History - Cold War Test (FROM STUDY GUIDE TERMS)

1. Cold War (definition, years, origins/causes)

• Two major victors after WW2: US and USSR who became superpowers

• They competed for political and economic power all over the world.

• This competition played out in both the arms race and space race (fear of armageddon).

• Results: communist bloc imploded, US became world’s only superpower

• It was called cold because it never became a direct armed warfare between the two superpowers.

• 1947-1991

Doomsday Clock

• Symbolic device created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that represents how close humanity is to a human-made global catastrophe, with midnight being the end of the world.

• Time is moved forward or backward depending on the board’s assessment of current global threats.

• It was created in 1947 in an effort to warn the world about nuclear weapons/ the US and USSR arms race.

• Closest to midnight in 2026, 85 seconds till midnight.

• Farthest in 1991 when the Cold War ended.

• Was not changed during the Cuban Missile Crisis because no one knew enough about the situation and the possible outcomes.

communism

• Political and economic ideology that has a classless society where all means of production like property are owned publicly and wealth is shared equally.

• In the Cold War, the USSR used communism, putting it against the capitalist and democratic western powers.

• The west feared communism and the US desperately tried to stop the spread of communism.

Social and economic transformations under communism

• Power concentrated in communist party

• Ex- nationalists executed or sent to reform camps

• Rapid industrialization under soviet-style five year plan in 1955: massive land redistribution, collective farms replaced private farms.

• Universal health care, education.

• Dramatic challenges to gender discrimination. 

capitalism

• Economic system built on private ownership in production and free markets. 

• Individual business, free trade, little government interference.

• Opposite of communism in the USSR.

• The US put capitalism along with democracy and personal freedoms and completely against communism.

USSR

• Combination of 15 nations in Europe and Asia made of one unified communist area.

• Leading communist superpower completely ideologically against the US.

superpower

• A nation who had unrivaled economic, political, and military power.

• Has immense global influence and control.

• No significant global actions could happen without the consideration and cooperation of these superpowers.

• After WW2, the US and USSR were superpowers who competed with their ideologies.

communsit bloc

• Countries that were politically, economically, militarily, and culturally aligned with the USSR.

• Sometimes called the Eastern bloc.

• Members included: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia.

• Rivaled the US and NATO.

• Created a division in Europe which Churchill called the “Iron Curtain”.

Development

• bloc=combo of countries that share a common purpose

• Division of post war germany, especially berlin: western power energy occupation zones, introduce german mark, soviet blockade of berlin.

satellite nations

• Communist countries that were influenced (politically and militarily)/held in orbit by the gravitational pull of the USSR.

• Somewhat independent but their politics were controlled by the USSR.

• Some examples: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany.

winston churchill

• Prime Minister of Britain during WW2 who was a part of the Allies.

• In the cold war he said an “Iron Curtain” had come down of Europe, splitting it into two rivaled sides with the Eastern side under the USSR control.

iron curtain speech

• Speech given by Churcill to describe the physical and ideological barrier in Europe between the eastern bloc (controlled by the USSR) and the democratic west.

• He was trying to warn against the expansion of USSR communism.

• This speech signified and solidified the Cold War.

occupied germnay

• 1945-1949 when Allied powers administered Germany.

• They split Germany and Berlin into four occupied zones with the US, Britain, and France having the west and USSR the east.

• This split the country into capitalist west germany and communist east germany.

• It brought more tensions in the Cold War.

berlin wall

Construction

• 1949-1961: 3.5 million East Germans flee West, especially younger workers.

• In August 1961, construction of the wall began to separate the East and West.

Impact

• Symbol of the separation and rivalry of the Cold War.

• Showed the “iron curtain” and increased tensions.

• Separated families and trapped people in the communist East.

Fall

• East Germany decided to open the Berlin Wall.

• Comes down on November 9, 1989.

• East and west Germany reunite in 1990.

berlin airlift

• 11 months of air shipment to Berlin beginning in June 1948.

• The US and Britain flew food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin. This was their response to the Soviet blockade that had cut off all land and water access to the city.

• Retribution: British/US embargo (ban placed on commercial trade or communication) on soviet imports.

• The Soviets lifted the blockade in summer 1949.

• Standoff between communism and capitalism.

• Showed that the West could counter the USSR without a “hot” war. The Cold War did not go “hot”.

NATO

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1949

• US, Canada, and other western european countries. 

• Purpose: collective security against the USSR and to stop the spread of communism.

warsaw pact

• Warsaw Treaty Organization, 1955-1991.

• USSR, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria.

• Soviet counterbalance to NATO.

• Enforced USSR dominance over satellite states.

marshall plan

• US Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe: provided over 13 billion dollars in aid between 1948-1953

• Wanted to recover the economy, stop the spread of communism, and bring prosperity.

