The Cold War Goes Global
c. 1949 to 1950
• Escalation of Tensions OUTSIDE of Europe
• Militarization of the Conflicts
• Introduction of 3rd World Players
Cold War Origins: Europe
1945 -1955
•
1939-1945: WWII
•
1946: Iron Curtain Speeches (Churchill & Stalin)
•
1946-7: Kennan’s Long Telegram / Article X
•
1947: Truman Doctrine
•
1947-48: 1st Berlin Crisis (blockade & airlift)
•
1948: Marshal Plan
•
1948: Czech Coup ("Victorious February”)
•
1949 (April): NATO
•
1949 (Aug): USSR detonates A-bomb
•
1950: NSC-68
•
1950-1953: Korean War
•
1953: East German Worker’s Strike
•
1955: Warsaw Pact
Ideology and
the Cold War
Questions:
1. What are Kramer’s key points
regarding NATO & the Warsaw
Pact?
2. Why was NATO formed?
3. Why was the Warsaw Pact
formed?
4. How does Mr. Kramer address
ideology of the Cold War?
5. How does Mr. Kramer address
historiography of the Cold War?
Ideology and the Cold War Questions:
1. What are Kramer’s key points regarding
NATO & the Warsaw Pact?
2. Why was NATO formed?
3. Why was the Warsaw Pact formed?
4. How does Mr. Kramer address ideology of
the Cold War?
5. How does Mr. Kramer address
historiography of the Cold War?
NATO
1949
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• Countermeasure against Soviet aggression
– Provided for “collective self-defense”
• Members:
– Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain,
Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
Portugal, and the United States
• 1952: Greece and Turkey
• 1955: West Germany
L to R Sir Derick Boyer Millar, Chargé d'affaires, United Kingdom; Ambassador Henrik de Kauffmann of
Denmark; W. D. Matthews, Charge d'Affaires, Canada; Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson; Ambassador
Wilhelm Munthe de Morgenstierne of Norway; Ambassador Henri Bonnet of France; Ambassador
Pedro Theotonio Pereira of Portugal; Secretary of State Dean Acheson; Jonkheer O. Reuchlin, Chargé
d'affaires, the Netherlands; and Mario Lucielli, Chargé d'affaires, Italy.
ISAF =
International
Security
Assistance
Force in
Afghanistan
Former US
Defense
Secretary
Leon
Panetta
(2011-13)
Source: Klein, Bradley S, How the West was One: Representational Politics of NATO,
International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3, Special Issue: Speaking the Language of Exile:
Dissidence in International Studies (Sep., 1990), pp. 311-325, Wikley-Blackwell, Jstor, date
accessed: November 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600572
Contemporary discussions about the West having
"won' the Cold War are framed within a
conventional strategic discourse in which one
political-military alliance, NATO, demonstrated its
staying power and integrity in the face of its rival
alliance, the Warsaw Pact. NATO's strategic
practices, long the object of criticism on the part of
revisionist historians and critical peace researchers,
have apparently been vindicated.
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/index_EN.htm
NSC-68
• 58-page memorandum
• Among the most influential
documents of the Cold War
• Support a massive build-up
of both conventional and
nuclear arms
• Was not declassified until
1975
Initially, a number of U.S. officials strongly opposed NSC-68’s recommendations. Critics such as
Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, and senior diplomats such as Soviet experts and former
ambassadors to the Soviet Union George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, argued that the United
States already had a substantial military advantage over the Soviet Union. Kennan, in particular,
disagreed with Nitze’s assertion that the Soviet Union was bent on achieving domination
through force of arms, and argued that the United States could contain the Soviet Union
through political and economic measures, rather than purely military ones. However, the
invasion of South Korea by Soviet and Chinese-backed North Korean forces in June 1950, and
continuing charges by Congressional critics that the Administration was soft on Communism,
quickly settled matters in favor of the report’s recommendations. NSC 68’s recommendations
thereby became policy, and the United States Government began a massive military build-up.
