The Cold War
What is the Cold War?
• Period of no war between major
powers 1945-1989
• Intense hostility between the two
super powers: US and USSR
Post-WWII Order
Spheres of influence
Solve the “German Problem”
– Occupation zones
– Nuremberg trials
– Assistance
– European integration
The United Nations
– UN Security Council
The Beginning: Cold War Escalation
 Stalin consolidates power over Poland and
Czechoslovakia
 US gains influence over Turkey and Greece
 Marshall Plan (1947)
 Unification of Western Germany begins
 Berlin Blockade (1948-1949)
 NATO (1949)
 Nuclear arms race
Berlin
 vv
War of Ideologies
 Communism and Soviet Policy
– “X” “The Sources of Soviet Conduct”
 Containment:
“…Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something
that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a
series of constantly shifting geographical and political points.” (Kennan 1947).
 Truman Doctrine (1947)
– Protect freedom against Soviet communism
 Policies to implement containment
– Economic assistance
– Support of anti-communist groups
– Limited war
Iron Curtain
Soviet Sphere of Influence
 Military assistance and economic subsidies
– The Warsaw Pact
– Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)
 Ideology
 Support communist governments
 Power and control
– Hungary 1956
– Czechoslovakia 1968
US Sphere of Influence
 Assistance
– Marshall Plan
– Western Hemisphere
– Middle East and Africa
 Ideology – containment, liberty
 Use of force
– Bay of Pigs, Cuba (1961)
– Korean War, Vietnam war
– Chile, Guatemala, etc.
War Averted: The Cuban Missile Crisis
(1962)
 Shots of Soviet missile sites in Cuba taken by US reconnaissance plains
 Khrushchev and Kennedy face-off in the UN
 US’s options
– “Surgical strikes”
– Blockade of Cuba
– Appeasement
 Kennedy Administration chooses blockade
 Soviets back off
 Hotline White House-Kremlin
Nuclear Weapons
 1945: Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 1949: Soviet AB explosion
 Today: 1 missile=100 Hiroshima bombs
 Nuclear deterrence
Nuclear Cooperation
 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (1969-1972);
SALT II (1972-1979)
 Antiballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), 1972
– Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
– US walked out in 2002: Strategic Defense Initiative
Why No WWIII?
 Nuclear deterrence
– Anticipate catastrophic consequences
– Stigma against using nuclear weapons
– No second strike capability (ABM treaty 1972)
 Prevent escalation of conflict at every point
 Strong anti-war sentiment in both USSR and US
 Bipolar structure plus reconnaissance revolution –
relatively simple to manage
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The End of the Cold War
 Failure of structural theories?
 Perestroika and the Velvet Revolutions
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Gorbachev in power
Domestic reforms – perestroika and glasnost
Semi free elections in Poland
Velvet revolutions across Easter Europe
Berlin wall opened: 1989