The Cold War

The Cold War

• Containment• Mutually Assured

Destruction• Korean War, 1950-

1953• Cuban Missile Crisis,

1962• Afghanistan, 1979-

1989• Mikhail Gorbachev

The Kitchen Debates, 1959

The First Phase, 1947-1953

• George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and the policy of containment

• “Lessons” of World War II• Truman Doctrine• Creation of NATO and

Warsaw Pact• Korean War, 1950-1953

US and Soviet soldiers meet onthe Elbe, April, 1945

The New Superpowers

• US– Capitalist System– Democratic Ideals– Russian support for

Communist International

• Russia/USSR– Communism– Authoritarian

Politics– US Intervention in

Russian Civil War– US failure to help

Republicans in Spanish Civil War

Recent Problems:A Bipolar World

• US– Russian refusal to

demobilize– Russian treatment

of Poland, Eastern Europe - The Iron Curtain

– Chinese Civil War– 1949 Russian

explosion of A-Bomb

– Espionage

• USSR– US delay in

invading France– Truman Doctrine of

1947– Containment– US nuclear

supremacy– US technological

advantages– NATO, Marshall

Plan

The Berlin Airlift of 1949: What were we doing and why?

• Technology• Threat of nuclear

weapons• Deterrence and

MAD• Arms control• Massive retaliation

US dilemma: how to respond to a Communist invasion of Korea without starting World War III?

“Korea is outside the United States sphere of influence. We have no vital interests there” - American Secretary of State Dean Acheson, 1949.

• “We have won an armistice on a single battleground - not peace in the world. We may not now relax our guard nor cease our quest” - President Eisenhower, 1953.

New US Defense Policies

• 1950: NSC 68 recommended tripling defense budget

• 1952: US introduced peacetime conscription

• 1953: US builds first H-bomb

• 1950-1953: US sends more military personnel to Europe than to Asia

• 1955: (West) Germany rearmed

The King gets drafted, 1958

New Soviet Policies

• Funding for “Wars of Liberation”

• Launching of Sputnik, 1957

• Creation of Berlin Wall, 1961

• Imposed tight controls on Eastern Europe

• Built links to Castro in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America

Phase Two: 1953-1979

• USSR and USA want to avoid nuclear war

• So they fight “proxy” wars in the Third World

• Connections to wars of anticolonialism

• Few direct confrontations Soviet advisors in Vietnam, 1966

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

• USSR attempted to place long-range nuclear missiles in Cuba

• JFK ordered a naval blockade of Cuba

• US went to highest alert level ever

• Compromise reached, hot line established between White House and Kremlin

• Tensions high

Arab-Israeli Wars

• US supported Israel• USSR supported Arabs• Wars in 1956, 1967,

1973, 1982• Both sides get to “field

test” their equipment• US and USSR fuel wars,

but also stop them

Israeli pilots in 1973 flying the American-made F-4 Phantom

The Cold War in the Third World

• Building of US and Soviet military bases worldwide

• US and USSR funding of wars

• Afghanistan, 1979• India and the “non-

aligned” movement• China and the

Cultural RevolutionUS supported mujahedeen rebel in Afghanistan. It seemed like a good idea at the time

Final Phase, 1980-1991

• Reagan and “evil empire” rhetoric

• SDI and massive US military spending

• Alliances with Saudi Arabia to reduce USSR oil values, bring Arab states into US alliances

• Defeat USSR with economic effort, not direct military confrontation

Building tight US – Saudi links also seemed like a good idea at the time

Soviet Initiatives

• Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness)

• USSR spending 50% of its GDP on defense

• Sign bipartisan disarmament agreements

• Seek to use the US as a partner not an enemy

• Dismantle Warsaw Pact, remove troops from Eastern Europe

“I was talking about another time and another era” – Reagan when asked about his “evil empire” statement of 1982

The End of History?