Cold War
INTRODUCTORY TEXT
The world of nowadays is a global community of nations, all of which coexist
in some measure of political and economic interdependence. By means of rapid
communication systems — radio, television, and computers much of what happens
in one place is quickly known almost everywhere else. The speed of transportation
in modern aircraft also makes it possible for people to get around the globe in hours
instead of days or weeks. The modern world community was not, however, created
by communications and transportation alone. The present global situation is new to
history and owes its origins to a variety of factors that include the great conflict of
World War II, the postwar breakdown of colonial empires, the long rivalry between
the former Soviet Union and the United States, and the fast-growing economic
interrelationships of all nations, large and small. Ever since there have been
organized political entities variously called states, kingdoms, nations, and countries,
there have been relations between them based on economics (trade) and on politics
(war, territorial expansion, and colonization). International relations today
encompass the foreign policies of about 200 nation-states and the regional blocs in
which some are associated.
By the 1990s the world had become a community of about 200 independent nations,
a situation that had never existed before. Some of these nations were huge: Russia, China,
Canada, and the United States, while others were as small as Monaco on the
Mediterranean coast. The old empires were history, but a new factor arose to offset them:
hegemony, or dominant spheres of influence.
Most of Europe was destroyed both physically and economically by World War II.
Even Great Britain, among the victors, was on the brink of financial ruin.
Japan was also devastated. The old colonial societies had not yet begun to throw
off their imperial shackles. Only the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the
United States, were left to aid in rebuilding the world economy.
The World Community, 1945—90
Unfortunately for the world community, the two superpowers emerged from the
war in a state of mutual distrust and hostility. Each was wary of the other's intents.
The United States was concerned that the Soviet Union would expand its influence
by incorporating Eastern Europe into its political system, and this is, in fact, what
happened. The presence of the Soviet Army in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Romania, East Germany, and Bulgaria resulted in these nations' becoming Soviet
satellites: They fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. The Soviet Union itself,
however, was left in rains by the war. That country was fearful that the United States,
which at the time was the only nation possessing atomic weapons, would attempt to
destroy the Soviet system. Out of this situation of mutual superpower hostility there
developed the Cold War, with each of the two nations seeking to enlarge its sphere
of influence around the world by forming alliances, offering foreign aid, selling
massive quantities of arms, and undermining the governments of smaller nations.
The Cold War never became a hot war between the superpowers, probably only
because of the awesome threat of nuclear weapons. American anxieties over Soviet
power were greatly increased by the success of the Communist revolution in China.
After Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-lung) and his followers came to power in 1949,
evincing great hostility toward the United States, there was a general fear that the
might of international Communism would be impossible to contain.
The Cold War, while perhaps the dominant feature of international relations in the
late 20th century, was by no means the only important development. All over the world,
former colonies were gaining independence. A new world structure was emerging,
because these new nations were demanding a role in international politics and were
slowly becoming integrated into a growing world economy. Revolutions, some
homegrown and some fomented from the outside, were going оn in Asia, Africa, the
Middle East, and Latin America. And perhaps most unsettling of all, the United States
lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France,
China, India, and perhaps others joined the international "atomic club".
The world that emerged in the 1950s had to be described in new terms. It turned out
that the community of nations could be divided into four fairly distinct groups, or
"worlds". The first world consisted of the United States and its allies, primarily Western
Europe and Japan. The second world denoted the Soviet Union and its satellites in
Eastern Europe. The third world, actually referred to as "the Third World", consisted of
Asian and African nations emerging from colonial status, along with some
underdeveloped Latin American states. More specifically, the term has come to mean
nonindustrial or developing countries in general. Last, it appeared that there was a fourth
world, a group of desperately poor, undeveloped nations that showed few signs of
economic life. Notable among this group of countries are Haiti, Somalia, and
Mozambique.
The Third World. The number of poverty-stricken and underdeveloped nations was
great in the 1950s. Many were just emerging from colonialism. Others had been
badly governed for decades. Since I960 the number of worst-case economies has
diminished. Africa remains, for the most part, underdeveloped, Latin America,
however, has had some dramatic changes as dictatorships gave way to democracies.
