Unit 8: The Cold War and Decolonization (1900-Present)

🄶 Context of The Cold War

  • Cold War - A state of hostility between two states characterized by an ideological struggle rather than open warfare

  • The Cold War - Ideological struggle that took place over 40 years in the 20th century between the US and USSR after WW2

  • After WW2, two global superpowers (US and USSR) emerged through economic and technological advantages

šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡² US

Economy

  • Suffered during great depression

  • Mobilization for WW2 created conditions for a complete economic turnaround

    • Industrial sector ramped up to meet wartime needs

  • Did not suffer much during WW2 (despite bombing of Pearl Harbor) compared to Europeans whose cities got cooked

  • Therefore, the US became the most prosperous nation in the world

  • Offered financial aid plans to help pay for rebuilding Western European states, causing their economic revivals as well

    • Ex: Marshall plan

    • Helped to shift the balance of world power to the US

Technological Advances

  • developed the Atomic Bomb

    • deployment on Japan showcased US technological prowess, further shifting power to the US

☭ USSR

  • Economy was state driven since the 1920s

  • Economy had rapid growth despite skepticism from free market supporters

  • Experienced lots of destruction from WW2 (difference from the US)

Advantages the USSR had:

  • Command Economy

    • Sourced Natural resources from their enormous territory

  • Large population

    • Worked towards economic recovery

🤬 Causes of the Cold War

  • Conflicting ideologies

    • US - democratic capitalism

    • USSR - authoritarian communism

    • Universalizing ideology - both the US and the USSR desired that their ideology be spread worldwide

  • Mutual mistrust between superpowers

    • Big Three - US, Britain, USSR

    • met to discuss plans for the postwar world

    • agreed that central and eastern European countries would hold free elections after the war was over

      • However, Stalin kept these countries under control to act as a buffer zone between Russia and Europe

      • Those states became communist, serving the USSR as satellite states

      • US saw this as a violation to the agreement, fueling mistrust

    • Division of Germany among the West and USSR demonstrates ideological differences

  • Guided by these developments of mistrust and conflicting ideologies, the Cold War began and would last for ~40 years

šŸš€ Effects of the Cold War

  • Both the US and USSR wanted to spread their ideologies, causing them to fight over states that were in the decolonization process (see context for decolonization section section)

  • Some groups refused to be pawns to larger superpowers and their ideologies as they wanted to avoid being dependent on a foreign power

  • Non-Aligned movement - groups that refused to be controlled by conflict between the two superpowers

    • Worked for an alternative economic, political, and social order that presented a third way of being in the world that was not defined or being controlled by the two superpowers

      • These nations would later be referred to as the Third World

    • Led by Indonesian president Ahmad Sukarno, hosting the first meeting in 1955

  • Creation of Military Alliances

    • Because both sides had been building up nuclear weapons (nuclear proliferation), a direct encounter between the two would be catastrophic (Mutual Assured Destruction)

    • Both sides created these military alliances for protection and to divide the world up into friends and foes

    • Ex: NATO

      • US and several Western European states

    • Ex: Warsaw Pact

      • Soviet Union and their Central and Eastern European satellite states

    • For both sides, an attack on one state would be an attack on all

  • Proxy Wars

    • Because the US and USSR could not attack each other directly, the conflict was carried out in a series of proxy wars across Latin America, Africa, and Asia

    • They supported different sides of smaller conflicts, so they could fight for world domination without actually fighting each other

    • USSR supports communist side, US supports anti-communist side

    • Ex: Korean War

      • Korea was a Japanese colony during WW2 and after Japan’s defeat, Korea was split into North and South Korea

      • North invaded the South in 1950, and the US and USSR fought without actually fighting each other

      • Ended in 1953 basically where it at begun (38th parallel)

    • Ex: Contra War

      • Socialist Sandinistas backed by Cuba and USSR vs. anti-communist Contras backed by the US

    • Ex: Angolan Civil War

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Space Race

☭ Spread of Communism

šŸ‡ØšŸ‡³ China

  • Review - 2000 years of dynastic rule ended by the revolution of 1911 led by Sun Yat-Sen that established China as a republic

  • By 1920s, Nationalist party under Chiang Kai-Shek had tensions brewing due to their perceived reliance on western powers

  • CCP under Mao Zedong would fight a civil war with the Nationalists before WW2 but would pause it to focus on Japan’s invasion

  • CCP would seize power with help of the USSR

Similarities & Differences between China and USSR

  • Both went through collectivization of agriculture

    • However, this led to mass death in the USSR while it was mostly peaceful in China

