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| Cold War, term used to describe the post-World War II struggle between the United States and its allies and
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its allies. During the Cold War period, which lasted from the
mid-1940s until the end of the 1980s, international politics were heavily shaped by the intense rivalry
between these two great blocs of power and the political ideologies they represented: democracy and
capitalism in the case of the United States and its allies, and Communism in the case of the Soviet bloc.The principal allies of the United States during the Cold War included Britain, France, West Germany, Japan,
and Canada. On the Soviet side were many of the countries of Eastern Europe—including Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, and Romania—and, during parts of the Cold War, Cuba and
China. Countries that had no formal commitment to either bloc were known as neutrals or, within the Third
World, as nonaligned nations.American journalist Walter Lippmann first popularized the term cold war in a 1947 book by that name. By
using the term, Lippmann meant to suggest that relations between the USSR and its World War II allies
(primarily the United States, Britain, and France) had worsened to the point of war without the occurrence
of actual warfare.Over the next few years, the emerging rivalry between these two camps hardened into a mutual and permanent preoccupation. It dominated the foreign policy agendas of both sides and led to the
formation of two vast military alliances: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), created by the Western
powers in 1949; and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, established in 1955. Although centered originally in
Europe, the Cold War enmity eventually drew the United States and the USSR into local conflicts in almost
every quarter of the globe. It also produced what became known as the Cold War arms race, an intense
competition between the two superpowers to accumulate advanced military weapons. |
The early 1980s witnessed a final period of friction between the United States and the USSR, resulting mainly
from the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to support a Communist system of government and from the firm line
adopted by U.S. president Ronald Reagan after his 1980 election. Reagan saw the USSR as an “evil empire.”
He also believed that his rivals in Moscow respected strength first and foremost, and thus he set about to
add greatly to American military capabilities. The Soviets initially viewed Reagan as an implacable foe,
committed to subverting the Soviet system and possibly willing to risk nuclear war in the process.Then in the mid-1980s Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the USSR. Gorbachev was determined
to stop the increasing decay of the Soviet system and to shed some of his country’s foreign policy burdens.
Between 1986 and 1989 he brought a revolution to Soviet foreign policy, abandoning long-held Soviet
assumptions and seeking new and far-reaching agreements with the West. Gorbachev’s efforts
fundamentally altered the dynamic of East-West relations. Gorbachev and Reagan held a series of summit talk
s beginning in 1985, and in 1987 the two leaders agreed to remove a whole class of their countries’ nuclear
missiles—those capable of striking Europe and Asia from the USSR and vice versa. The Soviet government
began to reduce its forces in Eastern Europe, and in 1989 it pulled its troops out of Afghanistan. That year
Communist systems of government began to fell down in the countries of Eastern Europe and the wall that had divided East
and West Germany since 1961 was torn down. In 1990 Germany became once again a unified country. In 1991
the USSR dissolved, and Russia and the other Soviet republics emerged as independent states. Even before
these dramatic final events, much of the ideological basis for the Cold War competition had disappeared.
However, the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe, and then of the USSR itself, lent a crushing finality
to the end of the Cold War period.
There is some disagreement over what constitutes the beginning of the Cold War. While most historians say that it began in the period just after World War II, some say that it began towards the end of World War I, though tensions between Russia/USSR and Britain and the United States date back to the middle of the 19th century.The ideological clash between communism and capitalism began in 1917 following the Russian Revolution, when the USSR emerged as the first major communist power. This was the first event which made Russian-American relations a matter of major, long-term concern to the leaders in each country.Several events led to suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union: US interruption in Russia supporting the Whites in the Bolshevik Revolution, the separate peace treaty which led to Russia's withdrawal from WWI, the Bolsheviks' challenge to capitalism , the US refusal to recognize the Soviet Union until 1933. Other events in the period immediately before WWII increased this suspicion and distrust. American and British appeasement of Germany, and the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact.[6], are two notable examples. |
During the war, the Soviets strongly suspected that the Anglo-Americans had opted to let the Russians bear the brunt of the war effort, to insert themselves only at the last minute so as to influence the peace settlement and dominate Europe. Historians such as John Lewis Gaddis dispute this claim, citing other military and strategic calculations for the timing of the Normandy invasion. Nevertheless, Soviet perceptions (or misconceptions) of the West and vice versa left a strong undercurrent of tension and hostility between the Allied powers.
There was severe disagreement between the Allies about how Europe should look following the war. Both sides, moreover, held very dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security. The Americans tended to understand security in situational terms, assuming that, if US-style governments and markets were established as widely as possible, countries could resolve their differences peacefully, through international organizations. Soviet leaders, however, tended to understand security in terms of space. This reasoning was conditioned by Russia's historical experiences, given the frequency with which the country had been invaded over the last 150 years.At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allies attempted to define the framework for a post-war settlement in Europe, but could not reach a firm consensus. Following the Allied victory in May, the Soviets effectively occupied Eastern Europe, while the US had much of Western Europe. In occupied Germany, the US and the Soviet Union established zones of occupation and a loose framework for four-power control with the ailing French and British.
Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the Potsdam Conference on July 18, 1945. From left to right, first row: Stalin, Truman, Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Second row: Truman confidant Harry Vaughan , Russian interpreter Charles Bohlen, Truman naval aide James K. Vardaman, Jr., and Charles Griffith Ross (partially obscured).At the Potsdam Conference, starting in late July, serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe. One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki added to Soviet distrust of the United States. Shortly after the attacks, Stalin protested to US officials when Truman offered the Soviets little real influence in occupied Japan.In February 1946, George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow helped to articulate the growing hard line that was being taken against the Soviets.. On September 6, 1946, James F. Byrnes made a speech in Germany, repudiating the Morgenthau Plan and warning the Soviets that the US intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely. (see Restatement of Policy on Germany) As Byrnes admitted one month later, "The nub of our program was to win the German people it was a battle between us and Russia over minds " A few weeks after the release of this "Long Telegram", former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri. The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" from "Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic. |
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