Mexico proved to be one of the economic miracles of the late 1980s. Brazil, Chile,
and Argentina, after decades of misrule, began making significant progress after
1985. In the Far East, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and
Malaysia all showed great signs of economic development by the early 1990s. Even
China, long considered the largest Third World society, experienced striking
economic growth in its southern regions. The Arab states of the Middle East
prospered if they had petroleum reserves. India, the world's second most populous
nation, still struggled to free itself from government paternalism, ancient traditions,
excessive regulations, and the socialist legacy of its immediate postcolonial years.
Third World leaders in the early Cold War decades realized that, acting
independently, they could have little impact in international relations. To remedy
this, they organized. In April 1955 at Bandung, Indonesia, delegates from 29
countries met in a conference organized by Indonesia, India, Burma (now
Myanmar), Pakistan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). These delegates formed an
association of nations not aligned with either of the two superpowers, although they
tended to identify more with the Soviet Union and China than with the democracies.
This policy of nonalignment, or neutralism, was strengthened and advanced by
President Tito of Yugoslavia. In September 1961 he hosted a conference of
nonaligned nations in Belgrade. The conference, convened by India's Jawaharlal
Nehru, Egypt's Carnal Abdel Nasser, and Tito, denounced colonialism, demanded
an end to armed action against dependent peoples, endorsed the Algerians in their
war for independence from France, and called for a policy of perpetual neutralism
between the great powers. As Cold War tensions eased in the 1980s, the nonaligned
movement began fading. Many member countries were undergoing economic
transformation and wanted to strengthen ties to the industrialized regions the United
States, Japan, and Western Europe.
The Industrial North. With the exceptions of Australia and New Zealand, the
prosperous regions of the globe are in the Northern Hemisphere. The industrial
leaders are the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. At the end of World War
II, the United States stood alone in industrial might. All of Europe and Japan had
been devastated by the war. The Soviet Union was an economic shambles. To rebuild
the West and Japan, the United States launched a massive foreign aid program
called the Marshall Plan, named after George C. Marshall, who proposed the plan
in 1947. During the four-year life of the plan, Western Europe was provided with
more than 17 billion dollars in aid for economic reconstruction. Japan was also
assisted in rebuilding.
The result of these efforts was an era of unprecedented affluence in the
industrialized societies. After the war-torn nations got back on their feet, however,
the efforts also produced an era of economic rivalry. As long as the prosperity lasted,
the rivalry was little noticed. But when the oil-producing countries of the Middle
East instituted marked increases in prices during the 1970s the economic scene
darkened. A worldwide recession, coupled with perpetual inflation, set in.
By the early 1980s the solidarity of the industrial West had weakened as each
nation was trying to maintain economic stability amid unfavorable conditions. What
did keep them together was their distrust of the Soviet Union. The Eastern bloc
nations, led by the Soviet Union, also faced the task of rebuilding after the war. The
process took longer because they chose not to be recipients of Marshall Plan funds.
And they had always been poorer and less industrialized than the nations of Western
Europe.
Worlds in turmoil. The conclusion of World War II ended the drive by Germany,
Italy, and Japan for world domination; but the seed of smaller conflicts had already
been planted. Even as Japan was evacuating Southeast Asia, Vietnam, under the
leadership of Ho Chi Minh, was planning to get rid of French colonialism for good.
Vietnam's effort resulted in a long war, a conflict that ended in 1975 with a
Communist victory. Instead of rebuilding the region, however, the victors went on
to fight among themselves and to leave Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in desolation
(see Vietnam War).
