Cuban Missile crisis and Cold War intelligence Term Paper

Cuban Missile crisis and Cold War intelligence - Term Paper Example The hallmark of the Cold War was that though confrontations occurred between these two super powers in different parts of the world in their attempts to enhance their spheres of influence, they never came into direct conflict with each either. Instead proxies took up the cudgels for the two competing super powers in these conflicts. This characteristic of the Cold War was good for humanity, as both possessed nuclear weapons in enough quantities to destroy each other and the rest of the world. However, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 brought these two super powers close to direct conflict with each other and the possibility of nuclear destruction. The world watched with bated breath as the moves and counter moves went on for six days. The American ground forces were readied for the invasion of Cuba and the nuclear might of America was al set for delivery onto the Soviet. The order for these actions never came, as in the eleventh hour the Russian Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev decid ed use the option for defusing the tension provided by President Kennedy of pulling out the troublesome missiles from Cuba in exchange for non-invasion of Cuba pledge by the U.S.A (Divine, 1988). Background. In April 1961 a Cuban exile force armed and sponsored by U.S.A was sent into Cuba to remove Fidel Castro and the threat of communism on the door steps of U.S.A. The result was a disastrous defeat of the Cuban exile force at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Almost a year later the Defence minister of Cuba and younger brother of Fidel Castro paid a visit to the Soviet Union. The result of this visit was the despatch of Soviet Union military personnel and weapons to Cuba on the plea that Fidel Castro required the support of the Soviet Union to defend Cuba against any invasion of Cuba by U.S.A. (Garthoff, 1989). Republican protests on the large military build up in Cuba started in the U.S.A., which became even more strident, when photographs taken by a U-2 plane overflying Cuba, revealed ongoing construction work for a surface-to-air missile (SAM) site, which was taken to be defensive posture by the Kennedy administration. The CIA perception of this was that it could be the prelude t o the more ominous introduction of SAM’s with offensive potential. Though the Soviet Union continued to deny any offensive posturing, Republican pressure on the Kennedy administration for a response began to mount. Subsequent CIA U-2 provided even more disquieting news of the Soviet Union building launching sites for their medium-range ballistic missiles and long-range ballistic missiles (Divine, 1988). America needed to respond now. Two options of response were studied. The first involved the use of the American Air Force to bomb the missile sites. The second was a blockade of Cuba by the American Navy to prevent the transportation of any missiles to Cuba. The second option became the chosen response, for it provided the benefit of slow escalation. The Soviet response was to challenge the blockade. However, better sense prevailed and there was no attempt to break the blockade. Instead, the Russians agreed to withdraw the offending missiles, stop the missile site build-up, an d withdraw the Russian bombers capable of delivering nuclear bombs that were stationed in Cuba. In response U.S.A. declared that it would not invade Cuba (Divine, 1988). Cold War Intelligence Evaluation of the American intelligence activities from the start of the Cold

China Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

China - Assignment Example My father’s name is Hsin Ta, and he was always happy to be associated with his name. My father was rooted in our religion, and he ensured that he prayed for my mother, especially when she had complications during pregnancy. The survival of my mother and I made my father believe god was on our side, and that is why they gave me the name Aisha (Mulets 2). As I grow up, I came to learn that the house I grew up in has been in existence from one generation to another. It is the house where my mother was brought up in. I learned to be contented with what we had. The house was tiny with a few bedrooms which could only accommodate our family. Our house occupied the last position on our street. As I grew up, I shared a room with my big sister. She is a peaceable person, hence no quarrels arose between us. She made sure that we lived in peace with my brothers and acted as a mediator when fights arose between us. Her name clearly gives a representation of her peaceable character. Today being my birthday, I looked back over the past last year and much has changed. After I was born, my mother discovered that she was pregnant. My parents wanted to have a big family although they were not financially stable. However, our parents ensured that they did all what they could to support us. When we learned that we would have a newborn in our family, we were all excited. Unfortunately, my mother and the baby in the womb did not survive. My sibling died of HIV/ AIDs with my mother. It was a tough experience that happened to me in my life. My mother’s death made life tougher. My father had to take up two tasks, working to provide for his family and taking care of us. Before, my mother had the role of taking cares about us while my father was the bread winner. It was a difficult task for my father to take care of us. As a result, my grandmother moved in with us to

