak border fortifications in defence against Adolf Hitler, and some towers were, or have become, hunting platforms.

text: Another monument is located in the village of Devín, now part of Bratislava, Slovakia, at the confluence of the Danube and Morava rivers. Another monument is located in Fertőrákos, Hungary, at the site of the Pan-European Picnic. On the eastern hill of the stone quarry stands a metal sculpture by Gabriela von Habsburg. It is a column made of metal and barbed wire with the date of the Pan-European Picnic and the names of participants. On the ribbon under the board is the Latin text: "In necessariis unitas – in dubiis libertas – in omnibus caritas." (Unity in unavoidable matters – freedom in doubtful matters – love in all things.) The memorial symbolises the iron curtain and recalls forever the memories of the border breakthrough in 1989.

text: There are several open air museums in parts of the former inner German border, as for example in Berlin and in Mödlareuth, a village that has been divided for several hundred years. The memory of the division is being kept alive in many other places along the Grenze.

text: Analogous terms[edit]

text: Throughout the Cold War the term "curtain" would become a common euphemism for boundaries – physical or ideological – between communist and capitalist states.

text:
An analogue of the Iron Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain, surrounded the People's Republic of China. As the standoff between the West and the countries of the Iron and Bamboo curtains eased with the end of the Cold War, the term fell out of any but historical usage.
The short distance, 3.8 km (2.4 mi), between the Soviet Union (Big Diomede) and the U.S. (Little Diomede Island, state of Alaska) in the Bering Sea became known as the "Ice Curtain" during the Cold War.
A field of cacti surrounding the U.S. Naval station at Guantanamo Bay planted by Cuba was occasionally termed the "Cactus Curtain".[87][88]
The phrase "Grass Curtain" was used by South Sudanese during the First Sudanese Civil War to describe the oppression that hid political violence in Southern Sudan from wider attention.[89]