The cold war referred to the progressive state of military and political tension between the western World spear headed by America and its NATO allies and the Communist world led by Soviet Union and its allies. The cold war so named because it never featured any direct military action. However, they both threatened each other with nuclear attack and both fully participated in proxy wars through supporting the so called allied nations.
The origins of the cold war began with uncertainty and mistrust between the West and the Eastern blocks countries in Europe. The objective of the Russians was to control Eastern Europe and their guiding motivation questioned by many countries. After the Soviet Union the desire of the west, to control the Eastern Europe it precipitated the World War 2 in order to maintain its superiority in this area, the basis of the cold war became apparent. As a result of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia 1917, followed by its withdrawal from the World War 1, the soviet union found itself isolated in international relations, through its by then leader Vladimir Lenin stated that they were surrounded by a hostile and fierce capitalistic encirclement. He viewed diplomacy as a tool to keep soviet enemies divided and quickly established the soviet Comintern that called for revolutionary upheavals abroad (Cowley 201). Furthermore, the death of President Roosevelt and the creation of a new administration injected a new form of hostility towards the Soviet Union. The left opposition to Russia referred the soviet as bloody, imperialist and omnivorous in its quest. Meanwhile in 1946, Winston Churchill, called for a close tie between the United States and Britain. This aimed at consolidating resources in order to destroy the Soviet Union. The cold war officially began in March 1947, when the famous Truman Doctrine was read. It was a declaration of war on communism throughout the world. This speech by President Truman took effect immediately; on September 9, carrier planes from America were stationed in the Greek waters supporting the British imperialism in Greece and the Middle East (Gottfried 24).
It is vivid that these occurrences and activities demonstrated the mutual suspicion and mistrust between the Soviet Union and the western powers. Soviet Union leader, Joseph Stalin cited that they must ensure that the capitalists’ encirclement must be replaced by the socialist encirclement. Moreover, during the western powers supported the anti Bolshevik white movement in the Russian civil war. In 1926, Russia responded by funding a workers’ strike in Britain causing the ties between the two countries to break.
Main cause of the war
The main factor that geared the cold war was the differences in ideas and beliefs between the Soviet Union and the United States. The war defined both countries foreign policies as both competed to broaden their angles of influence all the world. The Soviet Union ruled by one person autocratic or dictatorial leadership that put the needs of the state ahead of personal, human rights. The election system is either fixed, or there are no elections at all. Communists have the idea of everyone helps one another. However, the society is controlled by the secret police and it has a low economic base. On the other hand, the capitalist ideology introduces democracy that valued freedom. There is a democratic system of power and free elections for as a right of all individuals. However, it supports the survival for the fittest in terms of economic equality even though it commands the richest world power (Larres 63).
Events that fuelled the war
There were a series of events that slowly by slowly broke down the alliance and turned allies of the war into enemies. None of the sides trusted the other, since they were so different, and each side saw the events differently and believed they were right and the opponent wrong. Hence every action they took made the both sides hate each other more and more.
Yalta Conference (Feb 1945)
During this conference, all the mighty three attended to try solve out how they would manage the world after the war. It was at this conference that tension broke between the sides, Britain and United States and Soviet Union. This conference concluded to divide Germany into four zones that France, Britain, USSR and America would occupy after the war. However, most of the negotiations seemed to be in favor of Stalin. After the conference, Winston Churchill wrote to Roosevelt citing that the soviet has become a danger to the free world. This further raised tension between the two sides (Gottfried 34).
Potsdam (July 1945)
This conference convened after Germany surrendered in May 1945. This conference was unsuccessful because; the relationship between the super powers had worsened because Stalin arrested the non communist Polish leader. Secondly after the death of Roosevelt, the new American President Truman promised to be tough with the Russians. Finally, the America tested the first atomic Bomb that increased the mistrust between the blocks. They disagreed openly about the details of German partitioning Russian influence over Eastern Europe countries and the size of reparations Germany must pay all to its affected citizens (Higgs 82).
Truman Doctrine
As a way, to counter the Soviet Union’s influence U.S president Harry Truman introduced the adoption of containment, policies integrated with numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism. The United States called for the allocation of $ 400 million to intervene the war. Moreover, the U.S will support Turkey and Greece with both military and economic aid to prevent them from the soviet influence (Sheehan 35).
