which could no longer claim the lands that had been promised to the Soviets during the
Yalta Conference (some Japanese islands and the control over Manchuria in China).
Chapter II – The USA and the World, 1945-2003
Introduction
 The consequences of Hiroshima in the balance of power between the two blocs
The bombs were launched while the Potsdam Conference was still in progress: it changed
the balance of power between the two blocs. Truman had kept the attack entirely secret,
and Stalin saw this show of force as a way for the USA to intimidate the USSR and
the whole world, and assert its World-wide domination. It snatched away the prestige
the USSR had gained during the War by heroically fighting against the Nazis (the USSR
lost 24 million people during World War II). Besides, Truman became more confident and
more aggressive during the conference.
Hiroshima definitely launched the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers. It put
an end to the Grand Alliance, and some historians even say that Hiroshima was “the first
casualty of the Cold War”.
After 1945, the USA became one of the two Cold War superpowers. We will study its
might, its leadership, its domination over the rest of the World from 1945 (end of WWII)
to 2003 (beginning of the War in Iraq), and how it became a hyperpower (after 1991) whose
might is nowadays questioned.
I – The USA and the World in 1945: the great winner of World War II
A – An unchallenged military power
1 – The end of World War II in Europe
World War II mobilized 12,200,000 American soldiers: 38.8% volunteers while the
others were draftees. 420,000 of them never came back and almost 700,000 more were
wounded. “V-E” (Victory in Europe) day occurred on May 8th, 1945, thanks to the
tremendous role of the Grand Alliance (the UK, the USA and the USSR).
3 – The assertion of the USA’s hard power
The USA’s hard power was characterized by the country’s numerous and strong army (more
than 3 million soldiers in 1953) and by the intelligence agencies specialized in espionage and
counter-espionage like the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) created in 1947.
2 – The end of WWII in the Pacific: the US atomic unchallenged superiority
a – Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
The city was the target of the first nuclear bomb (nicknamed “Little Boy”) ever dropped
by the plane Enola Gay, at 8.15 am on August 6, 1945, triggering 117,000 casualties
according to the Americans (twice as many according to the Japanese). The blast flattened
the landscape in a two-mile radius, destroying 69% of the town’s buildings, and the
mushroom cloud rose to 15,000 meters.
On 9 August, the Americans dropped another bomb (nicknamed “Fat Man”), on Nagasaki.
The Japanese surrendered on August 14.
B – The first economic and financial power in the World
1 – The economic supremacy
Unlike many other countries (Europe, the USSR, China, Japan, etc.), the USA had not been
destroyed during WWII (except the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,
Dec. 7, 1941). The war effort definitely helped the USA out of the 1929 crisis: the country
doubled its GDP during the War while it produced around 1/3rd of the World’s
manufacturing goods (twice the production of Nazi Germany and ten times the production
of Japan).
By 1945, the country represented half of the world’s industrial production and owned two
third of the World’s Gold stocks, while the defeated countries as well as France, the
USSR and the UK were economically exhausted.
b - Hiroshima analyzed by US historians: end of WWII or beginning of the Cold War?
 The official explanation of the bombs…
The official explanation stipulates that the bombs were dropped to end the war quickly
and “to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans” (President
Truman, August 9, 1945), because the Japanese sent Kamikazes against the American
warships.
 …which started being questioned in the 1960s
But in the 1960s, historians questioned the official version:
- The Japanese had offered to surrender on August 3, but their offer was rejected
because it wasn’t an “unconditional” surrender.
- President Truman dropped “Little Boy” just before the USSR entered the war in the
Pacific (August 8). By doing this, he beat the USSR by a nose1, surprising the USSR
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2 – The Bretton Woods Monetary Conference (New Hampshire, north of Boston)
The Conference gathered 44 Allied countries including the USA, the USSR, the United
Kingdom, China, France as well as most Latin American countries. It established the IMF
and the World Bank, both headquartered in Washington D.C. It set the gold standard at
$35 an ounce (i.e. 28.35 grams), and chose the dollar to be the reference currency
/backbone of international exchanges, the only currency convertible into Gold. The
meeting provided the World with post-war currency stability.
C – The political prestige of the savior
To beat sb by a nose: prendre quelqu’un de vitesse.
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1 – A major actor of the Conferences that reorganized the World
Meeting, representatives
Decisions
and context
Yalta Conference (Russia),
- Germany would be demilitarized and divided into four
in February 1945, gathering
zones (Russian, British, French and American) as well as
the “Big Three” (Stalin,
Berlin, the capital city.
