The Cold War
Heats Up
Essential Question:
How did the arms race and space race
escalate the Cold War between the
United States and the Soviet Union?
From 1945 to 1991, the USA and USSR used
a variety of strategies to win the Cold War
In the early years of the Cold War (1945-1949),
the USA used a containment policy to successfully
stop the spread of communism in Europe
Truman Doctrine
Marshall
Plan
NATO
Berlin
Airlift
When communism spread to China in 1949, the
USA feared the “domino effect” and became
more aggressive in its efforts to stop communism
The USA
went to war
in Korea to
defend South
Korea from
communism
The Soviet Union supplied weapons to the
communists in North Korea during the war
The type of indirect fighting
between the USA and USSR
is called a “proxy war”
From 1949 to 1970, the Cold War
escalated as a result of a nuclear arms
race, space race, and espionage
The U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons
ended in 1949 when the USSR
successfully tested an atomic bomb
The Soviet development of the atomic
bomb led to a nuclear arms race
between the USA and USSR
In 1952, the USA tested the first hydrogen
bomb, which is 1000 times more powerful
than the atomic bomb
The Soviet Union responded by detonating
its own hydrogen bomb in 1953
By 1959, both
the USA and
USSR developed
rockets called
intercontinental
ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) that
could deliver
nuclear
warheads to
distant targets
U.S. Titan ICMB from the 1960s
By 1959, both
the USA and
USSR developed
rockets called
intercontinental
ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) that
could deliver
nuclear
warheads to
distant targets
Soviet ICMBs from 1960-1975
Soviet Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL)
U.S. Polaris Submarine
Unlike bomber
planes carrying
atomic bombs,
these rockets
were
impossible to
intercept
In the 1950s,
President
Eisenhower
escalated the
Cold War by using
brinkmanship:
threatening to
use nuclear
weapons and
willingness to go
to the brink of
war
If the USSR
attacked a
NATO
member,
the U.S.
would use
massive
retaliation:
attack
every major
Soviet city
and military
target
As a result, the USA and USSR began
stockpiling nuclear weapons and
building up their militaries
With the USA and USSR in possession of large nuclear
stockpiles, each side could destroy each other:
this was known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
Throughout the Cold War, the USA and USSR
looked for ways to gain first strike capability
In 1957, the USSR used its first ICBM to
launch Sputnik, the first satellite into space
Sputnik shocked Americans, who
feared the U.S. had fallen behind the
USSR in science and technology
As a result of Sputnik, the Cold War escalated
into a space race, with Americans and Soviets
trying to assert their dominance
In 1958, the USA created
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA)
to catch up to the USSR
U.S. schools
promoted
math,
science, and
technology
NASA’s original seven NASA
Mercury astronauts
The USSR repeatedly beat the US in space by launching
the first man into orbit and orbiting the moon
In 1962, President John Kennedy committed the USA
to beating the Soviet Union in the race to the moon
In 1969, Apollo 11 landed
U.S. astronauts on the moon
During the Cold War, the USA and USSR created
intelligence agencies, the CIA and KGB, in order
to spy and carry out covert operations (spying,
espionage, sabotage, assassinations)
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
(Committee for State Security) and
Central Intelligence Agency
The USA
and USSR
used spies
to gather
intelligence
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
convicted of selling nuclear
weapon secrets to the USSR
U.S. and
Soviet spy
planes also
gathered
information
The Cold War escalated as the threat
of communism spread into the Middle
East, Africa, and Latin America
The CIA overthrew the governments of
Iran and Guatemala and intervened in Egypt, Bolivia,
Chile, and Cuba in attempts to prevent communism
from taking hold in those countries
Cold War tensions were at an all-time high when the
Cuban Missile Crisis brought the US and the USSR to
the very brink of a full nuclear war
Cuba, which is 90 miles off the coast of Florida,
had a communist revolution, led by Fidel Castro
The U.S. failed in a covert operation to
overthrow Castro and was humiliated
Because of this failure, Soviet
premier Nikita Khrushchev thought
the U.S. would not stop communist
expansion in Latin America
Cuba became
allies with the
Soviet Union
In July 1962, the Soviets secretly began to build
missile sites in Cuba and ship warheads there to
counter the U.S. having missile sites in European
nations close to the Soviet Union
These missiles gave
the USSR the ability to
strike first in a nuclear
war with the U.S.
An American spy plane flew over Cuba in October
1962 and discovered that the Soviets were building
the missile sites and directing them at the U.S.
An American spy plane flew over Cuba in October
1962 and discovered that the Soviets were building
the missile sites and directing them at the U.S.
U.S.
President
John F.
Kennedy
declared that
missiles so
close to the
American
mainland
were a threat
that could
not be
ignored
Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove the
missiles and announced a naval blockade to prevent
the USSR from shipping in any more missiles
Kennedy promised that the U.S. Navy would sink any
Soviet ship that tried to get to Cuba
This brinkmanship by Kennedy and
Khrushchev would bring the world closer to
nuclear war than ever before
Tensions nearly exploded into war when a U.S. spy
plane was shot down over Cuba on October 27th and
Kennedy set the military at full battle readiness
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed;
Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy,
promising removal of the missiles from Cuba
if the U.S. would make promises in return
Khrushchev
announced he would
remove the missiles if
the U.S. promised
never to invade Cuba
or try to overthrow
Castro again
A secret part of the
deal is that the U.S.
agreed to remove
missiles from Turkey
the next year
Kennedy agreed and
both forces began to
stand down from
battle readiness
This was the closest the world
has gotten to nuclear war