Unit 9: Cold War and Contemporary Europe

  • 1945 - 1970: Confrontation

  • 1970 - 1979: Detente

  • 1980 - 1989: Renew Rivalry

Early Cold War

The Ideological Struggle

  • Soviet and Eastern Bloc - Spread Communism

  • US and Western Democracies - Containment of communism and collapse of the communist world

  • Metholodogies

    • Espionage (KGB v. CIA)

    • Arms Race

    • Competition for the following of Third World Countries

    • Bipolarization of Europe (NATO vs. Warsaw Pact)

Truman Doctrine

  1. Civil War in Greece

  2. Turkey under pressure from the USSR for concessions in the Dardanelles

  3. The US should support democracy across the world

  4. The US gave Greece and Turkey $400 million in aid

Marshall Plan

  1. European Recovery Program

  2. Secretary of State George Marshall

  3. The US should provide aid to all European nations that need it. This move is not against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos

  4. $12.5 billion

Berlin Airlift

  • The US brings supplies into East Berlin

  • Stalin does not stop the airlift because the US had nuclear weapons

NATO and the Warsaw Pact

  • NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization

    • Agreement that if someone gets attacked, all the other NATO countries would attack

    • United States joins

  • Warsaw Pact

    • Eastern European communist countries join with USSR as a response to the Warsaw Pact

Suez Crisis

  • Egypt (Nasser) takes over and nationalizes the Suez Canal

  • GB, France, Israel v. USSR and Egypt

  • Proxy War of the Cold War

  • Egypt is able to take the Suez Canal

Radio Free Europe

USSR Uprisings

  • The Hungarian Uprising

    • Imre Nagy, Hungarian PM

    • Promised Free Elections

    • This could lead to the end of communist rule in Hungary

Sputnik I

  • Russians have sent a satellite to space first (winning the space race)

  • USSR gains the technological edge

Kitchen Debate

  • Nixon and Khruschev debate Cold War tensions and technology in a kitchen

U2 Spy Incident

  • U2 Spy Plane is shot down over Soviet airspace while spying and taking pictures

  • USA did not acknowledge that the US was spying

  • Francis Gary was captured and only released if an official apology was given

The Berlin Wall Goes Up

  • Soviets put up the Berlin wall to separate the two sides because East Germany people were leaving to West and escaping