  • Both had state controlled economies

  • Both aimed to rapidly industrialize

    • China - Mao’s Great Leap Forward

      • Focus on rural areas

      • Industrial goods created in rural areas were not good quality

      • Bad harvests led to 20-50 million Chinese people to die from starvation

        • Also caused by Mao’s policies of refusing foreign aid during the famine and exporting grain that could save lives because he wanted to show his style of communism was good

    • USSR - Stalin’s 5 year plan

      • Focus on urban areas

Spread of Socialism

  • Not quite communism, but the US still did not like this

šŸ‡ŖšŸ‡¬ Egypt

  • Socialist policies to redistribute land and resources under Gamal Abdel Nasser

  • Nationalization of the Suez Canal

    • Gave Egypt control over it and not the colonial powers that built and payed for it

    • Sparked conflict and was supported by the USSR, allowing Egypt to come out on top

šŸ‡»šŸ‡³ Vietnam

  • Two rival governments were established after Japan’s defeat (Japan occupied Vietnam during WW2)

  • Communist North

    • Land-redistribution to combat the fact that a few wealthy landowners owned nearly all the agricultural land

    • Led by Ho Chi Minh

  • Anti-Communist South

šŸ‡ØšŸ‡ŗ Cuba

  • In 1956, Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba that established it as a communist state

    • Wanted to separate from being economically dependent on the US

    • Launched program and land redistribution and raising wages transferring ~15% of wealth from the rich to the poor

    • Nationalized land that was controlled by US corporations exploiting Cuban economy

  • US CIA tried to overthrow Castro but failed, further radicalizing them into communism

šŸ’” End of the Cold War

  • Ended from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991

  • Causes:

    • US advancement in technology

      • Ronald Reagan allowed the US government to massively increase spending on military and technology

      • Ex: Strategic Defense Initiative

        • Aimed to create space-based missile defense systems

        • Never passed, but shows the divide between the US and USSR

        • USSR tried to match US spending, but USSR economy was not good enough so that led to further economic decline

    • USSR failed to invade Afghanistan

      • aimed to prop up the communist regime against Afghan Muslim troops that tried to overthrow it

      • Afghan rebels were supported by the US and other Middle Eastern powers

      • USSR continued this war for 9 years, further depressing their economy

    • Public discontent and economic weakness of communist states

      • Mikhail Gorbachev

        • reformer, saw the USSR was on life support from strict government control

        • his policies aimed to relieve that

          • Ex: Perestroika - restructuring of economy by reducing central planning from government

          • Ex: Glasnost - ā€œopennessā€œ criticism against the government was now allowed

          • He ceased military intervention to prop up communist states in its sphere of influence

        • All these led to democratic movements in Eastern European states and even states in the USSR

        • 1989 - Berlin Wall was torn down

        • led to the USSR collapse

🚩 Decolonization

  • WW1 and WW2 were major turning points for European maritime empires, causing the dissolution of those empires after 1945 through decolonization

Context

  • After WW1, Imperial powers denied colonies the right to self rule

    • Even expanded their holdings through the mandate system (last unit)

  • In WW2, colonial troops also fought for the cause of the imperial empire

    • Imperial powers still didn’t intend on giving colonies self rule

    • Cause worldwide anti-imperialist movements

    • Major difference: this time, imperial powers (Britain and France) had no resources to resist these movements due to WW2

  • These developments led to a worldwide process of decolonization

    • Broke apart empires

    • Created ~80 new states in the world

Process

  • Negotiated independence

    • Ex: Indian National Congress formed in 1885

      • Petitioned British government for more Indian voice in Indian policies, ignored by the British

      • After WW2, British were broke and had many pro-independence members in parliament and officially recognized India’s independence in 1947

      • Muslim League of India called for their own state in the independence, leading to the Partition of India

      • Created the new state of Pakistan where Hindus fled out of it and Muslims fled into it, both sides causing violence against each other, killing ~1 million

  • Armed Struggle

    • Main difference between colonies that negotiated vs. had to wage war was dependent on the size of the European population there

    • Colonies with a large amount of European settlers resisted decolonization more, causing violent outbreaks for independence

    • Ex: Algeria

      • French Colony

      • France allowed Morocco and Tunisia to negotiate their independence but not Algeria

      • This was because there was a lot of French people in Algeria

      • In 1954, Arab and Berber Muslims formed the National Liberation Front, attacking French troops and civilians for independence

