Leaders on the Cold War

Truman

  • Decided in Jan 1950 to counter USSR using hydrogen bomb (arms race)

  • Truman Doctrine: The US provided poilitical, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations threatened by authoritarianism

  • Against Communism, pro Containment

  • 1945 president

  • Sent 400M to Greece and Turkey

  • Marshall Plan: 1948; To rebuild the economic issues fueled by scarce weather, which in turn increased Communistic ideology; Effectively re-established industrial and economic state, turned back towards democracy; 13.3B towards Britain

  • Formed NATO: 1949; collective defense alliance against the USSR

  • Korean War; 1950; entered to stop communist N. Korea from expanding

Attlee

  • Anti-Communist (1945-1951)

  • Shifted Britain from wartime alliance with U.S. to active conflict w/ USSR

  • Supported/recieved Marshall Plan + partially established NATO

Stalin

  • 1947-1953

  • Only leader to consider and rank priorities (compared to US + Britain)

  • Goals (in order): security for himself, regime, country, ideology

  • No internal threats threaten his rule, no external risk his country

  • Believed that “blood and treasure” determined who got what post-war

  • Anti-war, to protect country interests

  • Wishful thinking over priorities

  • Goal: Not to restore European balance of power, but to dominate as a similarly strong power to Hitler

  • Stalin described the British and US governments as aggressive, he thought it unlikely that war with them would be imminent, believing that several decades of peace was likely

Lenin + (Ideology)

  • Identified as Marxist, but had a moderately different interpretation (Leninism)

  • “Humanity would eventually become purely Communist, stateless, classless, and free from exploitation and alienation”.”

  • Socialism came first, then Communism

Churchill

  • “Survive at all costs”

  • Would relinquish leadership in the Anglo-American coalition, weaken the British empire, collaborate with USSR… in order to keep the US as an ally

  • Churchill observed an Iron Curtain (containment from Communism)

  • Stalin suggested that a unified, but demilitarised, German state be established, hoping that it would either come under Soviet influence or remain neutral

  • Berlin Blockade: Stalin blocked access of ports to West Berlinm and would only remove them if Western Allies withdrew the Dutch/Deutsche Mark from W. Berlin. West brought in the Berlin Airlift, bringing in supplies, which resulted in the Red Army lifing the Blockade

Roosevelt

  • Less certain (compared to Stalin) of what to do to achieve security

  • Worked hard to bring U.S. into world politics

  • Priorities: Sustain allies (Britain, USSR, Nationalist China), new collective security organization, allied cooperation, a sellable proposal to Americans

Wilson

  • Geopolitical objective to make the world “safe for democracy”

Zedong

  • Sino-Soviet Split: Khrushchev split from China, resulting in the question of who would lead world communism

  • Turned China communsit

  • Fought against US in the Korean war

Khrushchev

  • 1953-1964

  • Wanted “peaceful co-existence” with the West, de-Stalinization, and lead through volatile crises

  • Built the Berlin Wall

  • Space Race win

  • Cuban Missile Crisis