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

🇺🇲 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

🚀 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

🇨🇳 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

🇪🇬 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

🇻🇳 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

🇨🇺 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

💔 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 - “openness“ 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

  • Grassroots movements such as the the Solidarity labor movement in Poland

    • dissent from individuals can lead to collective action

    • Protested injustices from the communist regime

🚩 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

🪙 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

💼 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