      • Caused French troops to retaliate and target civilians, causing massive atrocities

      • War continued until 1962 when president Charles De Gualle opened negotiations for independence, ending the war and recognizing Algeria’s independence

  • Inheritance of Colonial Boundaries - when states win independence, they inherit the same territory that the imperial power drew long ago

    • Brought rival groups together, and split ethnic and religious groups apart, causing problems

😠 Tension from Inherited Boundaries

Creation of Israel/Partition of Palestine

  • Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, composed mainly of Muslims

  • Zionism - Jewish nationalistic ideology that advocated for the Jewish to have their own state

    • Their ancestral land happened to be Palestine (uh oh)

  • Dismantling of the Ottoman Empire after WW1

    • Transferred Palestine under Britain under the Mandate System

  • Balfour declaration - British support of Jews settling in Palestine

    • Jewish Migration spiked during the interwar period due to British support, and also spiked during WW2 due to the holocaust

  • Palestinian Muslims resisted this development

  • British handed the problem over to the UN, which partitioned Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Muslims

  • Arab-Israeli War - Palestinians fought against the Jews with support from neighboring Arab states

    • Israel won the war, but more conflicts would erupt even today

šŸŖ™ Economies of New States

  • In many states born through decolonization, governments often took a strong role in guiding economic life to promote the development of the new nation

    • Ex: Vietnam with a command economy

  • Indira Gandhi - first Female Prime minister of India in 1966 (NOT Mahatma Gandhi)

    • Economic crises due to conflict with Pakistan and droughts

    • Implemented series of 5 year Socialist Economic Plans which aimed to allow the government to have more control over their economy rather than relying on foreign aid

    • Green Revolution - movement involving biologically engineered seeds and fertilizers that increased agricultural yields

      • Made India agriculturally self-sufficient

šŸ’¼ Migration

  • Similarities and differences between this period (1900-Present) and the last period (1750-1900)

  • Both periods had migrants that moved in search of work due to economic difficulties at home

    • Last period the destination was based on industrialization

    • In this period, migration occurred between newly independent states and their former metropoles

      • Ex: South Asians to Great Britain

      • Ex: Algerians to France

      • Ex: Filipinos to US

      • Caused by economic hardships in the new nations

      • Colonial people were already familiar with the language and customs of the previous imperial power anyways

Effects of Migration

  • Helped maintain ties between former colonies and their metropoles (former imperial overlord)

  • Transformed majority white and culturally homogeneous societies into multi-ethnic societies

✊ Various Movements of Resistance

  • Response to conflicts

  • Non violence

    • Ex: Mahatma Gandhi - protested British rule through civil disobedience (breaking of unjust laws) to draw attention to their injustice

      • Homespun movement - protested British domination of India’s cotton industry

      • Salt March - protested the Salt Act (forced Indians to buy British salt at a heavily taxed rate)

        • Ghandi and followers walked several hundred miles to India’s west coast, with people joining the March along the way and they ended up with 50-60k people

        • On the coast, they dug up salt deposits in the presence of British imperial police, causing Gandhi and others to be beaten and arrested

      • Helped to break British colonial rule

    • Ex: Martin Luther King Jr.

      • Led Civil Rights movement against unjust racial segregation laws in the Southern US

      • Inspired by Gandhi and called his own followers to break unjust laws in civil disobedience

      • Montgomery Bus Boycott - Black Americans boycotted the city’s segregated public transport system

      • Supreme Court outlawed racial discrimination in schools in the 1950s

      • Congress passed anti-discrimination laws in 1960s

    • Ex: Nelson Mandela

      • opposed Apartheid (South African racial segregation laws)

      • led Black South Africans in acts of nonviolent resistance to affect political change

      • Unlike Gandhi and MLK, Mandela eventually changed his mind and advocated for violent resistance to injustice

        • Due to being on trial for treason and the Sharpeville Massacre

      • Won the presidency in 1994, ending Apartheid

  • Violence

    • Augusto Pinochet led a military coup to overthrow democratically elected Salvador Allende (Marxist implementing socialist policies)

      • Supported by US

      • Pinochet suppressed opposition to his leadership

  • Terrorism

    • Shining Path

    • Irish Republican Army

    • Al Qaeda

      • Founded and led by Saudi Arabian billionaire Osama Bin Laden

      • Militant Islamic Group

      • Against US involvement in the Middle East

      • Responded with acts of terrorism against civilians to pressure US to change policies involving this region

      • Ended up increasing US involvement in the area