4º ESO, Topic 6, Cold War (b)

8/7/2019 4 ESO, Topic 6, Cold War (b)

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DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLD WAR

A fter the blockade of B erlin the tw o superpow ers w ere engaged in conflict un til 1989.

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THE EARLY STAGES OFTHE COlDWAR

In 1 94 8 th e USA , G reat B ritain an d F ran ce d ecid edto m erge their G erm an sections and their territoryin Berlin .The USSR d idn't a gre e and S ta lin b lo ck ad -ed the city.T he USA and B ritain flew in supplies forthe civilian population of w estern B erlin over theheads of the Soviet soldiers - this w as called the

'Berlin Airlift '.The Soviets did not dare toshoot down the planes, because theyknew this w ould begin a new w ar:W henS talin ended the blo ck ad e in 1 949, after10 mon ths. B erlin w as divided into eastand west. and two new states wereformed:West Germany(a Federa l Repub -l ic ) andEast Germany(Communis t) . EastBerlin became the capital of the newcommun ist n atio n.A new frontier hadbeen created between the two super-pow ers. It w as the beginning of the C old

War,

The Cold War begins Creation of the military blocs

To m ake things w orse for Stalin NATO (N orth A t-lantic T reaty O rganisation) w as form ed in 19 49 byth e USA and the w estern countries, asa militaryp ac t a ga in st th e Sov ie t th rea t. S talin re ac te d. b ut notuntil 1 955,when th eUSSR and its a llie s fo rmed th eWa rsaw Pact.

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Proxy Wars

Proxy Wars were conflicts thatwould be fought by countrieshostile or sympathetic to thetwo different systems that wehave already outlined, namelycommunism and capitalism.They were 'proxy' wars becausethe USA and the Soviet Uniondid not fight each other face-toface, but were rather'represent-ed' by other countries.

By 1949, Europe was clearly di-vided into east and west, communist and capitalist.Yugoslavia (under [osip Tito) was communist, but

remained independent from the Soviet Union. The

Iron Curtain was well and truly established. Stalinwas given his 'sphere of influence'. The world was'hi-polarised', politicallyspeaking.

It looked as though European co-existence waspossible, but there was the new problem of nuclearweapons.The Soviets could not permit the USA todevelop nuclear weapons alone.

InAugust 1949 the Soviets tested a nuclear device,a prototype of the hydrogen bomb. The West wasalarmed and the 'Arms Race' had begun. But theUSA and Russia knew that it would be almost im-possible to fight each other now, because of themassive destruction that nuclear weapons couldcause,

This was the theory of 'deterrence'. The idea wasthat you wouldn't attack with nuclear weapons, be-cause you knew that the enemy would defend itself- with nuclear weapons. So nobody would usethem.

Nevertheless, this did not stop a series of 'proxy'wars being fought between communists and theWest. Here we will describe only the most signifi-cant conflicts.

The first of these conflicts was in Korea, and it isimportant historically because it represented thefirst major conflict of the Cold War period, and itwas the first major proxy war. It was also an earlyexample of the consequences of decolonisationthat had begun after World War Two, because the

Korean peninsula had been occupied by the japan-ese since 191O.ln 1945,when the japanese surren-dered, they were obliged to leave Korea.They werereplaced by the Soviets - who supported NorthKorea, and the Americans, who supported SouthKorea - an arrangement agreed at the PotsdamConference in I945.The two countries were divid-ed by the 38th parallel>- a demilitarised lone.

To add to the problems, the Communist State ofChina had been set up by Mao Tse Tung in 1949,(after he had won the civilwar that started at theend ofWWII), and the western powers were wor-ried in case the whole of the peninsula became

communist. The protection of South Korea by theUSA was the first real test of the 'Truman Doc tr ine '.

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THE 'DOMINO THEORY'

The most important consequence of the KoreanWar was that the USA (and its allies) believed thatthe 'containment'policy against communism was thebest one. But the idea of containment was modifiedslightlywhen President Eisenhower first mentioneda new idea on a radio interview in 1954. He wastalking about Indochin-a (Cambodia, Laos,Vietnam).He said that if i t fell to the communists, then therewas a possibility that Burma,Thailand, MalaysiaandIndonesia would also be taken over - that theywould 'fall' like successive dominoes. This would

leave countries like japan, thePhilippines, New Zealand andAustralia with the responsibilityof resisting communism, becausethey were geographically theclosest. Eisenhower was worriedthat some of them might evenbecome friendly with the Sovi-ets, mainlythrough trade.

