Cold War Crisis

Cause Berlin Blockade - ideology

• Zones of WBerlin as a western enclave in Soviet territory - stood against US sovereignty of Berlin

• Refused to allow water, road or railroad transport through EGermany into WBerlin

• Stalin attempting to ensure Berlin would become a communist city & therefore retain full control of EGermany

• Focused on avoiding loss of Berlin

• 1948: Truman doctrine & belief in containment started to take shape

  • Influence by George Kennan’s long -telegram 1946

  • Berlin blockade as tactical move by US to ensure they did not lose influence in CEurope power struggle

• Sparked by independent US decision to announce currency Deutschmark June 1948

Causes CMC - ideology

• Soviet decision to place ballistic missile sites of Cuba 1962 = increase communist influence in Latin American and WHemisphere

• Predicated on belief that Cuban revolution needed to be supported in order to spread revolution into the rest of LAmerica and Caribbean

• President Kennedy on Oct 22nd gave a televised address to American public informing them of the installation of the ballistic missiles in Cuba

  • Quarantine = violation seen as hostile action which would force retaliation

  • Reassert authority after 1961 Bay of Pigs failure

Causes Berlin Blockade - Fear and Paranoia

• March 1948 London conference = announcement of Trizonia = Soviet delegation walked out

• Soviet concerns that Socialist German party would lose upcoming elections in Berlin unless allies removed

Causes CMC - Fear and Paranoia

• USSR equally concerned about vulnerability after medium-range Jupiter missile had been placed in Turkey in 1950s

• Placement of ballistic missiles in Cuba (90 miles from US)

• Context of ‘Red Scare’ and McCarthyism in 1950s

Causes Berlin Blockade - Historical context

• Decisions over Germany’s future after WW2 had caused superpower tensions & breakdown of Grand alliance since wartime conferences

• E.g. before implementation of Marshall plan, Bizonia had been formed in 1947 as military allied zone between US and UK

• Increasing levels of cooperation between the US, French & British zones had begun to cause conflict throughout 1947 = soviet aggressive reaction to currency change

Causes CMC - historical context

• Emergence of Fidel Castro in 1949

• Bay of Pigs plan by Eisenhower to train anti-Castro exiles to attempt to overthrow the regime

  • Gov spent close to $5 million on the project but invasion was a disaster as the rebels lacked supplies and had no air support

  • 200 rebel forces casualties and public relation disaster in US

H. Feis (orthodox)

USSR as responsible for the conflicts due to the inherently aggressive nature of communism; based on revolution and conflict

W. A. Williams (revisionist)

Capitalism had aggressive tendencies the same way that communism has

John Lewis Gaddis

• Rather than ideology, fear led the CW

• Postwar goals of Stalin ‘security for himself, his regime, his country, and his ideology, in precisely that order’

Orthodox historians

Fail to acknowledge the role of fear and paranoia in causing crisis (focused ideology)

Post-revisionist historains

Crucial to move from a top-down history of superpower actions & instead consider historical context in which both crises took place

Stephan Ambrose

The ‘Strange alliance’

WH McNeill (orthodox)

Stalin most at fault for the dissolution of the Big Thee because of his madness and totalitarian rule

Gaddis

Both sides overestimated the threat of the other

Marxists

Economic factors are always seen as main contributing factor to crises throughout human history

Impact Berlin Blockade - country of crisis

• 101 deaths

• Sped up formation of WGermany

  • Linked with US in NATO 1955

• May 1949 = Federal Republic of Germany (FDR) set up

• October 1949 = USSR announced creation of German Democratic Republic (GDR)

  • Only recognised by communist bloc countries

• September - Adenauer elected as chancellor of FDR

• 6 May 1955 = WGermany joined NATO

Impact of KW - Country of crisis

• 600,000 dead in North

• 1 million dead in South

• N Korea = underdeveloped dictatorship

• S Korea = 6 republics + 2 coups

• US mutual defense treaty

  • NOT part of WBloc

  • Non-NATO ally status

Impact of Berlin Blockade - US

• Humanitarian force

• Benevolent

• Defender of freedom and democracy

• Advanced tech

  • Planes working to transport food, medicine and coal

Impact KW - US

• Delegitimised Acheson’s ‘perimeter speech’ + containment

• More diplomatic —> requested ceasefire

  • Carried out Panmunjom negotiations

Impact Berlin Blockade - USSR

• Major diplomatic defeat

• WBerlin symbol of international community

Impact KW - USSR

• Soviet expansion

• Destabilised diplomacy

  • UN inefficient due to Soviet boycott

  • Caused by lack of CCP recognition

• 14 May 1955 = Warsaw Pact created

Impact Berlin Blockade - Cold War

• Further emphasis on ‘iron curtain’

• 2.8 million in 1950 to almost 5.8 million by 1955

• 1952 = US created hydrogen bomb

  • By Ivy Mike

• NATO established

Impact KW - Cold War

• Rivalry Asia

• US established SEATO to defend Taiwan

• US defence budget X3

• US established NSC 68

  • Globalised and militarised the CW

• 1953 Soviet Union developed hydrogen bomb

Robert R. Newman and David C. Engerman

The blockade was purely a form of economic pressure used by the USSR, as a means to reveal WBerlin’s economic dependence on the West and therefore join the USSR

WH McNeill

Where the Soviet Union is blamed for CW tensions

Roger R. Miller

Blockade ‘hurt the eastern occupation zone and Soviet standing in Germany more than than the Soviet blockade hurt the western zones