• The Soviets rejected it, seeing it as US economic imperialism. 

• Western success with household technologies.

arms race

• Tense competitive buildup of nuclear weapons with US and USSR.

• Each of them wanted to be militarily dominant, trying to be technologically superior to prevent direct conflict.

• Nuclear proliferation where the US and USSR possessed an enormous amount of nuclear weapons.

• At the end of the 60s, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) where it was assumed that if either side initiated a nuclear attack, both would be completely destroyed.

• H-bombs.

space race

• Nonviolent part of cold war rivalry.

• The US and USSR competed to have superior space, technological, and scientific supremacy. 

• Being able to launch satellites and humans was seen as national security and superiority.

• Initial Soviet success: 1947 (Sputnik, first satellite) and 1961 (Yuri Gagarin orbits space)

• US sets up NASA, lands Apollo XI on the moon in July 1969.

domino theory

• Post WW2 US foreign policy from the late 40s to late 60s that was applied to mostly Asia and Latin America.

• The theory's name served as a metaphoric description of the spread of communism around the world.

• Believers in the domino theory linked nations to a row of dominos.

• If the first domino toppled (becoming communist controlled), the other dominos would fall (neighboring countries would become communist controlled), and it would become inevitable.

• The task of the US was to prevent the fall of the first domino.

• Moves Eisenhower to consider nuclear weapon use in Korea.

containment

• US foreign policy that aimed at stopping expansion of USSR communism.

• Economic, political, and military pressure to check communist influence without a direct nuclear war.

• Brought the US into direct military interventions and proxy wars.

truman doctrine

• 1947.

• The US would politically, militarily, and economically aid democratic nations that fell under the threat of communist. 

• Stop the spread of USSR influence.

• “Creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion”.

proxy war

• A war instigated by a major power who doesn't become directly involved.

• Ex: Korean war, Vietnam war, Soviet-Afghan war.

korean war

• Localized conflicts - first major proxy war during the Cold War.

Origins

• Korea was divided along the 38th parallel after WW2.

• Korea was divided into two Korea’s (1948): Republic of Korea (south, capitol seoul) and Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea (north, capital pyongyang).

Escalation

• North Korea invaded South in 1950, captured Seoul, trying to bring the whole country under communism. 

US intervenes

• US lands, drives north Koreans back to 38th parallel, then goes on to capture Pyongyang.

• The Chinese invaded, pushed the US back to 38th.

• 3 million killed by ceasefire in summer of 1953.

• No peace treaty signed, continued tensions.

38th parallel

• Line that divided North and South Korea.

• Continued to solidify US and USSR rivalry with soviet communism in the north and US democracy in the south.

• This is the line North Korea crossed in the Korean war.

coup

• Sudden, often violent, and illegal seizure of government power, usually completed by military or political elites.

• During the Cold War, coups were weapons. 

• The US and USSR used intelligence agencies to complete, fund, or support coups in smaller nations.

CIA led coup in guatmala motivations

Motivations

• In 1954, the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected president (Arbenz) because his reforms threatened the United Fruit Company and worried them of the spread of communism.

• Debate: was the intervention in Guatemala an overzealous attempt to stop the flow of communism. 

• Was it a calculated action to protect US business interests in the region?

• Arbenz vowed to transform Guatemala from its depleted economic condition into a modern capitalist state, not a communist state. US policymakers instead believed that Arbenz tolerated marxist penetration in his gov.

• Toppling of Arbenz appeared to have been motivated largely by his policies toward UFC, rather than by his sympathetic state toward communism.

cia led coup in guatemala actions

Actions

• Arbenz had ordered a shipment of weapons from communist Czechoslovakia.

• Sec of State Dulles overstated the significance of the weapons, saying they were a part of a larger strategy to create communist base at the Panama canal.

• Reports of this soon appeared in US newspapers.

• However, the US had initiated an arms embargo against Guatemala before the shipment had arrived, causing Guatemala to suspect that the US was searching for an incident to rationalize its planned invasion.

• The US replaced democratically elected Arbenz with Armas.

Armas did

• Returned all of the confiscated land to UFC.

• Outlawed 500+ labor organizations.

• Prevented almost 75% from voting.

• The National committee of defense against communism at the request of the CIA prevented formation of political parties, blocked newspaper stores, and burned books.

cia led coup in guatemala results

Results

• Dulles declared that Guatemala had been saved from “communist imperialism”.

• Many Guatemalans came to have a different perspective.

• The new regime rounded up thousands of suspected communists and executed hundreds of prisoners.

• Labor unions crushed.

• UFC lands were restored.

• Armas was assassinated in 1957.