Death with Dignity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Death with Dignity - Essay Example Her decision faced immense opposition from different sects of the society. Indeed, despite its aim to alleviate patient suffering, doctor assisted suicide goes against moral and ethical principles and should therefore not be allowed. Oregon was the first to implement the Death with Dignity Act in 1997. It allows terminally ill patients who are of competent mental mindset and aged over 18 to obtain lethal medication to end their lives (Yuill 61). Such patients would be required to make a written request and two oral ones in a span of 15 days. The prescribing physician should concur with the prognosis or diagnosis that supports death with dignity, and in consultation with another physician agree to offer assisted suicide. Over time, more states have embraced this legislation as a way out for patients with lingering and intolerable pain. Just a few countries in Europe have legalized death with dignity, notably, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Belgium (Zakaria). Some other parts of the world, including the Ancient Greece and Rome, have been practicing doctor assisted suicide for generations (Loomis 146). However, the issue continues to elicit heated debate from different quarters on its morality and eth icality. Allowing for physician assisted suicide would lead to an inclusion of more people into the eligible groups. According to Yuill, allowing for assisted suicide would mount pressure upon people feeling that they have become a burden to their families and even healthcare providers to include more categories of people in the death with dignity category (32). This could go forth and even become euthanasia or further to involuntary euthanasia. Thus, allowing for death with dignity presents grounds for abuse of the practice, specifically when driven by greed as opposed to love. Those who should inherit from the patient could encourage premature death of

Ethics and Moral Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethics and Moral Theories - Essay Example This doctrine assumes that we cannot ask others to act in their own self interest because it can negatively affect my self interest. 2) Individual Ethical Egoism: This is the belief that every individual should work for my interest. This is also termed as egotism and goes to an extreme level of selfishness whereby we believe that not only we should act for our self interests, others in the universe shall also act for our interests. There is no practical justification of this doctrine as it borders on extraordinary levels of selfishness (Pojman & Fieser, 2011). 3) Universal Ethical Egoism: This doctrine argues that all individuals should pursue their own self interest exclusively with no regard to the interest of others or no intention to contribute towards their interest. An issue with this theory is that without appropriate knowledge of the world, it will be difficult to understand our own interest. Furthermore, there can be debate over to what constitutes self interest. Act Utilitarianism:- Act utilitarianism states that our duty on any specific occasion is to act in a way that will produce greater total good and better consequences than what any other act will produce. This rule is applied directly to a selection of particular actions under particular events. Rule Utilitarianism:- Rule utilitarianism states that it is our duty to abide by rules designed for the greater total good and produce consequences better than those produced by any other rules. This doctrine is applied to a selection of a set of rules which are then used to determine what to do in particular situations. Feminist ethics is an attempt to reformulate the traditional theories of ethics with respect to the aspects that devalue women’s moral experience. It aims to correct male biases in historical and traditional ethical theory by emphasizing relationships

Glaxo Smith Kline's Business Strategy Case Study

Glaxo Smith Kline's Business Strategy - Case Study Example 2004, p. 10). Two of the four elements of a strategy, internal competencies and shortcomings are within the organization and can be controlled by it, if properly appraised. The other two, changes in the environment and intelligent moves by competitors are external forces, and require adoption or modification of action sequences and determined policies to achieve organisational goals and fulfilling stakeholder expectations. Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), one of the largest companies operating in the "technically innovative" and highly competitive "global market" pharmaceutical industry. (Lynch 2006, p. 191). In the pharmaceutical industry, obsolescence is a constant challenge and companies are required to constantly replenish old drugs, which means that the research and development 'pipeline' should be kept flowing. The development of a single new drug is estimated to cost up to $ 500 million and takes several years. However once developed a new drug has patent protection which means the company that developed the drug can have exclusive marketing rights for a period of (generally) ten years from the time the patent is registered. The drugs are marketed to customers - as doctors, hospitals and government health agencies through large sales forces. Companies employ several thousand specialist sales personnel in North America alone. All these operations require large financial outlays. Therefore organisational size does matter as revenue generation normally corresponds to size. According to Michael Porter, five external forces impact businesses. They are industry competitors, potential new entrants, substitutes, suppliers and buyers. (Porter 2004, p. 4) He offers three generic strategies to meet the challenges of these forces: cost leadership, differentiation and focus (Porter 2004, p. 35). While questioning some of the premises on which Porter based his theory, in a provocatively titled box, "Bye, Mr. Porter", (Whittington 2001, p. 67), Whittington proposes three strategies for companies to achieve growth: they are innovation, diversification and internationalisation. (Whittington 2001, p. 73). As we have seen innovation is an intrinsic factor that is necessary for survival in the pharmaceutical industry, diversification implies diversification, integration and takeovers. During the nineties many pharmaceutical companies have taken the 'mergers and acquisitions' route to augment their c ompetitiveness and enhance financial outcomes such as revenue generation and profitability by: Increasing and consolidating organizational size for Achieving economies of scale and reducing costs Complementing/extending ranges of products and services Replenishing