Marshall Plan (1948)
The aim of this plan was to rebuild democratic and economic systems of Eastern Bloc countries and to counter the soviet control. Truman one month after the Marshall plan signed a national security act of 1947 that formed a unified central intelligence Agency, national Security Council and the department of defense. These departments would become the main channels for U.S policy in the cold war. As a result, there were increased intelligence and secret service activities (Sheehan 37).
Alignments
In response to the cold war, both sides engaged realignment and forming pacts and treaties to win the support of other nations with similar ideologies and interests. The following alignments were witnessed:
NATO formed
In 1949, United States, Britain, France, Canada and other eight Western European countries signed the North Atlantic treaty organization, establishing NATO. The aim of NATO was to protect its members or rather the western European nations from communists’ aggression (Heiss 19). Moreover, it had the sole responsibility of ensuring a collective security (attack against one member country equals attack against all).
Warsaw pact formed
In1955, the Soviet Union, reacted to NATO's formation by establishing the Warsaw pact. It included Poland, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Its establishment was due to the integration of the republic of Germany into NATO. It was accompanied by Marxist teachings that the only way was socialism to prevail even if it meant the use of nuclear power (Heiss 22).
Moreover, in 1949, the Soviet Union created an alliance with the peoples’ republic of China. The United States thereafter moved to Latin America, Africa and other continents to counter the revolutionary movements financed by the communists’ parties and the Soviet Union. In 1950’s, there were many pacts signed thus the name the period of pactomania. The United States successfully created a series of alliances with new Zealand, Austria, Thailand, Japan and Philippines. This guaranteed a number of long term military bases for the United States (Cowley 222). Moreover, there was competition between the two super powers to spread their ideologies around the world and get other nations support them. Many methods were used to win their support for example, through, monetary aid, selling arms and direct influence on to the other nations. It is worth noting out that not all the nations join the affiliations for example, India.
Arenas of the cold war
There were several arenas that the cold war manifested itself. Since it was a war fought through ideas. Technological space triggered its development. The following are the arenas in which the cold war manifested;
Atomic race
The nuclear arms race was the competition for supremacy in war fare between the Soviet Union and the United States with their respective allies. America and Soviet Union stocked nuclear piles and furthermore, other countries developed nuclear weapons. First the United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima to end the World War 2 (August 1945). This lead to the Soviet Union begins developing their first atomic bomb and detonates it. The U.S developed the first Hydrogen bomb while the Soviet Union tests their Hydrogen bomb in 1953. Finally, the United States embraced the brinkmanship policy that gave it powers to go to war using nuclear weapons (Leffler 189).
Space race
As the cold war surfaced, it was to be the battle of space exploration. The Soviet Union was the first to launch the first satellite (Sputnik) in 1957. Five years later, they sent the first humans to the orbit led by Yuri Gagarin. With stiff competition, the United States entered the race by sending her humans to orbit a year after the Soviet Union. In 1963, the soviet outshone the united state by sending the first woman in space. In 1969, the United States successfully completed the lunar landing while the Soviet Union was the first to complete a mars landing. In 1977, United States sent the voyage 2 to Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. This competition in the space exploration saw the two superpowers spend an enormous amount of money in their quest to show their powers.
Sports
During the Helsinki Games in 1952, there was the pinnacle of the contest between the capitalists’ and the communists. From the start, the athletes from both sides were separated from each other using a barbed wire. Both sides view any competition as a test for their political system. In the 1960, the battle between the super powers gained momentum in Rome. The final standing of medals saw the Soviet Union triumph with 103 medals compared to 71 for the United States of America. In the 1980, Moscow was chosen over Los Angeles as host of the Olympic Games. The United States had no choice but to comply but later withdraw from the Olympics when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (Leffler 201). The competition between these two blocs has been continuing even in the modern day Olympics where they win a lot of medals.
