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The Cold War: 1945-1991�Discuss the background leading to the phases of the Cold War from 1945-73.

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The Cold War

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Learning Objective One

Discuss the origins of the Cold War?

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  1. “Who started the Cold War?” has little meaning; the important questions is, “Why did it happen?”. The opening act began in 1945
  2. The United States emerged from WORLD WAR II as a superpower
  3. WWII ruined all other nations economies; the American economy after the Great Depression flourished.
  4. The Soviet Union in 1945 could not provide more of a contrast.
    1. 20 million dead,
    2. the S.U. relatively primitive industrial facilities largely in ruins,
    3. territory wasted by four years of “scorched earth” war by Hitler,
    4. Weak and vulnerable
  5. The USA imperial creed. The United States, declared President Truman in April 1945, should “take the lead in running the world in the way that the world ought to be run” (The Truman Doctrine)
  6. The Defeat of Germany and Japan did not bring stability to the world.
  7. The conflict between the USA and SU began gradually.

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Learning Objective One

  1. The conflict between the USA and SU began gradually.
    1. Division of Europe
    2. Postwar Economic Aid
    3. The Atomic Bomb

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YALTA (in the USSR)

Date: Feb 1945

Present: Churchill,

Roosevelt and Stalin

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Occupation Zones in Post-war Germany

Occupation Zones in Berlin

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Division of Europe

  • (The Iron Curtain)
    • Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia
    • In 1948, Czechoslovakia overthrew a democratic government and gave the Soviets a strategic foothold in Central Europe

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NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

In 1949 the western nations formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

  • It originally consisted of:
    • America
    • Belgium
    • Britain
    • Canada
    • Denmark
    • France
    • Holland
    • Italy
    • Luxembourg
    • Norway
    • Portugal
  • Since the fall of the Soviet Union in
  • 1991,some former Soviet republics have applied for membership to NATO.

NATO flag

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Warsaw Pact

  • Warsaw Pact: organization of communist states in Central and Eastern Europe.
  • Established May 14, 1955 in Warsaw, Poland
  • USSR established in in response to NATO treaty
  • Founding members:
    • Albania (left in 1961 as a result of the Sino-Soviet split)
    • Bulgaria
    • Czechoslovakia
    • Hungary
    • Poland
    • Romania
    • USSR
    • East Germany (1956)

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Greatest extent of Warsaw Pact

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Eastern Bloc countries

Soviet Union map including Soviet Republics

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Soviet Union

  • 2. Postwar Economic aid (The Marshall Plan)
    • World War II was economically devastating for the S.U.
        • 20 million dead
        • 30,000 factories destroyed
        • 40,000 miles of R.R. destroyed

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      • Ambassador Averill Harriman “…one of the most effective weapons at our disposal in dealing with the Russians is the utility of economic aid”

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POTSDAM (Germany)

Date: July 1945

Present: Churchill,

Truman and Stalin

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3. The Bomb

    • Atomic development was secret
    • Stalin learned of the Manhattan Project through espionage.
    • Program began in 1943, completed in 1949

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Learning Objective Two

Concept Two: Discuss the policy of “containment” and the Six Phases of its development

  1. PHASE ONE: The Truman Doctrine 1947-53
    1. The first phase of CONTAINMENT had three phases
      1. Economic Aid and the Marshal Plan
      2. NATO
      3. Korean War
  2. PHASE TWO: Eisenhower 50-59 “Competitive Coexistence”
      • Mutually Assured Destruction MAD
      • Covert Action
        1. Guatemala
        2. Iran
      • Military Industrial Complex
  3. PHASE THREE: Kennedy “Flexible Response” 1961-63
  4. PHASE FOUR: Johnson and Vietnam 63-69
  5. PHASE FIVE: Nixon Doctrine
    • Renewed bombing
    • hardline negotiations with Hanoi
    • gradual withdrawal of American Troops

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Truman Doctrine and Containment

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��The Truman Doctrine in March 1947 promised that the USA “would support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”.