The Vietnam War was only one of several conflicts that erupted out of the Cold
War. Soviet and American power confronted each other in several places, especially
in Europe and Korea. The settlement in Europe after World War II not only divided
the continent into two hostile factions; it also divided Germany into two countries
and Berlin into two cities, This was a source of strife in 1948, when the Soviets
instituted a blockade of West Berlin, geographically in the heart of Soviet-occupied
territory. West Berlin was rescued dramatically by an airlift of goods and services,
and the failed blockade was abandoned in mid-1949. The hostilities, though,
endured until 1989 (see Berlin, Germany; Korean War). Numerous other Cold-War
trouble spots continued to disturb the peace of the world. One of the most notable
was in Cuba, where forces led by Fidel Castro staged successful revolution in the
late 1950s. Cuba then became a Soviet dependency and hoped to engulf the whole
of Latin America in revolution. In the early 1980s much of Central America was torn
by conflict, with guerrillas supplied by the Soviet Union and Cuba fighting soldiers
armed and trained by the United States. The Cuban threat was at one time aimed
directly at the United States. In 1962 it was learned that the Soviet Union had placed in
Cuba guided missiles aimed at the United States. This brought on a crisis that was
resolved only when the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, ordered the removal of the
missiles.
Not all of the global trouble spots owed their origin to the Cold War, though
most of them were affected by it. The most persistent area of conflict since the
founding of the State of Israel in 1948 has been the Middle East. There has been
relentless hostility, and several wars were fought between the Arab states and Israel.
The wars were all won by Israel, deepening Arab hostilities toward both Israel and
its major ally, the United States. The Cold War injected itself into the Middle East, when
the Soviet Union started supplying some Arab states with weapons; Syria and Iraq were
notable examples. Other Muslim nations Saudi Arabia and Jordan among them tried to
maintain neutrality in the Cold War. In some cases they openly welcomed aid from the
United States and Western Europe.
New World Order
With a suddenness that no one could have predicted, the Cold War ended in 1990.
The most striking symbol of its end was the opening of the Berlin Wall in November
1989 and its subsequent destruction. The end of the Cold War was made possible by the
demise of Communism first in Eastern Europe, then in the Soviet Union itself. This
amazing event surprised the world, but it had been in the 'making for a long time. The
process began on March 6, 1953, the day after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
The totalitarian state he had ruled for about 30 years was suddenly in the hands of men
who were relieved at his departure and unwilling to rule with his style of brutality. In
addition, by the end of the decade relations with China had worsened significantly. There
was a genuine break between the two countries in the early 1960s. The myth of
international Communism was shattered. While maintaining a sure hold over Eastern
Europe, the Soviet Union attempted to gain better relationships with the West,
particularly the United States. Both superpowers realized the futility of edging toward
nuclear war. The internal condition of the Communist societies worsened economically.
The persistent shortages of consumer goods, even food, frustrated the citizens of these
countries. By the early 1980s it was apparent to the rulers of the Soviet Union that real
reform was needed if their country was going to survive. Then, in 1985, a new type of
Soviet leader became president of the country: Mikhail Gorbachev. He recognized the
serious economic situation and desired to reform it, while intending to perpetuate control
by the Communist party. His plan did not work. Once he allowed freedom of speech, a
policy called glasnost, he suddenly watched the whole society reject Communism and
demand democracy. Gorbachev also made it clear to the leaders of Eastern European
Communist states that Soviet troops would no longer be available to keep them in power.
This policy triggered the rapid collapse of Communist regimes in all of Eastern Europe.
It began in Poland, spread to Hungary and Czechoslovakia, then spread to East Germany.
With the breaching of the Berlin Wall, there was to be no turning back. The rest of the
countries of Eastern Europe abandoned Communism within a few months. By October
1990 Germany was reunited.
The Cold War was suddenly over. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved. And by the
end of 1991 the Soviet Union itself had ceased to exist, breaking apart into its
constituent, and BOW independent, republics. There remained in „ the world only
one superpower, the United States. The end of the Cold War and of Communism did
not signal the end of international strife. Old problems remained, but they no longer
flourished under cover of East-West competition. In the Middle East, for example,
the weakness of the Soviet Union after 1989 meant that such warlike states as Iraq
and Syria could no longer rely on it for weapons and support. Thus, when Iraq
invaded tiny Kuwait in August 1990, it found itself opposed by a whole United
Nations (UN) coalition of armed forces including those of Syria. The end of the Cold
War had given the United Nations a new lease on life. For the first time in decades
the UN was able to take concerted action against a common foe, and it won. The
success of the offensive against Iraq rearranged conditions in the Middle East. The
United States found itself with new allies and few enemies. This prestige enabled
President George Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, to persuade Israel
and its Arab enemies to sit down at the negotiating table to work out a means of
living together. The peace talks began in September 1991.
