Civic literacy exam: executive-landmark treaties and other executive actions

Conflict: The Great War - World War I (1914 - 1919) Participants: Great Britain, France, Italy, United States vs. Empire of Germany Date of Signature: 28 June 1919 Place of Signature: Versailles Palace (outside Paris), France Date of Ratification by the Senate: Efforts to ratify the Treaty of Versailles failed. The document was not ratified by the Senate due to the inclusion of the League of Nations in the treaty. The death and destruction of the Western Front of the Great War came to an end on 11 November 1918 with the Armistice between the Allies and Imperial Germany. Germany's allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had already ceased hostilities with the Allies in the days and weeks before the 11th of November. After the Armistice, the German army quickly collapsed as a new government formed in Berlin. Leaders of the Allied powers began to plan the fate of postwar Germany. The leaders of Great Britain (Lloyd George), France (Clemenceau), Italy (Orlando), and the United States (Wilson) met at Versailles Palace, outside of Paris, France in January of 1919 to begin negotiations. German representatives were not invited to the negotiations and were only later given the opportunity to agree to the conditions and penalties set forth in the treaty. In order for peace to be guaranteed, Germany would have to admit total guilt for the war, pay reparations to the Allies, disarm (surrender certain existing weapons and promise not create new ones), surrender territory, and in the future maintain relatively tiny army. These conditions fueled anger and resentment in Germany which helped in the rise of the National Socialist (Nazis) and other extremist nationalist groups. In addition to the condition for peace, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, encouraged the inclusion of the creation of the "League of Nations" which would act as a supra-national government to ensure future peace and disarmament. Upon his return to the United States in the summer of 1919, Wilson was unable to gain ratification for the Versailles Treaty as the Senate considered the treaty to jeopardize US sovereignty and independence of action. Despite a national campaign to build support for the treaty by Wilson, the Treaty of Versailles was never ratified by the US Senate.

Issue: Agreement to limit the use of anti-ballistic weapons that target nuclear tipped missiles. Participants: United States of America and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Signing Date: 26 May 1972 Signing Place: Moscow, USSR Resolution of Ratification by the Senate: 3 August 1972 With the Cold War heating up in the 1960s and 1970s, the Johnson and later Nixon Administration engaged in talks with the Soviet Union to help de-escalate the arms race, these talks were called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). One result of SALT was the ABM Treaty. ABM Treaty was intended to make it possible to reduce the number of nuclear weapons by limiting deployment of technology that could be used to destroy such missiles after launch. Anti-Ballistic Missile technology as it was developing in the 1960s and 1970s showed promise that advanced radar, guidance and missile systems could target nuclear warheads as they enter the atmosphere towards their targets. While this would seem like a good technological advancement, it was feared that such technology would actually INCREASE the production and deployment of nuclear weapons, and INCREASE the possibility of their use. Anti-Ballistic Missile technology would make it more difficult for nuclear warheads to reach their targets. Thus, more numerous and sophisticated warhead technology would be needed to ensure that some of the warheads hit their targets. ABMs would therefore, potentially increase the production of warheads and delivery systems with the acknowledgment that more and more warheads would be needed to get through the defenses of the enemy. Also, with the ability to defeat an enemy nuclear attack through the use of ABMs, it was thought that an aggressor might be more willing to strike first in the hope that they would be able to defend against any counter-attack. Both the USA and the USSR (later Russia) adhered to the provisions of the treaty until 2001 when the United States announced it would be withdrawing from the treaty in 2002.