The Cold War: Origins and Early Developments

Beginnings of the Cold War (1945-1953)

Post-WWII Hopes and Realities

• Initial hope for US-Soviet cooperation after World War II, symbolized by the meeting of Soviet and American soldiers at the Elbe River.
• A 1947 US propaganda film depicted this meeting, but acknowledged the rapid deterioration of the coalition due to Soviet actions in Eastern Europe.
• Relations soured dramatically, leading to the Cold War.
• Competing ideologies, nuclear arms race, and confrontations in Europe and Asia (including the Korean War) fueled fears of another world war.
• The world was largely viewed as divided into "free" and "totalitarian" societies.
• American leaders portrayed the conflict as an existential struggle for the future of humankind.
• Protecting the world from Soviet-led communism became a central US foreign policy goal.
• The Cold War impacted domestic politics, with debates over government tactics to root out Soviet spies.
• Soviet leaders developed a deep distrust of the West, seeking to counter American nuclear advantage through territorial and technological gains.
• The fundamental question of America's role in the world was raised again.

Conflicting Visions of the Post-War World

• The US and the Soviet Union had different visions for the post-war world.
• The US favored free markets and democracy.
• The Soviet Union embraced a Marxist vision, rejecting private property and emphasizing state authority.
• Joseph Stalin sought to secure Soviet borders by controlling territories in Eastern Europe, learning from Hitler's invasion.
• Stalin distrusted Western allies, believing they delayed opening a second front in Europe.
• Soviet war deaths greatly exceeded those of Britain and America, leading to resentment.
• The US feared Stalin's dictatorial ambitions to control Europe.
• The US believed peace in Europe depended on spreading democracy and capitalism.
• These conflicting visions led to immediate clashes between former allies.
• The US and USSR cooperated on the United Nations and the division of Germany.
• Stalin pledged to hold free elections in Eastern Europe, but these collaborations were short-lived.
• These initial disputes rapidly evolved into the Cold War.
• The Cold War was an intense ideological conflict between the US and the Soviet Union and their allies, resulting in "hot wars" without direct US-Soviet combat.

Defining the Threat

• The opening phases of the Cold War involved each side defining the threat posed by the other.
• Conflicting visions and mutual distrust were central to the clash.
• Stalin saw the American nuclear monopoly as a strategic disadvantage that needed to be remedied.
• The US was concerned about Stalin's attempts to extend Soviet influence into the Middle East and the Mediterranean, viewing it as a desire for world domination.
• In 1946, Stalin gave a belligerent speech predicting the triumph of communism over capitalism.

The Long Telegram and Containment

• The US State Department sought information about Stalin's intentions, leading to the creation of the Long Telegram.
• George Kennan's Long Telegram outlined the need for an aggressive foreign policy to contain Soviet expansionism.
• Kennan argued that Stalin needed external enemies to maintain power and that conflicts between capitalist societies would lead to communism's triumph.
• Negotiations were deemed pointless due to this mindset.
• Kennan advocated strengthening Western-style capitalist democracies to counter communism's spread.
• Containment became the foundation for US foreign policy, aimed at preventing the Soviet Union from increasing its global influence.
• Containment signaled the end of American isolationism and non-interventionism, requiring permanent mobilization and resources.
• The domino theory played on American fears, with communism seen as a contagious virus infecting weaker nations.
• Stopping the spread of communism was considered crucial.
• Propaganda emphasized communist aggression.

Escalating Rhetoric and the Iron Curtain

• Rhetoric escalated on both sides, with Stalin's belligerent speech and Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech.
• Churchill described the iron curtain as a military and ideological barrier separating Western and Eastern Europe.
• Kennan envisioned using American dollars and diplomacy to build up Western-style democracies to prevent the spread of communism, not necessarily military intervention.

Implementing Containment: The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

• The US initially aimed to contain communism through diplomatic and economic aid.
• By the end of 1947, the Truman administration had adopted containment as the new US foreign policy.
• Two crises in 1947 highlighted the need for a more decisive US role: the threat of a communist coup in Greece and the situation in Turkey.
• Britain could no longer afford to support anti-communist elements in Greece and Turkey.
• Truman asked Congress for American assistance to these countries.
• Truman stated that every nation had to choose between free and unfree ways of life.
• He portrayed the US as the champion of democracy and freedom, and communist states as oppressive regimes.
• Truman argued that stopping the spread of communism was the nation's responsibility to the world and the only way to protect the American way of life.
• The Truman Doctrine gave the US an active role in stopping the global spread of communism by supporting "free peoples" resisting subjugation.
• The US also wanted to prevent communism from taking over Western Europe voluntarily.
• Communist parties gained significant electoral blocks in Western Europe in 1946 and 1947.
• The Marshall Plan was a massive government program of financial aid to help European capitalist economies recover.
• Over four years, it injected 13,000,000,000 (approximately 119,000,000,000 in today's currency) to rebuild Europe's infrastructure.
• Marshall framed the plan as a humanitarian program, not one with ulterior motives.
• The plan was based on the idea that economic suffering had caused people to embrace fascism, leading to World War II.
• The Marshall Plan explicitly linked peace with prosperity.
• The Marshall Plan was open to all European nations, but required cooperation and transparency.
• It formed the basis for the European Union in the early 1990s.
• The Soviets saw the Marshall Plan as an American plot to colonize Europe.
• Stalin rejected Marshall Plan dollars and forbade Eastern European countries under Soviet influence from accepting them.