While NSC-68 did not make any specific recommendations regarding the proposed increase in
defense expenditures, the Truman Administration almost tripled defense spending as a
percentage of the gross domestic product between 1950 and 1953 (from 5 to 14.2 percent).
Warsaw Pact
1955
• ‘The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance’
• Response to NATO
• Tool of the USSR
– Integration of military, economic and cultural policy
• “Eastern Bloc” countries:
– Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union
Source: Garthoff, Raymond L, The Warsaw Pact Today: And Tomorrow? The Brookings Review,
Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 34-40, The Brookings Institution Press, Jstor, date accessed:
November 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20080163
During its first 30 years the Warsaw Pact served several purposes, primarily in the interests of
the Soviet Union, but in some aspects also for its other members. In a paradoxical way, the
Pact also came to serve certain purposes for the United States and NATO, if only as an
opponent against which the Western alliance could be rallied. While the several objectives and
functions of the Pact in those years can be described in various ways, they fall within three
major categories:
1. A device for Soviet hegemonic control of its political, ideological, military, and economic
bloc of Eastern European satellites or allies.
2. A Soviet-controlled military command for contingent military operations, offensive and
defensive.
3. A mechanism for coordinating Soviet and Eastern European policies and actions in various
spheres, including foreign policy, internal ideology, and military policy.
All of these roles were seen as mutually reinforcing and as serving overall objectives such as
enhancing security and international influence. Ideological, political, economic, and military
solidarity was taken as a given. There were, in practice, flaws…
Source:
International Studies Quarterly (1990) 34, 311-325
How the West Was One: Representational Politics of NATO
BRADLEY S. KLEIN
Harvard University and University of Hartford
Contemporary discussions about the West having
"won' the Cold War are framed within a conventional
strategic discourse in which one political-military
alliance, NATO, demonstrated its staying power and
integrity in the face of its rival alliance, the Warsaw
Pact. NATO's strategic practices, long the object of
criticism on the part of revisionist historians and
critical peace researchers, have apparently been
vindicated…
Yugoslavia & Tito
Warsaw Pact c. 1955 with Tito of Yugoslavia in the Middle
The Cold War Goes Global
c. 1949 to 1950
• Escalation of Tensions OUTSIDE of Europe
• Militarization of the Conflicts
• Introduction of 3rd World Players
Name:
Geopolitical Divisions
in Cold War Europe
Source: Klein, Bradley S, How the West was One: Representational Politics of NATO, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3, Special Issue:
Speaking the Language of Exile: Dissidence in International Studies (Sep., 1990), pp. 311-325, Wikley-Blackwell, Jstor, date accessed: November 2012,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600572
Contemporary discussions about the West having "won' the Cold War are framed within a conventional strategic discourse in which one
political-military alliance, NATO, demonstrated its staying power and integrity in the face of its rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact. NATO's
strategic practices, long the object of criticism on the part of revisionist historians and critical peace researchers, have apparently been
vindicated.
Source: Garthoff, Raymond L, The Warsaw Pact Today: And Tomorrow? The Brookings Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 34-40, The Brookings
Institution Press, Jstor, date accessed: November 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20080163
During its first 30 years the Warsaw Pact served several purposes, primarily in the interests of the Soviet Union, but in some aspects also for its other
members. In a paradoxical way, the Pact also came to serve certain purposes for the United States and NATO, if only as an opponent against which the
Western alliance could be rallied. While the several objectives and functions of the Pact in those years can be described in various ways, they fall within
three major categories:
1.
2.
3.
A device for Soviet hegemonic control of its political, ideological, military, and economic bloc of Eastern European satellites or allies.
A Soviet-controlled military command for contingent military operations, offensive and defensive.
A mechanism for coordinating Soviet and Eastern European policies and actions in various spheres, including foreign policy, internal ideology, and
military policy.