Dwigh t Davi d E is enhowe r. US Gene ra land po li ti ci an (1890-1969)


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TH E KOREAN WAR (1950-1953)

North Korea was commu-nist: under the governmentof Kim /I Sung,supported bythe Soviet Union.

South Korea was anti-com-munist, under the dictator-ship of Syngman Rhee, sup-ported by the USA.

The two Korean leadershated each other. B.othlead-ers wanted to preside overthe entire Korean peninsula.

In 1919, Kim Sung visitedStalin then M ao Zedong toask them for 'permission' toinvade South Korea. Theygave this permission. .

InJune 1950, North Korea crossed the 38 th paral-lel and invaded South Korea.

The United Nations asked their members to in-tervene. The UN troops were 80%American, ledby General MacArthur.

Situation:After Potsdam,Koreawas divided into two states:

UN troops fought back and byOctober they had crossed

back over the 38th

parallel andwere advancing towards theChinese border. The Chinesewere alarmed, and attackedthe UN forces with 500,000soldiers, re-capturing NorthKorea. Then MacArthur askedTruman to use a nuclear bombto stop the Chinese. Trumanrefused, and sacked MacArthur.

The UN forces fought backagain,this time using jet-fightersand heavy bombing of civilianand military targets with incen-diary devices (napalm), Al-though the Soviets also sup-

plied jet fighters to the North Koreans, the UnitedStates gradually began to win the war:When Stalindied in 1953 and Truman was replaced by PresidentEisenhower. the two sides agreed to stop fighting.The war ended inJuly 1953 in a stalemate.The twosuperpowers left and the borders were returned tothe same as 1950.The nuclear risk had decreased,but only after 5 milliondeaths, most of them civilian.

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and they captured most of South Korea. But the


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THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Another o f the critical C old War ev en ts, the C ub ancrisis,w as the closest the w orld has ever com e to afu ll -sca le nuc lea r war:

The U nited States' C old War policy, as w e know ,w as one of ,containm ent' and the avoidance of thedom ino effect. But it also wanted to maintainfrie nd ly re la tio ns w ith a ll c ountrie s g eogr aphic allyclo se. T h e USA h ad su pp orted the C uban dictatorBatista s in ce 1952, b ec au se Amer ic an busin essmenown ed muc h o f C ub a's in du stry, an d mad e b ig p ro f-its, w hile mo st C ub an s liv ed in p ov erty. In 1 95 9, F i~del Castro overthrew Batista and set up a newreg im e. C astro w as p ro -C ommunist. an d imm edi-

a tely estab lish ed frien dly re latio ns w ith th e S ov ie tUnion,

B ut w hat caused th e crisis w ith the U SA ?

C astro n atio nalise d h un dred s o f US c ompa nie s.

C uba began to sell its sugar to R ussia, instead ofto the USA.

C uba began to buy w eapons from R ussia,

T he C IA began to train C uban exiles in Americato in vade C ub a,

W hen P resident K ennedy becam e U S P resident in1 961 , he au th orised th e in vasio n o f C ub a b y th e e x-iles,T hey trie d to in vad e th eBay o f P ig s, b ut w ereeasily d efea ted b y th e Cub an s, E ve ry on e k new th at

the U SA had supported the rebels, and as a resultC astro b ecam e more p op ular.

Then in 1962 a U S U 2 spy plane took photographso f se ve ra l n uc le ar m iss ile b as es b ein g built in Cuba ,Cuba was only 100 miles from the US coast. Thenuclear m issiles w ould be brought in ships fromR ussia. Khrushchev had done this because, theAmerica ns h ad b uilt a n uc lea r b ase in Tu rk ey, clo seto the S ov iet U nion . Th e USA beg an a naval block-ade of C uba, and dem anded that the m issile basesb e d ismantle d.When Ru ss ia n sh ip s c on tin ue d to sa iltowards C uba in October 1962, people thoughtth at a n uc lea r w ar w as re ally b eg in nin g.In the end, the ships turned round, Khrushchevprom ised to w ithdraw the m issile bases from C u-

ba, and K ennedy prom -ised to w ithdraw hisfrom Turkey. War wasavo ided , bu t on ly ju st.