Churchill, Roosevelt). War in
- They agreed on “a Soviet sphere of influence over
Europe was not finished:
Eastern Europe”: very vague term, but free elections
the USSR was in a position
had to be organized in these liberated countries.
of strength as it had
- The UNO would be set up to maintain World peace.
liberated all Eastern Europe.
San Francisco Conference
The Conference resulted in the creation of the United
(USA), in April-June 1945,
Nations Charter on June 26, 1945, giving birth to the
gathering delegates of 51
United Nations Organization (UNO) whose role was to
allied States of the Grand
maintain World Peace.
Alliance (including the
President Truman addressed the delegates on the opening
USSR, many European
day of the Conference, April 25, 1945: “You members of
countries and the USA).
this Conference are to be the architects of the better
world. In your hands rests our future. By your labors at
this Conference, we shall know if suffering humanity is
to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
Potsdam Conference
Tensions had appeared since the Yalta Conference:
(Germany), in July-August
- Division over the fate of Germany: the USSR wanted to
1945, gathering Stalin,
punish it harshly, unlike Truman who did not want to
Truman, Churchill and Attlee
repeat the mistakes of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
(after Churchill lost the
- No final agreement over Eastern Europe still occupied
general elections in Britain).
by the Red Army. The USSR never organized free
The war was not over in
elections: Stalin settled popular democracies (East
Asia and the USA dropped
Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania,
the A-bomb on Hiroshima:
Bulgaria) thanks to rigged elections, i.e. puppet
this gave the USA a position
communist states which were under the domination and
of strength.
the control of Moscow.
1 – The Kennan Telegram, also known as “The Long Telegram”, February 22, 1946
This telegram was written by the American Embassy adviser in Moscow: it inspired the
Truman doctrine and drew the CW scenario that would freeze the World for 40 years.
The content of this telegram was kept secret:
 An incompatibility due to the USSR
The hostility comes from the USSR since the very beginning, and goes back much before
1946 (he quotes Stalin to prove it). The Russian population has a good background (Kennan
flatters the Russians) but is manipulated by the Party and the Soviet leaders. The leaders,
not the population, are responsible for this incompatibility.
 The underhand/insidious strategy of the USSR to fight against Capitalism
The USSR represents a threat:
- First, Soviet leaders lie to their population, demonizing the USA presented as menacing,
as a threatening “creeping disease”, as Evil, so that the Russian population feels
insecure. The leaders are afraid of comparison.
- Moreover, Soviet leaders try to proselytise Communism in weak countries, in easily
influenced countries (like Eastern Europe), so as to spread the ideology.
- Last, Communism threatens the capitalist bloc within its frontiers (“communist
penetration”) because in order to prosper, it needs to destroy/disrupt/undermine the
other bloc, as it cannot bear comparison. Kennan uses the future, as if he was certain
of his assertions: Communism will infiltrate the USA.
Mind the chronological order of the arguments: he goes from the least to the most
threatening one, it rises in a crescendo.
 The USA’s reaction: how to cope with communism?
What strategy should the USA adopt to fight against Communism:
- Kennan advocates the arms race, to give the USA a deterrent/intimidation force.
- He recommends propaganda to create fear of communism and hatred towards Russians
among the American population. Communism is compared to a “malignant parasite”.
- Both foreign and domestic policies must mingle, because Communism is not only a
foreign threat: the USA must solve its internal problems and be a model for the rest of
the World. If the USA stands for Good in the Good versus Evil pattern, then its
image must not be tarnished by any problem.
- The USA has a mission that consists in saving the World: it is a crusade against
communism. The USA must offer a good alternative to the communist theory. Kennan
encourages the USA to stop its isolationism and start intervening into World’s affairs.
2 – The beginning of an “American Century”
The expression was coined in February 1941 by the journalist Henry Luce working for Life
Magazine. The expression accorded well with the economic realities of the American
power (see I-B-2) as well as with the political prestige of the savior country.
 Conclusion
Kennan is very lucid, clear-minded: he warns his country against the risk of copying the
behaviour of the communists, because this is exactly what the Communists would like so as
to destabilize the USA. G. Kennan is considered the “father of Containment”.
III – The USA, the leader of the Free World
A – The Cold War scenario seen by the USA: the Good versus Evil pattern,
according to G. Kennan, 1946
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2 – The consequences of the Kennan Telegram: the birth of the Truman Containment
Doctrine, 1947
Kennan’s telegram inspired President Truman’s Containment Doctrine launched in a speech
to Congress uttered on March 12, 1947. The idea is to contain the Soviet Union’s
expansionism and imperialism.
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