Download The Cold War

The Cold War
An Uneasy Peace
• At the end of WW2, the Soviet Union and United States
had very different goals.
• The Soviets’ primary goal was to secure their borders.
• Its secondary goal was to further the spread of
communism.
• America’s primary goal was to gain access to new
markets and new sources of raw materials.
• America’s secondary goal was to prevent future wars.
• The way each country decided to pursue these goals
brought them into conflict.
Germany
• At the end of the war
Germany was divided into
four zones each occupied by
one of the Allies.
• The western Allies soon
turned control over to the
new German government.
• To keep Germany weak, the
Soviets prevented their
sector from rejoining the rest
of the country.
The Marshall Plan
• Part of the United States’
plan to prevent future wars
to was to help the nations of
Europe rebuild.
• The US Secretary of State,
George Marshall, sent $13
billion in aid to Europe from
1948 to 1951.
• One part of the Marshall Plan
was to give Germany a new,
stable currency.
Berlin
• The German capital of
Berlin was also
partitioned.
• In June of 1948, when the
US announced its plan to
stabilize the German
economy, the Soviet
Union closed all land
routes into West Berlin
and cut off its electricity.
• The Berlin Blockade had
begun.
The Berlin Airlift
• The Allies responded by
flying in supplies, mainly
food and coal.
• For 11 months, the US
and Royal Air Forces flew
in over 4000kg each day.
• By April, they were
bringing more by air than
had come in by train
before the blockade.
• Faced with the blockade’s
failure, the Soviet’s
reopened the land routes.
The Berlin Wall
• With land routes reopened,
Berlin returned to normal.
• Many people seeking
freedom and opportunity
began to escape to the
West.
• In 1961, the Communist
government of East
Germany built a 3.6m high
wall around West Berlin.
• The wall was fortified with
barbed wire, land mines,
machine guns and attack
dogs.
The Truman Doctrine
• The communist revolution in China and America’s
increasingly adversarial relationship with the Soviet Union
convinced many in the US that communism must be
stopped.
• This leads to the Truman Doctrine—that it would be "the
policy of the United States to support free people who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
outside pressures.“
• Many refer to this as the “containment policy”—the US
would work to stop the spread of communism.
• In practice, it often meant supporting friendly dictators
against communists genuinely working to better the lives of
the people.
Mutually Assured Destruction
• After the war, US defense policy relied on atomic
bombs—no one else had them, so no one would risk
war with the US.
• That ended in 1949, when the USSR detonated its first
atom bomb.
• The US and USSR then entered an arms race, each side
trying to build more and bigger bombs than the other.
• The arms race lead to the theory of Mutually Assured
Destruction—that neither side would attack first
because the other could retaliate with enough power
to destroy the aggressor.
• Even if the first strike would have destroyed them too.
Brinksmanship
• Mutually Assured
Destruction led to both
sides engaging in
“brinksmanship”.
• Each side sought to find
advantage by coming as
close to the brink of war
as possible before
giving in.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
• In October 1962, an American
spy-plane spotted Soviet
nuclear missile bases under
construction in Cuba.
• The United States responded
with a naval and air blockade
of the island.
• For 13 days, the world braced
itself for nuclear war, but the
United Nations was able to
broker a deal.
• One positive outcome was
increased communication
between Washington and
Moscow.
Detente
• In the mid-1980s, the US
and USSR began to work to
reduce the threat of
nuclear war.
• Much of the credit for this
goes to the new General
Secretary—Michail
Gorbachev, who instituted
many reforms within the
Soviet Union.
The Berlin Wall Falls
• In 1989, East Germany eased travel restrictions.
• This resulted in thousands of East Germans leaving for the
West.
• When the government tried restrict travel again in
September, tens of thousands began protesting.
• By November there were hundreds of thousands
protesting.
• The government tried to ease restrictions again, but a
confused spokesman announced that the borders were
open.
• East Germans began pouring into the West, by the evening
of 9 November, young people from both sides had climbed
atop the wall and were dancing in celebration.
• With in a year, the communist government had fallen and
East and West Germany were unified.