In Southern Europe the collapse of Communism had bred civil war in
Yugoslavia. The small nation had been ruled by Tito from 1943 until 1980. His death
weakened the bonds that held the six provinces together. Old ethnic hatreds
resurfaced. When Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in mid-1990,
the mostly Serbian Yugoslav army invaded, plunging the country into civil war. The
war worsened when Bosnia and Herzegovina seceded in 1991. Although the
independence of these republics was recognized by the European Communities (now
European Union) and the United States, the fighting continued.
In the Far East, the Chinese government rejected democracy in June 1989, when it
crushed the youth demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square a rebellion that was
seen worldwide on television. Yet, in spite of the regime's harshness toward the rebels,
it permitted economic reforms to continue. By 1993 the southern sector of China had
one of the fastest growing and most prosperous economies in the world. Outsiders,
mainly in the United States, complained about China's human-rights violations, but they
were unwilling to break off relationships or impose sanctions on the world's most
populous nation.
The Conduct of International Relations Each nation has three foreign-policy
goals: physical security the freedom from outside attack and internal revolution; political
security the freedom to run its own affairs without outside interference; and economic
stability and development the freedom to trade in world markets and to satisfy its own
population’s demands for goods and services.
Nations had always traditionally dealt with each other on a one-to-one basis or
in strategic alliances in pursuing these goals. But in the complicated arena of the
modern global community, it is more common to work through organizations. To
meet the needs of international cooperation, a vast number of organizations of all
types have been created.
Organizations. The most comprehensive international organization was
founded in 1945 (he Untied Nations and its many affiliates. Regional associations
include the Organization of American States (1948), the Organization of African
Unity (1963), the League of Arab States (1945), and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (1967). All of these organizations deal with the whole range of political and economic issues in their areas. The Cold War spawned a number of regional
mutual-defense alliances, the best known are the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), formed in 1949, and the Warsaw Pact, signed in 1955. NATO was a
military alliance formed to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union; the
Warsaw Pact was the Soviet counter-alliance, ANZUS a security treaty between
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States was signed in 1951, The Southeast
Asia Treaty Organization was formed in 1954 and disbanded in 1977.
Many international and regional organizations have evolved to deal with the
financial needs of the global community. There are too many to be able to list them
all, but some of the leading ones include the International Monetary Fund, the
European Union, the Caribbean Community, the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the
African Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Asian
Development Bank.
Foreign policy. All the complex devices and attitudes that a nation develops to use
in its interactions with other nations make up its foreign policy. Policy formulation is the
responsibility of specific government agencies the United Stales Department of State or
the British Foreign Office, for example.
In the United States the direction of foreign policy is the task of the president, though
in many matters he must have the approval of the United States Senate, Other agencies
also contribute to formulation of policy. Among them are the National Security Council,
the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Since foreign policy in
the late 20th century can be quite complex, other agencies may also contribute
information. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for instance, keep
abreast of economic conditions in most countries and play a major role in offering foreign
aid.
Each national government operates worldwide through its embassies and consulates.
An embassy is the highest official representation one nation maintains in another. Normal
diplomacy is conducted by ambassadors and their subordinates. Consulates deal
primarily with commercial issues and the protection of the economic interests of their
nationals. A consul is not a diplomat and therefore cannot take up duties until the host
nation grants permission. A nation has only one embassy in a given country, but it may
have several consulates.
Task 1. Give the Russian equivalents of the following:
1) to coexist in some measure of political and economic interdependence;
сосуществовать в некоторой степени политической и экономической
взаимозависимости;
2) to owe one’s origins to a variety of factors;
быть обязанным своим происхождением целому ряду факторов
3) to be wary of sb’s intents;
настороженно относиться к чьим-либо намерениям
4) relentless hostility;
неослабевающая враждебность
5) to fall within one’s sphere of influence;
попадать в сферу влияния
6) awesome threat of nuclear weapons;
страшная угроза ядерного оружия
7) to contain the might of international communism;
сдерживать мощь международного коммунизма
8) to foment revolutions from the outside;
разжигать революции извне
9) to have little impact in international relations;
оказывать незначительное влияние на международные отношения
10) an era of unprecedented affluence;
эпоха небывалого изобилия
11) economic shambles;
экономическая разруха
12) to shatter the myth of international communism;
разрушение мифа о международном коммунизме
13) the demise of communism;
гибель коммунизма
14) to reject communism;
отказ от коммунизма
15) persistent shortages of consumer goods.