All of these roles were seen as mutually reinforcing and as serving overall objectives such as enhancing security and international influence. Ideological,
political, economic, and military solidarity was taken as a given. There were, in practice, flaws…
Source: Klein, Bradley S, How the West Was One: Representational Politics of NATO International Studies Quarterly (1990) 34, 311-325,
Harvard University and University of Hartford
Contemporary discussions about the West having "won' the Cold War are framed within a conventional strategic discourse in which one
political-military alliance, NATO, demonstrated its staying power and integrity in the face of its rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact. NATO's
strategic practices, long the object of criticism on the part of revisionist historians and critical peace researchers, have apparently been
vindicated…
Source: Kramer, Mark, Ideology and the Cold War, Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 539-576, Cambridge University Press, Jstor, date of access:
November 2013 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20097622
Was the Cold War a contest of two ideologies? liberal democracy and Marxism Leninism? or was it driven mainly by considerations of power and material interests? No
definitive answer to this question has yet emerged. Indeed, deep divisions remain among Western analysts about the precise role of ideology in the making of the Cold War.
…
The power vacuum in Europe after World War II eventually induced both super powers to seek European allies against one another. The disparate geopolitical circumstances
that the two countries faced were bound to have some effect on the types of alliances they sought. In the United States, many officials and legislators initially were reluctant
to maintain a permanent military presence in Europe. They planned instead to help the West European states themselves acquire the wherewithal to sustain a viable balance
against the Soviet Union. Not until after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 did US perceptions of the Soviet threat change enough to generate widespread support
for a huge increase in the US military commitment to Western Europe. By that point, US officials already sensed, from the Berlin crisis of 1948-49, that the United States
would need an extensive network of military bases in Western Europe if it wished to deter or rebuff Soviet probes on the continent. The increased deployment of US troops
and weapons in Europe from late 1950 on was geared toward that end, and was also intended to reassure the West Europeans of the strength of the US commitment to their
defence. That commitment had been nominally codified in April 1949 primarily at the West Europeans' initiative with the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), but it was not until the early 1950s, after the shock of Korea, that the United States began putting up the resources needed to fulfill its military
obligations to NATO.
The Soviet Union, as the dominant European power, had less intrinsic need to deploy troops and weapons far outside its western borders, but until the early 1990s several
hundred thousand Soviet soldiers were stationed at high alert in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania (until 1958), and Czechoslovakia (after 1968). One of the main
rationales for this was purely strategic: The Soviet-led alliance in Eastern Europe, which initially was based on an interlocking series of bilateral defence agreements and was
then formally constituted in May 1955 as the Warsaw Treaty Organization (or Warsaw Pact, for short), started out primarily as a buffer zone for the Soviet Union against
(West) Germany, rather than as a full-fledged military organization. For much the same reason, the Warsaw Pact consistently emphasized rapid offensive operations that
would keep any fighting as far away as possible from Soviet territory. These features of the Pact can be explained by the geopolitical circumstances that the Soviet Union
faced. Almost any government in Moscow would have been inclined to pursue similar arrangements.
