Download The Cold War

The Cold War
I. Euope at the end of World War II
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World War II left Europe in the same devastated shape it had been after World War I-only
worse
o The advanced technology of World War II allowed armies to destroy more
property as well as more lives
o If conditions were the same, would history repeat itself in Europe, leading to a
second worldwide depression and a third world war?
The Marshall Plan
o The second depression was averted by the Marshall Plan
o Named for its initiator George Marshall, U.S. Secretary of State, the plan pumped
about 12 billion dollars worth of economic aid into the war-torn countries of
western Europe
o The ultimate result was the formation of the European Economic Community
(EEC)
o Also called the "Common Market," the EEC goal was gradual economic
cooperation among the countries in Europe by eliminating trade barriers between
countries, strengthening the national economies, and eventual adoption of a
unified currency (what has finally become the Euro)
o Not all countries joined the EEC, but the ones that did and their neighbors have
enjoyed economic prosperity rather than economic depression in the postwar
years
The United Nations
o The United Nations (UN) had been formed after World War II as a forum where
all the countries of the world could resolve conflicts peacefully
o While nations from both sides of of a conflict were members of the UN, that
organization was unable to stop a war fought with ideologies rather than
traditional weapons
II. The Cold War Begins
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The third world war began at the end of World War II
This was the Cold War, which proved to be the determining factor for international
relations for about forty-five years and is still having residual effects
In any war, there are at least (and usually) two sides
o The adversaries in the Cold War were the free world and the Communist world
o The free world consisted of the United States, western Europe (particularly
England and France), and other democratic nations
Alliances
o Western Alliances
 To ally themselves against the threat posed by the Communist world, the
free world nations formed a number of alliances
 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO
 smaller regional pacts like the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO) and ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, and the United States)
 the Western Hemisphere formed the Pan American Union which later
evolved into the Organization of American States (OAS)
o Communist Alliances
 In response to the alliances formed by the free world, the Communist
nations formed the Warsaw Pact
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Members of the Warsaw Pact were the Union of the Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR, or Soviet Union) and the eastern European countries
"liberated" by the Russians during the Second World War
o The Communist world also included China, but that geographic giant remained
apart from and suspicious of its Communist neighbor, the Soviet Union
The "Third World" nations
o Often countries of the Third World, which fell in neither the free world nor the
Communist camp, were objects for conquest in the Cold War
o Rich in resources, manpower, and strategic location but poor in economic
development or political strength, these nations were targets of control for both
sides
The Battlefields of the Cold War
o Third-World resources, nuclear technology, and outer space were the major
battlefields of the Cold War
o Nuclear Weapons
 Weapons were a key factor in the Cold War
 When the United States dropped atomic bombs at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in Japan, it ended World War II, but began a nuclear arms race
 The basic premise was that only superior weapons would avert a
strike by the opposing side
 The problem was that soon the USSR was testing its own atomic
bombs
 By the 1960s, there were six nations with nuclear capability; the United
States, the Soviet Union, China, England, France, and India
 India seems an unusual participant, but it feared both sides
 Trying to stay ahead in the arms race, the United States developed the
hydrogen bomb-a bomb so powerful it took an atomic bomb explosion to
detonate it
 In turn, the Soviet Union developed its own hydrogen bomb
 Both sides worked on developing cobalt bombs (too destructive
for any full-scale testing) and neutron bombs (radiation bombs
that killed living things but left buildings standing)
 More bombs, bigger bombs, better bombs--all being developed while the
world's nations were signing test ban treaties, nuclear-free zone treaties,
arms limitations treaties, and arms reduction treaties
 Perhaps the arms race can best be summed up in the basic strategy of
both the Communist and free worlds
 The United States and Soviet Union each felt the other side
would be deterred in launching a first strike by the fact that both
countries would suffer ultimate destruction by a nuclear war
 The result would be Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)
 Thus, the arms race was part of a "MAD" policy (you
could perhaps take the meaning of "MAD" another way
as well)
 Throughout the period, the United States maintained
about a 4:1 superiority in destructive capability, yet it
continued to increase its arsenal and the Soviet Union
continued to struggle to catch up
o The Space Race
 Early Soviet edge
 The one area in which the Soviet Union gained an early
advantage was the space race
 Theoretically and logically, an orbiting space station could serve
as a spy-in-the-sky and as a delivery system for nuclear
weapons
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When the Soviet Union launched the Sputik I space satellite in
1957, the amazement of the free world turned to immediate
concern over the threat this new technology posed
 U.S. takes up the challenge
 The United States took the lead in initiating a space program to
gain superiority in this new frontier--and new battleground of the
Cold War
 The Soviet Union sent up dogs and the United States
sent up monkeys to see if life in space was possible
 The Soviet Union started training cosmonauts (men) and
the United States started training astronauts (men) for
space missions
 The space race heated up
 Promising to put the first man in space, the United States was
upstaged by the Soviet Union when its cosmonautYuri Gargarin
became the first man in space
 The race to the moon
 The United States then promised to be the first country to put a
man on the Moon
 Through the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo manned flight
programs, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) of the United States kept its promise
 Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon
in July 1969
 The Soviet Union never completed moon-landing missions
 The space race moved forward to the Skylab (an orbiting space station
that eventually broke up reentering the atmosphere as its orbit decayed),
the Mir (a USSR space station), and the Space Shuttle (round-trip
reusable space ships)
 In an interesting development, space became an arena of international
cooperation; people from various countries were included on flights to
carry out scientific experiments, and with US and USSR "spacemen"
joining ships together and working together in space
 At present, an international space station is in the construction stage,
with components being built and launched by different countries
Within the Cold War there were several "hot spots" that threatened to kindle a third world
war with many belligerents holding nuclear capability. In 1948, the "hot spot" was Berlin
The Korean Conflict from 1950 to 1953 left Communist-world forces facing free world
forces across a narrow demilitarized zone. France's effort to reassert control in Vietnam
led to a long war later involving the United States, which did not end until 1975
Fortunately, a third world war did not begin in any of these areas
In spite of the fact that we claim the Cold War has ended, the forty-five-year-old mindset
of "them against us" has residual effects
This mindset that still affects international relations