  • Aid to Greece and Turkey
  • March 12, 1947, President $400 million

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  • Containment: George Kennan

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Fear of Communism Spreading in Europe

  • 1947-1948 harsh winter
  • Communist parties in France and Italy gained many seats�
  • June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall spoke at Harvard �
  • Joseph Stalin took his speech as an assault against communism

Harsh winter in Germany

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Marshall Plan

  • The Marshall Plan lent $17 billions to enable the war shattered economies of Europe
  • to reject the appeal of Communism,
  • Czechoslovakia showed interest in receiving Marshall Aid but was blocked by S.U..��

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Molotov Plan

  • counter to the Marshall Plan
  • Pledge to help Eastern Europe
  • Soviets gave Poland five-year $450 million trade agreement if they agreed to boycott the Marshall Plan

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Korean War

1950 –1953 (de facto)�1950 – present (de jure)

American G.I.’s in Korean War, 1950

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Prelude to the Korean War

  • November 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution for a united Korea
  • Only the South held elections and created the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea)
  • One month later, the communists in the North created the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea)

Korean peninsula

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Armed Conflict

  • Armed conflict broke out between the North and the South
  • Stalin did not want to go to war with the United States, so he encouraged China to support North Korea if they needed help

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Combat in Seoul, 1950

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Korean Armistice

  • General Dwight Eisenhower would win the 1952 presidential election
  • March 5, 1953 – Joseph Stalin died
  • July 27, 1953, North Korea agreed to peace

Signing the Korean Armistice Agreement

Demilitarized Zone along 38th Parallel

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Competitive Coexistence �Eisenhower �

Phase Two:

1953-1961

    • 1953: Dwight D. Eisenhower
    • Under Eisenhower the United States' Cold War policy remained essentially unchanged.
    • The change came in the degree of enforcing containment
    • Two Parts
      • 1. Nuclear Arms Race
      • 2. Covert Action

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The Nuclear Arms Race�

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MAD "Massive retaliation" and "brinkmanship"

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. Covert Action

  • 2. Covert Action
    • CIA moved from its original mandate of mere intelligence gathering to ACTIVE involvement
    • 1953: The CIA organized a coup in IRAN of the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah

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A Warning of the Military Industrial Complex�

"Unless we can put things in the hands of people who are starving to death we can never lick Communism“

�Moreover, the president feared that a bloated Military-industrial complex

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Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

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Despite a proposed slashing of U.S. Army personnel to pre-World War II levels, American military might is beyond question.

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This chart from April 2013, which is making the rounds again, shows that America's 2012 defense budget surpassed that of the next 10 countries combined.

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Pentagon can’t account for $220 billion in gov’t property, fails fifth audit

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“The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government.”

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Third Stage�“Flexible Response”�Under Kennedy�

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Vietnam War

1955-1975

Viet Cong fighters, 1961

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Vietnam War

  • France colonized Vietnam from the 1880s to 1945
  • The Vietnamese nationalist leader, Ho Chi Minh, was backed by the United States during the anti-Japanese insurgency
  • After Japan surrendered in 1945, Viet Minh nationalists under Ho Chi Minh’s leadership created the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh statue, 2006

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Vietnam War

  • France and Vietnam
    • United States sided with France
    • With the U.S. siding with France, Ho Chi Minh turned to the Soviet Union
    • 1954 – French left Vietnam
  • The USA wanted to stop the expansion of communism
    • American military intervention – 1964-1973
  • In the end, the communists were able to reunite Vietnam

Vietnam War, 1966

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  • Elections to be held after about 2 years.
    • Ho consolidates his power bloodily in an ill-advised effort to get rid of landlords and collectivize NVN.
    • Many innocent people killed; others flee to South. Later admits this was an error of judgment.
  • Diem cracks down on dissent within SVN,
    • esp. Buddhists.
    • Never obtains popular backing and eventually looks like a liability to US.

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National Liberation Front established, 1960.�

    • Dubbed "Viet Cong"
    • US military and economic assistance to Diem regime grows.
    • Diem's repressive policies alienate support.
    • 1963 Diem killed in Coup

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The Johnson Years

  • E. The US War: 1964-1968.
    • Tonkin Gulf
    • ROLLING THUNDER
    • Tet Offensive (1968-69)

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https://youtu.be/rYqmO0PJ5Zk?t=13

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Richard Nixon

  • Vietnam: Peace with Honor�
  • Nixon took a different approach to the Cold War
  • Encouraged UN to recognize the Chinese Communist Party
  • Adopted a policy of “détente” (“relaxation”) toward the Soviet Union

Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon, 1973