International business communication Assignment

International business communication - Assignment Example ciple of global e-commerce discusses about the details of e-commerce and e-business activities and how internet and social networking along with other digital tools are used for marketing activities. The strength of a traditional hierarchical structure is that the employees have clarity of their position in the organization and they have a single person to report to. This as a result removes any ambiguity of roles and overlapping of responsibilities, thereby removing any room of error (Baligh, 2007). Owing the presence of steep hierarchical structure, internal organizational communication becomes a challenge. In most cases the employees can only contact the supervisor who is immediately above him in hierarchy. The hierarchical organizational structure is suitable for very large firms, with more than a thousand employees. It is mostly suitable for the firms which operate in relatively stable market environment. The strength of a bureaucratic organizational structure lies in strategic decisions taken by the organization. It allows the higher management to have high level of control in every decision making process in the organization (Baligh, 2007). In a bureaucratic organization the employees are less motivated and their creativity is not encouraged. The higher level of control by the management reduces the room for working freedom and flexibility in the work environment thereby de-motivating the employees. This type of structure is suitable for the firms where strictly following rules and regulations are imperative to high quality product and service development, such as in case of hotel management (Bate, 2008). The matrix organization allows the firm to bring together all the managers and employees together so that they can proceed towards a shared goal. The departments can work closely together owing to the efficient exchange of information (French and Rayner, 2011). Organization behaviour is the aggregate of the ways in which an organization impacts the

Consumer Behaviour on Facebook Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Consumer Behaviour on Facebook - Essay Example The case study described clearly demonstrated the way people buy things have undergone major transition. The consumer buying behaviours have changed dramatically with the advent of the Social commerce. The case study also described about the major players, who contributed significantly in the social commerce business. The strategy followed by ‘Groupon’ that offered heavy discount on different products was a success. The inculcation of global e-commerce led to the evolution of new infrastructure in the business world. Merchandising was believed to be the key difference between old e-commerce and the new method of selling with the help of internet. The Consumer behaviour is believed to be the most important concept of marketing. The organization’s success and failure can be determined with the help of identifying the behaviours and attitude of its consumers towards the company’s product. Today E-commerce is considered to be the most important and significant evolution in the business world. The e-commerce is represented in terms of social commerce, which is believed to be the subset of e-commerce. The main function of social commerce is to facilitate the online business activities without the requirement of any hard shape structure of the business. In the new world of technology and efficiency, social networking is becoming the necessity of life for the internet users. The reason is that the social networking helps the people to interact among one another, anywhere in the world. The concept of social networking was inculcated by yahoo in 2005 (Warner, 2011, p. 439). The major reason for such inculcation was the introduction of the more convenient way of shopping. The concept of social commerce or social networking began with the co-operative movements that led to the creation of â€Å"Peoples Supermarket† movement (Clapperton, 2012). The idea behind the encouragement of â€Å"Peoples Supermarket† movement was to gather the smart entrepreneurs to make money with small start-up capital. With the passage of time, the concept of social commerce began dominating the traditional suppliers of the products. The conglomerate of large entrepreneurs, who entered in the field of social commerce, followed the strategy of ploughing back the profit into the business to offer the online products at more affordable prices (Marsden, 2012). The buyers or consumers of the products, when found the products more easily accessible and even at more affordable prices, their preferences tilted more towards the online products. The successful capturing of consumer market has now made the companies like Facebook & Google the big business giants across the world, with the net worth in billions of dollars (Dobinick, 2012, p.107). The major change that can be observed with the introduction of the concepts such as social media and social commerce, the customers can find the opportunity to directly communicate with the producers of the products. The increase in interaction between the producer and the end consumer has made