• Guatemalan politics then degenerated into a series of coups and countercoups, coupled with brutal repression.

International Results

• Britain said US actions as a naked act of aggression.

• Anti-American protests swept across Latin America.

• LEd Guatemala away from democracy and towards repression.

• “Guatamala fell into a maelstrom of guerrilla war and state terror in which hundreds of thousands of people died”.

united fruit company

• US owned company in Guatemala.

• Controlled 40% farmable land, used only 10%.

• Monopoly over the nation’s banana, utility, railroad industries, and shipping center.

• Guatemala threatened to reverse these profitable trade agreements.

jacobo arbenz guzman

• Guatemalan president who was democratically elected (1950-1954).

• Seized 200,000 of UFC unused acres.

• Offered UFC $127,000: US officials viewed the offer, which was well below market values, as an underhanded political maneuver.

• Eisenhower said, "discriminatory and unfair seizure”, clearly the work of “a puppet manipulated by communists”.

castillo armas

• The US put him as the replacement to Arbenz.

• Authoritarian regime, reversing Arbenz’s reforms.

• Returned all of the confiscated land to UFC.

• Outlawed 500+ labor organizations.

• Prevented almost 75% from voting.

• The National committee of defense against communism at the request of the CIA prevented formation of political parties, blocked newspaper stores, and burned books.

• Assassinated.

• Chosen by the US to be someone to establish anti-communist government.

• He brought in political violence and unrest in Guatemala.

long erm results of US guatemalan relations after 1954

• “Ghastly cycle of violence, assassination and torture”.

• “The Guatemalan intervention of 1954 is the most important event in the history of US relations with Latin America”.

• “It really set the precedent for later interventions in Cuba, British Guiana, Brazil, and Chile. The tactics were the same, the mindset was the same, and in many cases the people who directed those covert interventions were the same”.

Clinton on Guatemala (1990s)

• The US had been wrong to support Guatemalan “military forces and intelligence units engaged in widespread repression”.

• Pledged that they would “never repeat" this mistake.

Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996)

• Guatemalan government vs revel groups in civil war.

• Guatemalan gov attacks ethnic Maya Indigenous people (rural poor).

• Guatemalan gov kills approx 200,000 during the civil war (victims of the repression included indigenous activists, suspect gov opponents, returning refugees, critical academics, students, left leaning politicians, trade unionists, religious workers, journalists, and street children).

cuban revolution

• Uprising led by Castro that overthrew the US backed dictatorship of Batista.

• Fidel Castro: 1959, communist revolution.

• He cancels promised elections, takes away foreign properties, kills or exiles political enemies.

• The US imposes a trade embargo on Cuba.

• Soviets step in with massive aid, gain foothold off US shores.

• Escalated the Cold War because there was a Marxist-Lenisit state near the US.

fidel castro

• Overthrew Batista and transformed Cuba into Marxist-Leninst state.

• Aligned with the USSR, almost bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

bay of pigs

• 1960: Castro declares undying allegiance to Soviet foreign policy.

• Kennedy and the CIA send 1500 Cuban exiles into the Bay of Pigs to spur revolution.

• American air support does not appear and their force is destroyed in 3 days.

• US embarrassment.

cuban missile crisis

• October 1962: 13 day political and military standoff between US and USSR. The moment where the Cold War came closest to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.

• The crisis started when an American U-2 spy plane saw that Soviets began assembling missiles in Cuba.

• Kennedy publicly challenged the USSR by putting a naval blockade to stop soviet shipments and by demanding immediate removal of the missiles.

• The Soviets concede, removing their missiles from Cuba, but the US guarantees non-interference with the Castro regime.

• US sec of state dean rusk: “eyeball to eyeball, they blinked first”.

cold war in chile

• Ideological conflict in Chile, influenced by US and USSR struggle. 

• Democratically elected president Allende attempted socialist reforms which prompted US intervention (wanted to stop spread of communism) which resulted in a military coup and a dictatorship of Pinochet.

• The coup, backed by the CIA and led by Pinochet overthrew Allende, brought a dictatorship and a repressive regime with human rights violations and unrest.

salvador allende

• DEmocratically elected leader of Chile who tried to nationalize industries.

• The US saw him as a Soviet pawn and a threat of the spread of communism.

• The US destabilized his government and funded opposition forces.

• Through the coup, he was overthrown.

gerneral augsto pinochet

• Military dictator of Chile from 1973-1990 who seized control with a coup that overthrew Allende.

• Human rights abuses.

nikita krushchev

• Leader of the USSR from 1953-1964.

• Authorized the construction of the Berlin Wall.

• Brought the world to the brink of nuclear war by placing USSR nukes in Cuba.