In 1963 , the two coun-trie s s ig ne d aNuclea r Tes tBan Tre aty,which lim i tedtests of these w eap ons,

Kennedy becam e verypopu la r; bu t Kh ru shchevw as rem oved from pow-er in 1964 and replacedby Brezhnev .

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THE VIETNAM WAR

The Vietnam War was a good example of the'domino effect', Vietnam had been part of theFrench empire in Indo-China but by 1954 after thedecolonisation of Indo-China, Vietnam was dividedinto two under the I 7th Pa ra l l e l :North Vietnam wasunder a communist government, and South Viet-nam under a government friendly to the west.

In 1956 there should have been an election tochoose a government for a united Vietnam, but theUnited States opposed it because they were afraidthat the communists would win and that otherstates would follow - like dominoes. Many peoplein South Vietnam resented this, which led to the Vi-etcong or NLF (National Liberation Front) fightingto overthrow the South Vietnamese government.with help from the North Vietnamese.

NORI I IVI


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tDETENTE' AND TENSION

Eisenhower's idea of the domino e ffec thad less im-mediate consequences than the basic results of theKoreanWar and the different events that happenedin the 1950s.These events led to a 'detente' situa-tion after I955.The events were:

The United States realised that it could not fightChina again,with its massive population.

The Korean War showed how easy it was for aregional conflict to suddenly escalate and cause apossible world war:

Russia accused the USA of using the UN for itsown purposes.

.. In 1953 Stalin died and was replaced byKhrushchev.

In 1953 Eisenhower, who was less arrti-cornmu-nist. replaced Truman as American president.

.. In 1955 Eisenhower and Khrushchev met at theGeneva Confe rence ,and agreed to reduce ColdWar tensions.

.. Khrushchev rejected thepolicies of Stalin andshocked the Russians by

publicly criticising the oldregime.

In 1956 Khrushchev calledfor 'peaceful coexistence'between East and West,or between NATO andthe Warsaw Pact.

The first years after the Ko-rean War were a definite at-tempt to reduce (relax)tensions between the two superpowers, called 'de-

tente ' (relaxation in French). The only events thatthreatened this 'peace' were the Suez (Canal) Cri-sis and the Hungarian Uprising, both in the Octo-ber-November of 1956.

Nikita SergeyevichKhurschevSovie t po li ti c ian (1894-1971)

The Suez Crisis began when the Egyptian leaderNasser decided to nationalise the Suez Canal Com-pany in 1955. This caused problems for GreatBritain and France, because the canal had becomethe major 'gate' for Europe's booming oil industry.Britain also owned 45% of the company. Also, thenew state of Israel, (whose history we learnt lastyear) ~ and whose relationship with Egyptwas verybad ~ also wanted to use the canal.

Egyptwas becoming friendly with the Soviet Unionand China, and had bought arms cheaply from both .A coalition of French, British and Israeli troops in-vaded the northern canal zone and fought withEgyptian soldiers. The USA criticised the invasionand was afraid it would provoke the Soviets intofightingfor the Egyptians.After US pressure, in 1957the war ended, and the UN sent in a peace-force(UNEF ~ United Nations Emergency Force) to pro-teet the area. The EnglishPrime Minister, Eden,wasforced to resign, the French pulled their troops outof NATO,and the Egyptian leader Nasser became ahero from the more militant Arab perspective.

The Hungarian Uprising took place almost simulta-neously, Hungary was part of the Soviet bloc, butafter the death of Stalin the nationalists in Hungarysaw a chance to free the country from the Sovietsand to regain control. The nationalists rase up inOctober against the 'puppet' government. and in-

stalled their own communistleader, /mre Nagy,The USA an-nounced that they would notsupport the uprISing, soKhrushchev realised that he

could aet without beginning an-other major superpower eon-flict, When Nagy announcedthat he would allow free elec-tions and take Hungary out ofthe Warsaw Pact, the Sovietssent in soldiers to brutally sup-press the revolution and main-tain Hungary's position in theSoviet Union.

4º ESO, Topic 6, Cold War (b)

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