…
Two explanations of the discrepancy between NATO and the Warsaw Pact have been proposed: one based on ideology, the other on power. The importance of ideology in
alliance management has been emphasized by John Gaddis*, among others. In his latest reassessment of the Cold War, Gaddis claims that NATO was far more flexible and
open than the Warsaw Pact because Americans ‘were, by habit and history, democratic in their politics’. This ingrained democratic ethos, he writes, prompted ‘the United
States [to] permit [the West Europeans] a surprising amount of influence over [NATO's] structure and strategies’. US officials, Gaddis adds, 'were used to the bargaining and
deal-making, the coercion and conciliation, that routinely takes place within [a democratic] system. They did not automatically regard resistance as treason'. Gaddis contrasts
this with the tyrannical nature of Soviet Communism, which, in his view, guaranteed that Soviet leaders would use an equally heavy-handed and ideologically driven approach
within the Warsaw Pact: 'The Russians, coming out of an authoritarian tradition, knew of no way to deal with independent thinking other than to smother it. The slightest
signs of autonomy . . . were heresy, to be rooted out with all the thoroughness of the Spanish Inquisition. The result was surely subservience, but it was never selforganization'.49 The implication of Gaddis's argument, as he himself notes, is that 'democracy proved superior to autocracy in maintaining coalitions'.50
The competing explanations of why NATO and the Warsaw Pact were so different. This explanation not only deemphasizes ideology, but leaves it out altogether. Proponents
argue that the disparity can be attributed to the simple fact that Soviet preponderance in the Warsaw Pact was far greater than US preponderance in NATO. The difference in
relative power guaranteed that the United States had to negotiate with its allies on more equal terms than the Soviet Union did with its allies. Differences in ideology, the
argument goes, were irrelevant.
* John Lewis Gaddis is a noted historian of the Cold War and grand strategy who has been hailed as the "Dean of Cold War Historians" by The New York Times. He is the Robert A. Lovett
Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. He is also the official biographer of the seminal 20th-century American statesman George F. Kennan. His biography of Kennan won
the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2012
Yugoslavia & Tito
Source: Hasan, Sabiha. "YUGOSLAVIA'S FOREIGN POLICY UNDER TITO (1945-80)." Pakistan Horizon 34, no. 3 (1981): 82-120.
At the session of the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 1949, Yugoslavia put its case before the world, denouncing the Soviet Union for its
aggressive action.33 In December 1949, George V. Allen, the newly appointed US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, made the following statement to the press,
before leaving for Yugoslavia and after meeting the US President, Mr. Truman: "The President confirmed that the United States is unalterably opposed to
aggression where ever it occurs or threatens to occur. Further- more the United States support the principle of the sovereignty of independent nations. As
regards Yugoslavia, we are just as opposed to aggression against that country as against any other, and just as favourable to the retention of Yugoslavia's
sovereignty
Source: Fourth International, Vol.11 No.6, November-December 1950, pp.188-192. Reprinted from Janata, October 1, 1950. (Copyright in India, Pakistan
and Ceylon).Transcription & mark-up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Tito is against Titoism. He is very much opposed to naming the new oppositional tendency in the Communist movement after himself. On the question of
Titoism as an international phenomenon, he declared:
“In general it is not correct to speak of Titoism and look upon it as some new tendency. We, Communists in Yugoslavia, are only fighting against
revisionism. We have nothing that would correct the science of Marxism and Leninism from a theoretical point of view. We have only applied the science
of Marx and Lenin to our specific conditions. There is no new tendency that could be called Titoism. This must be explained to the masses. Otherwise, it
would be harmful to the international working class movement, if it were thought that this is some new tendency. A new theory is not needed.
“It is only necessary that the science of Leninism and Marxism be correctly applied and that the struggle be carried on against the perversion of this theory
for momentary purposes, as the Soviet Union is doing in order to achieve the end of its imperialist policy.”
Source: Mehta, Coleman. “The CIA Confronts the Tito-Stalin Split, 1948–1951.” Journal of Cold War Studies. Winter 2011, Vol. 13, No. 1, Pages 101-145
Though the public nature of the split placed Stalin in an awkward position, Hillenkoetter (third director of the US Central Intelligence Group) emphasized
that Tito’s position was worse. Hillenkoetter underscored Tito’s control over the essential political and military organs of Yugoslavia but otherwise painted
a bleak picture:
“In determining their reaction to the Cominform action, the accused Yugoslav Communists are faced with the realization that they can make no statement
that will permanently heal the breach between them and the Kremlin. Complete admission of guilt by Tito and his lieutenants would not only do little
toward lessening the Kremlin’s determination eventually to eliminate them but would probably accelerate the process”