постоянный дефицит потребительских товаров
Task 2. Give the English equivalents of the following:
1) в считанные часы облететь земной шар;
to get around the globe in hours
2) быть на грани финансового краха;
to be on the brink of financial ruin
3) взаимное недоверие и враждебность;
mutual distrust and hostility
4) расширять сферу влияния;
to enlarge sphere of influence
5) сесть за стол переговоров;
to sit down at the negotiating table
6) начать крупномасштабную программу помощи зарубежным странам;
launch a massive foreign aid program
7) экономическая разруха;
economic shambles
8) окончательно избавиться от колониализма;
to get rid of colonialism for good
9) навсегда сохранить руководящую роль коммунистической партии;
to perpetuate control by the Communist party
10) распад колониальной системы;
breakdown of colonial empires
11) ввергнуть страну в пучину гражданской войны;
to plunge the country into civil war
12) воспрянуть духом;
13) действовать сообща против общего противника;
to take concerted action against a common foe
14) удовлетворять потребности населения в товарах и услугах;
to satisfy population’s demands for goods and services
15) вызвать к жизни ряд оборонительных альянсов.
to spawn a number of regional mutual-defense alliances
Task 3. Match the words with their definitions:
IMPACT— the effect or influence that an event, situation etc has on someone or
something;
PATERNALISM— the governing of a country in a manner suggesting a father’s
relationship with his children;
SHAMBLES — a scene of great disorder; mess;
RECIPIENT — one who receives something;
FACTION — a group in an organization working in a common cause against the main
body;
RECESSION — a period of reduced business activity; slump;
FOMENT— to stir up (trouble); to incite;
OFFSET — to balance or compensate.
Task 4. Arrange the words in antonymous pairs:
a) regional, cold war, poverty, modern, to place (missiles), to approve
b) affluence, to denounce, ancient, global, to remove, hot war
Regional - global, cold war - hot war, poverty - affluence, modern - ancient, to
place - to remove, to approve - to denounce.
Task 5. Arrange the words into synonymous pairs:
a) nonalignment, to denounce, to endorse, to incite, death, confusion, constant, for
ever, to place (missiles), concerted (actions), collapse;
b) to condemn, for good, neutralism, turmoil, to deploy, perpetual, joint, , to foment,
demise, breakdown.
Nonalignment - neutralism, to denounce - to condemn, to endorse - to support, to
incite - to foment, death - demise, confusion - turmoil, constant - perpetual, for ever
- for good, to place (missiles) - to deploy, concerted (actions) - joint, collapse breakdown.
Task 6. Use the information of the text and your background knowledge to answer
the following questions:
1. What is the meaning of the global community and what are the factors
contributing to its emergence?
2. What are global international relations based on?
3. What is meant by spheres of influence?
4. What factors determined the development of the World Community after World
War 11?
5. What groups of states could be distinguished in the world during the Cold War?
6. What were the reasons for the development of the non-aligned movement?
7. What is the essence of the Marshall plan?
8. What were the major Cold War trouble spots?
Task 7. Suggest the Russian equivalents of the following word combinations and
phrases. Do you remember the context in which they were used in the text?
1) a suddenness that no-one could have predicted; внезапность, которую никто
не мог предсказать
2) to rule with Stalin’s style of brutality;править со свойственной Сталину
жестокостью
3) a new type of leader; руководитель нового формата
4) to break apart into independent republics; распасться на независимые
республики
5) war-like states; воинственные государства
6) to weaken bonds; ослабить узы
7) to crash a demonstration. сорвать демонстрацию
Task 8. Speak on:
— the sudden end of the Cold War;
— the demise of communism in the Soviet Union and East European societies;
— the continuation of international strife.