Cold war was not only witnessed between the Western bloc and the eastern bloc. It spread all over the world in to other countries. To give examples I will include:
The Korean War
The Korean War (1950-1953) was a war between the Republic of South Korea and the North Korea. The South had its support from the United States, with contributions from allied nations under the umbrella of the United Nation. On the other hand, the North got its support from China and material and military aid from the Soviet Union.
The cause of the Korean was as a result, political division of the Korea through an agreement of the victorious Allies following the conclusion of the Pacific War during the end of the World War 2.The failure for the Korean Peninsula to conduct free elections led to the ultimate division of the two sides. The North established a communist government while the South established a capitalist structure (Edwards 100).
The Korean War was directly responsible for speeding up the militarization of the Cold war. It gave the conflict a massive military dimension and emphasis. Major countries embraced the militarization process with a distinct possibility of a major attack from either side of the two blocks. The U.S entered into a significant rearmament and moved five divisions to Western Europe and urged the rest of the NATO alliance to follow suit.
Cuba
The United States supported the unpopular dictator Fulgencio Batista who Cuban rejected during the 1950s. In the 1959, the popular revolutionists led by Fidel Castro over threw Batista. As a new leader, Castro was popular at first because he introduced reforms in government, healthcare and women conditions (Chomsky 54). When Castro suspended elections and jailed and executed opponents, the United States reacted with an embargo in which Castro asked for the Soviet Union to help with the military and the economy. The United States began supporting a group of Cubans exiles in an attempt to overthrow Castro. The soviet union responded and started building42 missiles in Cuba, the united states spy plane discovers the sites and demand the sites removed and ensures a fully blockage of Cuba (Chomsky 70).
China
In china, there was the civil war between communists and nationalists. The Communists were the being supported with the Soviet Union whiles the nationalist by the United States. The communist won the war making the nationalist retreat towards Taiwan. This shows how the two superpowers were willing to do anything to suppress the spread of the other bloc’s ideologies (Phillips 113).
After the cold war
After the cold war, the Soviet Union cut the military spending, this created unemployment to every one of the five adults soldiers. Whooping hundreds of millions were left without jobs. Soviet underwent capitalists’ reforms in the 1990s. This made it suffer a financial crisis and recession far much more severe than the United States and Germany had gone through during the great depression. The living standards had worsened in general during the post cold war period. However, her economy has since improved from 1999.
Cold war legacy continues to influence the world affairs. After the crumble of the Soviet Union, the United States of America emerged as the super power. By 1989, the United States had held military alliances with over fifty countries and had 1.5million posted in abroad in 117 countries. The cold war institutionalized a global commitment to a permanent peacetime industrial and military complexes and a very enormous and wide military funding (Leffler 260).
There was the loss of life among soldiers’ both uniformed and un uniformed. Millions died in the proxy wars translated by the super powers all around the globe specifically the Southeast Asia. Incidences such as, revolutions, displacement and ethnic wars were frequent.
There has been the breakdown of state control in former Soviet Union territories. This has produced a new civil and ethnic conflict for example, the Yugoslavia. Moreover, the cold war has brought an era of economic growth and created the space needed for airing liberal democracies that United States was pushing for (Higgs 102).
Moreover, the war was pivotal in promoting the development of deterrence theory; another version of not only using deterrence to prevent wars but also prevent wars from escalating to the heights of mass destruction. Sustaining the stability of nuclear deterrence became a vital preoccupation of both arms control and deterrence theory.
Many nuclear legacies resulted from the cold war, the availability of new technologies for energy and nuclear power. There have been significant developments of health and medical treatment. Areas such as; research sciences, industrial production and environmental studies have benefited from the carefully managed usage of radiations and other nuclear activities such as electricity production.
Across Africa, the war created a negative impact. The cold war rivalry found the African countries while still trying to find their feet during the struggle for independence and post colonialism. Both the communists and the capitalists fought for their influence in these territories with a rich resource nature. This led to eruption of the longest conflicts in the modern history for example, in Angola.
The cold war was a significant aspect on every aspect of the American society. The culture difference between the Soviet Union and the United States had both positive and negative consequences. Mutual mistrust between the countries and differing economic philosophies resulted into political confrontations and economic competition. Because of its enormous influence, the cold war was the defining event of the 20th century and influenced to some degree, almost all American foreign and domestic policy
References
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