The Early Postwar Research, The United States Paramilitary Operations In Eastern Europe

With the World War II came to an end, the US-Soviet relations were becoming colder, the Cold War was on the verge of breaking out. In this situation, the US changed its foreign policies greatly and isolated Soviet Union through special means, and won the final victory of the Cold War. Therefore, all previous US governments have been trying to pursue a policy that would impel other socialism countries to break away from Soviet camp and eventually gave up socialism. Paramilitary operation was an important port of these policy tools to achieve these goals. On the basis of generalizing the US recently declassified diplomatic documents, this paper analyses the form, establishment and implementation of US paramilitary operations on Eastern Europe in the initial years of the Cold War in order to get an overall understanding of US paramilitary operations in this period.The paper consists of six parts. The introduction part gives the perspective of the paper subject, the research review both home and abroad and some points needed to explain.The second part tries to define the connotation of paramilitary operation, holding view that it refers to the operation between traditional military operations and non-military activities, including training and supporting the anti-government forces in enemy countries to undertake the armed destructive and subversive operations as well as the armed destruction and assassination leaders in the communism countries, which are executed by the secret agents of the country involved who are directly or indirectly trained by CIA. This part also elaborates on the causes of U.S. paramilitary operations. Paramilitary operations, as a diplomatic tool, have been there for long in American history, almost living together with the born of U.S. However, it had not been attached importance attention by the decision makers for quite a long period of time in the past. Not until the World War II, did US and UK united together to carry out large-scale paramilitary operations. The paramilitary operations are large-scaled and achieve a remarkable effect in World War II, but have not become the US independent foreign policy. Only after the end of World War II, when the layout of international relations changes sharply and Cold War breaks out and gets increasingly intense, do paramilitary operations gradually become the US important policy tools against Soviet Union and its satellites.The third part analyses why United States and Soviet Union relation had been getting colder and colder. Since the tow nations are superpowers, directly war between the tow was unacceptable. The United States through NSC 10/2 to authorize covert action, which was including paramilitary operation.The fourth part is a case study of Albania and analyses in details the features and causes of the failure of US paramilitary operations. This part emphasis on why the US paramilitary operations towards Albania failed.The fifth part makes an overall analysis on the paramilitary operations toward Eastern Europe, holding the view that in terms of thin purposes the US paramilitary operations executed at this time is a dramatic and total failure.The last part is a summary of the whole paper. The author believes that the US paramilitary operation in early Cold War years has achieved some success to some degree, not a total failure without any reward. Through the operation, the US policy-making body realizes the limitation of convert actions and that it is not enough to reach important political targets just by taking paramilitary operations and that the opportunity of success will greatly increase if convert actions are combined with diplomatic means. Besides, people conceived have accumulated rich experience in management and revised techniques needed through the carry-out of the operations and laid a social foundation for the effective similar operations in Guatemala and Iran in the middle 1950's. The operation has also played an active role in putting an end to the Cold War.