• Had a secret communication with JFK to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• The USSR agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba, the US agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey and promised to not invade Cuba.

detente

• Reduction in hostility between nuclear superpowers to bring diplomatic negotiation and arms control.

• Nixon wanted to get out of Vietnam and reduce communist support of north Vietnam.

• Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (1972, 1979): reduction by US and Soviets on weapons, cooling of arms race and cold war.

SALT

• Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (1972, 1979).

• US and USSR sign:

• Limited the number of anti-ballistic missile sites, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles was frozen at existing levels.

• Helped improve US and USSR relations and supported detente.

• There was nothing in the agreements, however, about the developments of new weapons.

• This meant that both sides could continue to develop more advanced nuclear technology/weapons.

vietnam war

• Proxy war between communist North Vietnam (backed by USSR) and south Vietnam (backed by US).

• US aid increased, reaching 500,000 troops in 1968.

• Conflict with northern communists ends in stalemate.

• Nixon attempts to end war by escalating bombings, extending into Cambodia.

• US eventually leaves in 1973, war continues until the south is defeated in 1975.

• Massive anti Vietnam protests. 

• Watergate scandal (1972-1974): Nixon orders illegal wiretaps, discovered and forced to resign in 1974.

tonkin gulf resoulution

• Congressional resolution allowing Johnson to use military force is southwest Asia without declaring war.

• It marked the start of US combat involvement in the Vietnam war (proxy war in cold war).

• US worried about south vietnam falling to communist north vieteman, thinking the rest of southeast Asia would also fall to communism.

presenidents and their polices

Truman (1945-1953)

• Containment: stop the spread of communism.

• Truman Doctrine: military and economic aid to countries threatened by communism.

• Marshall Plan: economic help to rebuild western europe after WW2.

• NATO: alliance of western nations against USSR.

Eisenhower (1953-1961)

• Brinkmanship: escalating disputes to the brink of nuclear war to force an adversary to back down.

• Eisenhower Doctrine: US aid to any Middle Eastern nation threatened by communism.

JFK (1961-1963)

• Cuban Missile Crisis Agreements: navigating crisis, forcing USSR to remove missiles from Cuba.

Johnson (1963-1969)

Nixon (1969-1974)

• Detente: ease tensions with USSR.

• SALT: treaties working toward detente.

mikhail s. gorbachev

• Last leader of the USSR.

• Brought reforms, took away the iron curtain, ended the nuclear arms race, allowed eastern european nations to choose their political futures.

• Worked toward shifting the USSR to democracy rather than communism.

End of Cold War

• Reagan opposes the USSR: the “evil empire”.

• Promotes massive military spending, beyond Soviet economy to keep up (Strategic Defense Initiative)

• US economic changes put pressure on Soviet Gorbachev to implement reforms.

collapse of USSR

Gorebaev’s reforms

• Early 1980s the USSR economy began to slow down, then economic stagnation (State of not growing or progressing).

• Satellite nations with economics intertwined with the USSR suffered as well.

• Tried to help a stagnant USSR.

1. Perestroika 

• “Restructing”.

• Hybrid communist capitalist state.

• Communist policy making committee controls decisions, does allow for private business developments..

2. Glasnost   

• “Openness”.

• No more banning books, no more secret police.

No much reform and freedom?

• USSR satellite states answered to gov of USSR.

• In the spirt of Glasnost and Perestroka, the political climate began to change:

• Gorbachev declared that all countries had the right to decide what kind of political and economic system they wanted.

• As Gorbachev possessed the iron fist and tight control: republics began to take advantage of their new freedoms, states began to call for sovereignty, or self-rule and succession, or independence from the USSR.

Collapse (1991)

• The USSR collapsed by the end of 1991.

• With no Soviet state, the Warsaw pact collapsed.

• Gorbachev resigns.

• Elections happen, Boris Yeltsin elected president (1991-1999).

successes and failures of containment

• NATO: success.

• Iran Coup: successful, removing communist threat from IRan and keeping Iran under influence of US, not USSR.

• Hungarian Revolution: failure, Hungary remained communist state that was suppressed by the Soviets.

• Korean war: partially successful, ended in a tie where North Korea remained communist, but South Korea did not.

• Building of Berlin Wall: did not reduce soviet control in the east, reinforced division between communism and capitalism. 

• Vietnam war: failure, the north spread communism to the south.

• Bay of Pigs: failure, the US was quickly defeated in Cuba.

• Prague Spring: failure.

china/PRC

• Civil war between communists and nationalists erupts after the defeat of Japan.

• Chiang Kai-shek, forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan with nationalist forces, takes most of China's gold reserves.

• Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949, and began a dramatic transformation of Chinese society into communist mold.

mao zedong

• Formed People’s Republic of China as communist leader.

• Made China into a superpower.