Remaking the World: Bretton Woods

• The Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 established the US as the economic cornerstone of the free world.
• Bretton Woods established the World Trade Organization (WTO) to facilitate free trade, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stabilize world currencies, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to lower economic barriers.
• Bretton Woods made the US dollar the world's reserve currency.
• This gave the US significant economic power in international organizations.
• The US dollar remains the world's reserve currency today, although there are challenges to it, particularly from China.

The Growing Military Dimension of Containment

• The threat of communist coups in Greece and a successful communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 demonstrated that containment would require military force.
• Mutual self-defense became a key policy.
• A military alliance between the US and Western European powers was formed in 1949 with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
• Secretary of State Dean Acheson used viral language to describe the spread of communism.
• The Truman administration justified involvement in Greece by warning of a domino effect of communist uprisings.
• George Marshall, a popular figure, framed the Marshall Plan as a response to hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.
• The economic recovery of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan furthered the ideological divide between the US and the Soviet Union.
• The plan fostered a taste for American goods, leading to the internationalization of brands like Coca-Cola and Wrigley's gum.

From Economic Aid to Military Commitment

• Containment evolved from financial assistance to a firm military commitment to defend Western European nations.
• The US shed its reluctance to intervene militarily in European affairs.
• The Stalin-backed coup in Czechoslovakia and the possibility of Germany falling to communism were major early tests.
• The US, France, and Britain decided to consolidate their spheres of influence in Germany into West Germany.
• The Soviet Union opposed any plan to rebuild Germany and protested the use of Marshall Plan funds.
• Stalin ordered his army to stop all overland traffic between the Western and Soviet zones of Germany.

The Berlin Airlift

• To pressure the US, Britain, and France to abandon their plan to reunify Germany, Stalin ordered a blockade of West Berlin.
• The US faced difficult choices, including breaching the blockade with armed convoys or supplying West Berlin from the air.
• The US ultimately decided to supply West Berlin from the air in the Berlin Airlift, which lasted for almost a year.
• The Berlin Airlift was a logistical feat and a publicity victory for the United States.
• It underscored the stark contrast between Western humanitarian impulses and Soviet oppression.
• The Berlin Airlift convinced Americans that their help was needed and welcomed overseas.

NATO and the Refinement of Containment

• After the Soviet-backed coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Blockade, the US refined its policy of containment.
• These events shattered any chance of creating a consensus around economic aid alone.
• Western European nations allied themselves in the Brussels Pact in 1948.
• By joining NATO, the US created its first military alliance since the Revolutionary War.
• The US was obligated to come immediately to Western Europe's defense in the event of a Soviet attack.
  • Besides creating a permanent role for the United States overseas and containing communism, NATO also helped keep peace among the European nations that had clashed and competed in the last hundred years.
• NATO extended the protection of America's nuclear arsenal to Europe.
• NATO helped maintain peace among European nations.
• Unlike the United Nations, NATO has a mechanism of enforcement: an attack on one NATO nation is considered an attack on all.

The Nuclear Arms Race and the Loss of China

• Despite NATO, communism was doing well in 1949.
• The Soviet Union successfully tested its own atomic bomb, challenging American military power.
• The chances of international crisis escalating into nuclear war appeared greater.
• By 1950, the communist government controlled China.
• These events had a chilling effect on the American public.
• The US was no longer invulnerable to attack.
• American soldiers were permanently stationed around the world to deter and respond to nuclear attacks.
• The US began stockpiling bombs to gain an advantage over the Soviets.
• Truman authorized the development of the hydrogen bomb.
• The nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union began.
• Mao Zedong and the communists emerged victorious in China in 1949.
• The nationalists fled to Taiwan.
• The US refused to recognize the communist government in China until the 1970s.
• Mao Zedong reached out to Joseph Stalin, leading to the signing of a Soviet treaty in 1950 pledging mutual assistance.
• This alliance created a second front in the Cold War, forcing the US to divide its attention between Europe and Asia.

NSC-68

• Truman ordered a full review of American foreign policy, resulting in National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68).
• NSC-68 declared that the issue facing the US was momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction of not only this republic, but civilization itself.
• It presented a vision of the Soviet enemy as fanatical and bent on world domination.
• It gave the president license to do almost everything short of war to halt this drive.