Download The Origins of the Cold War

The Origins of the Cold War
Origin of the Term
• The first use of the term "Cold War" to describe postWorld War II geopolitical tensions between the Soviet
Union and the US has been attributed to American
financier and US presidential advisor Bernard Baruch.
• In South Carolina on April 16, 1947, Baruch gave a
speech written by journalist in which he said,
"Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a
cold war.“
• Columnist Walter Lippmann also gave the term wide
currency, with the publication of his 1947 book titled Cold
War.
Beginning USSR-USA Tension
• Tensions arose from the fundamental differences in
political and economic ideologies of the USA and USSR
– Democracy and Totalitarianism
– Capitalism and Communism
• Tension manifested in different visions of the post-war
world.
– USA / Atlantic Charter world view: end of military alliances
and spheres of influence, democracy, international
organizations arbitrating disputes, right of self-determination
– USSR / Great Britain world view: great powers to control areas
of strategic interest. Ex- USSR and Eastern Europe
USSR vs. USA
• USSR & Eastern Bloc
• Goals: global spread
of Communism
• USA & NATO
• Goals: “Containment”
of Communism
Methods
Espionage (KGB vs. CIA)
Arms Race (Nuclear Proliferation)
Ideological competition for the minds & hearts of Third World
peoples (Vietnam, Guatemala)
Proxy Wars (Korea, Vietnam)
Bi-Polarization of Europe (NATO vs. Warsaw Pact)
Wartime Diplomacy
• Casablanca, Morocco – January 1943
– First war strategy meeting of the Big Three
– Stalin declined invitation because FDR and Churchill
did not agree to open a second front in western
Europe
– Did agree to demand unconditional surrender from
Germany and not to negotiate separate peace
treaties.
• Tehran, Iran – November 1943
• Yalta, USSR – February 1945
• Potsdam, Germany – April 1945
Tehran, Iran – November 1943
• Churchill, FDR, and Stalin meet first time
• USSR agrees to wage war on Japan once the
war in Europe ends
• FDR agrees open front in Western Europe
(Normandy, France) in six months
• What about Poland?
– FDR & Churchill agree to allow USSR to annex part
of western Poland
– FDR & Churchill supported the London Polish
government-in-exile
– Stalin supported the Lublin Poles to run post war
Poland
Yalta, USSR – February 1945
• Big Three peace conference.
• Agreed to the Dumbarton Oaks plan for creation
of the United Nations.
– General Assembly of all member states
– Security Council with 5 permanent seats: China,
France, USA, UK, & USSR each with power to veto
UN resolutions. 10 revolving seats for other nations.
– UN Charter signed by 50 nations on April 25,1945.
• Poland problem still not settled
– Stalin agrees to allow free elections in Poland at
some point in the future.
Yalta, USSR – February 1945
• Disagreements over post-war Germany
– FDR wants a reconstructed and united Germany
– Stalin wants Germany dismembered & forced to pay
reparations
• Allies agree to divide Germany into occupation
zones
• Berlin (inside the Soviet zone) would also be
divided
• Germany would eventually be reunited at an
unspecified date (how about October 1990)
• FDR dies in April, Harry S. Truman becomes
president
Potsdam, Germany – July1945
• Truman view of Stalin/USSR is generally distrust,
especially after Yalta Conference
– The Red Army occupied Poland and Eastern Europe
– Germany is divided into “occupation zones” with Berlin
deep inside the Soviet zone
• Truman gave in to Stalin's demands for Polish territory.
• Truman did not agree to reparations payments form the
US, French, and British zones of Western Germany. In
effect keeping Germany divided West (NATO) and East
China
• Since 1927, China engaged in a struggle between:
– Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists (Kuomintang KMT)
– Mao Zedong’s Communists (CCP)
• US continues to support the incompetent and corrupt
Nationalist government of Chiang.
• China falls into a full scale civil war which ends with Mao
declaring the People’s Republic of China in October
1949.
– Chiang Kai-shek retreats to Taiwan establishing the Republic of
China
– 1950, Truman sends the 7th Fleet to protect Taiwan from
Communist invasion
– Stalemate
Truman Doctrine
• By 1946 FDR’s vision of the
postwar world is gone
– Stalin is trying to win access to
the Mediterranean through
Turkey
– Communist rebels are
threatening Greece
• George Kennan- “Containment”
• Truman adopts the containment
policy and asks Congress to fund
forces resisting communists in
Greece & Turkey. Gets it.
• Containment becomes the basis of
US foreign policy for 40 years
Marshall Plan
• Post war Europe is in a shambles. Industrial capacity
and agricultural production is greatly diminished and
almost nonexistent in Germany.
• US wants European recovery and stability
– As a market for US goods
– Avoid the spread of communist influence
• 1947, Secretary of State, George C. Marshall proposes
massive economic assistance to Europe (including the
Communist Bloc)
• Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program) 1947
– 13 billion spent on economic, technical, and infrastructure
– By 1950 the economies of all participating countries (except
Germany) had grown 64% to pre-war levels
Marshall Plan Aid
• UK………………3.3 billion
• France……….....2.3 b
• W. Germany…...1.5 b
• Italy……………..1.2 b
• Belgium………..700 million
• Greece………….366 m
• Turkey………….127 m
Criticism of the Marshall Plan
• German Minister for
Economy Ludwig ErhardUS operated a centrally
planned economy
• US subsidized failing
industry in Europe and did
not allow “free market”
capitalism to grow
• Form of US economic
imperialism over Europe
• Money promoted
corruption and waste
Mobilization for a Cold War
• Containment = continued maintenance of US military
power
– 1947, National Security Council created to oversee all foreign
and military policy
• Created Department of Defense to centralize all branches of the
military
• Central Intelligence Agency replaces OSS to collect information on
enemies and friends
– 1948, Congress reinstates the Selective Service (draft)
– Atomic Energy Commission takes charge of the nuclear
weapons research and development
– 1950, US funds development of hydrogen bomb
Berlin Crisis
• Truman convinced UK and France to merge Western
German Zones to promote economic recovery
• Stalin responded by imposing a blockade around
western Berlin in June 1948
• The US responded with an airlift to supply food and fuel
to West Berlin (10 months, 2.5 million tons)
• Stalin lifts blockade making Berlin the symbol of western
resolve to contain communist expansion
• October 1948 Germany split into two nations
– Federal Republic of Germany- Democratic West
– Democratic Republic of Germany-Communist East
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forms in 1949
NSC-68
• 1949, USSR successfully tests an atomic bomb
and mainland China falls to the Mao an the
Communists
• 1950 the National Security Council issues a
report reviewing US foreign policy
• Drawing on Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and “XArticle” NSC-68 relied almost completely on
military power rather than diplomacy as a way of
dealing with the Soviet threat
– "This would be a war of ideas in which the idea of freedom under
a government of laws, and the idea of slavery under the grim
oligarchy of the "Kremlin" were pitted against each other.
– “The U.S. as the center of power in the free world," should build
an international community in which American society would
"survive and flourish" and pursue a policy of containment.
NSC-68
• NSC-68 becomes the basis of US foreign policy
throughout the Cold War
• Critics contend that NSC-68 overestimated the Soviet
threat
– Kennan was wary of the call for massive US rearmament
– Evidence shows that the US economy was far more capable
than the USSR of sustaining increased military spending
• However the Korean War led most Americans to
conclude that the Soviet Union was indeed bent on world
domination, and spurred the mobilization of significant
resources to counter the perceived threat.