Cold War
1945-1991
Table of Content
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
What is it?
Yalta and Potsdam
From Allies to Enemies
The Iron Curtain
NATO
The rise of 2 superpowers
The Atomic Bomb
Capitalism and Communism
The Berlin Wall
The Arm Race
Canada and the Cold War
The Cold War 1947-1989…
1.What is it?
• Constant global confrontation between the
Soviet Union and United States.
• Avoidance of direct armed conflict between the
two “Superpowers”.
from www.SchoolHistory.co.uk
The Cold War begins 1945 -1948
Key issue:
• Why did the wartime alliance fall apart?
• What were the major points of difference?
• The importance of Yalta and Potsdam
conferences
• The roles of Stalin and Truman
2. Yalta and Potsdam
YALTA (in the USSR)
Date: Feb 1945
Present: Churchill,
Roosevelt and Stalin
War Time Allies-The Big Three
Joseph
Stalin
Winston
Churchill
Franklin Roosevelt
POTSDAM (Germany)
Date: July 1945
Present: Churchill,
Truman and Stalin
3. From Allies to Enemies
Following victory the
allies could not agree
over the spoils of war.
The U.S. wanted to
establish democracy in
war torn Europe, while
the U.S.S.R. hoped for
communism. They
agreed to occupy
Germany with the Allied
Control Council. The
Soviets had 2.5 million
troops in Eastern
Europe.
Potsdam July 1945
4. The Iron Curtain
• Winston Churchill
– Speech at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri on March 5, 1946.
• “An iron curtain has descended across the
Continent.”
• Describes Soviet sphere of influence and
control in eastern Europe.
An Iron Curtain
The "Iron Curtain"
speech defined postwar
relations with the Soviet
Union for citizens of
Western democracies.
Although it initially
provoked intense
controversy in the
United States and
Britain, criticism soon
gave way to wide public
agreement to oppose
Soviet imperialism.
Winston Churchill
5. NATO
North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
Established in 1949.
– Military Alliance between U.S., Canada, and western Europe with
a formal command structure.
– Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Brussels, Belgium)
• U.S. Commander in Chief, European Command
– Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (Norfolk, Virginia)
• U.S. Commander in Chief, Atlantic Command
– Warsaw Pact established by the Soviet Union to counter NATO in
1955 - includes eastern European communist states.
…KEEP THIS IN MIND
• Major point: The USSR lost around 20
million people in WW2
• Stalin was determined to make the USSR
secure in the future
• By contrast GB lost around 370,000 and the
USA lost 297,000 people.
5. The rise of the superpowers
• Before WW2 there were a number of
countries which could have claimed to be
superpowers – USA, USSR,GB, France,
Japan, Germany.
• The damage caused by the war to these
countries left only two countries with the
military strength and resources to be called
superpowers…USA and USSR.
What they believed
• Don’t forget USA was capitalist and USSR
was communist
• They were complete opposites
• They had allied against Fascism ….. Now
the common enemy had been defeated the
reason for co-operation was gone
• Differences soon emerged
Europe at the end of WW2
• After the war, who would lead the countries
and form new governments?
• The USSR favoured the communist groups,
the USA favoured the non-communists
• Examples would be Greece and Yugoslavia
• This was one cause of tension between the
superpowers
6. The Atomic Bomb
Hiroshima August 1945
Harry Truman gives Japan an
ultimatum to end the Pacific theatre
after the first atomic bomb explodes.
The atomic bomb dropped by the U.S.
to end W.W. II August 1945
Continued Experimentation
The Bikini AtollMarshall Islands.
A bomb test ,
July 1946.
The U.S.
relocated the
residents prior to
this test, but the
indigenous
people of this
island have not
been able to
return since.
Experimentation
in the Soviet Union
August 29, 1949
The Soviets called
their first atomic
test “First Lightning.“
The weapons
laboratory in Russia
is in Kazakhstan.
H-bomb
Nov. 1, 1952, the first H-bomb Mike tested,
mushroom cloud was 8 miles across and 27 miles high;the canopy was 100 miles wide, 80 million tons
of earth was vaporized.
H-bomb exploded Mar. 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll yielded 15 megatons and had a fireball 4 miles in
diameter.
USSR H-bomb yields 100 megatons.
7. Capitalism & Communism
In other words
• United Nations established.
– Security Council - Veto power for permanent members.
– General Assembly.
• MacArthur commands U.S. army of occupation in Japan.
• U.S., Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union divide
Germany into zones of occupation.
– Federal Republic of (West) Germany - 1949.
• U.S. initially enjoys atomic bomb monopoly.
– Neglect of conventional military forces begins.
• Communist control of Eastern Europe.
– “Puppet” states dominated by the Soviet Union.
8. THE BERLIN WALL 1961-1989
9. The Arm Race
Missile Production 1945-1997
THE U2 CRISIS and THE
SPACE RACE
U2
• In 1960, U2 was a spy plane
• Able to fly 6000km at high altitudes
• Could take photos of Soviet bomber bases
and missile sites
Space Race – Arms Race!
Results of the race
450 ICBMs
250 Medium range missiles
76 IBMs
700 Medium range bombers
2,260 Bombers
1,600 bombers
16,000Tanks
38,000 Tanks
32 Nuclear submarines
12 Nuclear submarines
495 Conventional submarines
260 Conventional submarines
76 Battleships and carriers
0 Battleships and cruisers
Early Dates of the nuclear arms race
1945 – USA tests and drops the first atomic (A) bombs
1949 – USSR tests A bomb
1952 – USA tests its first hydrogen (H) bomb
1953 – USSR tests its first H bomb
1957 – USSR
1. tests ICBM capable of carrying an H bomb from
USSR to USA
2. puts the space satellite ‘Sputnik’ into orbit.
The failure of disarmament
• Both sides hoped for arms reductions to cut
defence spending
• After Stalin’s death East-West relations had
improved
• USSR proposed:
– reduction of armed forces
– Eventual abolition of atomic weapons
– International inspections to supervise this
Glossary
• ICBMs – Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles
• IRBMs – Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles
• MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction
11. Canada and the Cold War
• The Igor Gouzenko Affair –September 1945
• Our political, economic and military alliance
with other western nations through NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 1949
• The coordinated air protection of North
America with the United States. This was
called NORAD (North American Air Defence)
Canada and the Cold War
• Canadians tracked Soviet submarines in the North
Atlantic from military facilities in Halifax. Beacons
were placed on the ocean floor. These are now used to
track the migration of whales.
• Canada also had the Distant Early Warning line
(DEW) and Mid Canada Line ( radar and tracking
stations located across the north and middle of the
country).
• Uranium City, Saskatchewan mined weapons grade
uranium for use in nuclear weapons. This site is still
extremely radioactive.
• Nuclear weapons were placed here for approximately
twenty years. The mid 1960’s to the mid 1980’s.
The DEW Line
• The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line began on the
15th of February 1954 when US President Eisenhower
signed the bill approving the construction. It was
designed and built during the Cold War as the primary
line of air defence warning of "Over the Pole"
invasion of the North American Continent.
• The actual construction of the 58 sites took place
between 1955 and 1957. Many tons of supplies and
equipment were moved to the Canadian Arctic by air,
sea and river barge. The DEW Line was declared fully
operational on 31 Jul 1957, and has remained in
operation for more than 30 years.
The DEW at Hall Beach, NWT
(photo by Sergeant Jim Smith/courtesy Canadian Forces).
A DEW Line station in northern Canada