cold war
What is a Cold War?
A cold war is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, acts of espionage or conflict through surrogates.
What is a Cold War?
The surrogates are typically states that are "satellites" of the conflicting nations, i.e., nations allied to them or under their political influence.
It might also mean giving military aid (such as weapons or economical aid, or perhaps even soldiers) to lesser nations oppressed or in guerilla war with the opposing country of a cold war.
The U.S. and Soviet Union had different goals and ideologies.
America embraced democracy and capitalism.
The Soviet Union was a
communist dictatorship.
Democracy
A form of government in which power is held by people under a free electoral system.
Dictatorship
A government controlled by one person or a small group of people.
Capitalism
Economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and characterized by profit, a free market, and open competition.
Communism
Economic idea that the
government should own and operate all business and industry.
The Yalta Conference
Winston Churchill (Britain) Franklin Roosevelt (U.S.) Joseph Stalin (Soviets)
The leaders of Great Britain, America, and the Soviet Union met to discuss the reorganization of Germany after WWII.
Disagreements at Yalta
They disagreed on 3 main ideas:
1. The USSR wanted Germany to pay high reparations; Britain and the U.S. disagreed.
2. Britain and the U.S. wanted Germany to recover, whereas the USSR wanted to keep Germany weak.
3. Stalin wanted the Polish-German border to be much further to the west and desired a 'friendly' Polish government. Britain and the USA were worried this would mean Poland would be controlled by the USSR.
East and West
Germany
Germany was divided into 4 sectors, and 2 countries.
The Soviet Union controlled East Germany while the U.S, France, and Great Britain controlled West Germany.
The capital of Berlin was also divided into East and West zones even though it was deep in Soviet-controlled East Germany.
Start of the Cold War
The Cold War started almost immediately after the Germans surrendered to the Allies in 1945 primarily because of the Soviet’s attempts to control Eastern Europe and Germany.
The United Nations
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization formed after World War II to keep peace and security throughout the world.
It replaced the weak and toothless League of Nations created after World War I that America had refused to join.
The United Nations
The U.N. established a Security Council designed to investigate and settle disputes between member nations.
Competition: East v. West
The Iron Curtain
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a speech in 1946 declaring that an “iron curtain” had descended across the European continent.
The Iron Curtain was a
metaphor for the extreme political and ideological division that separated Western Europe from the Soviet Union and its satellite states in the east.
The Iron Curtain
This map of Europe shows the division between the U.S. and Soviet spheres of influence during the Cold War.
Berlin Blockade
In 1948, the Soviet Union began blocking roads and railways into the Allied zones in Berlin.
This prevented people from leaving and from accessing resources like food and supplies from outside of Berlin.
The Berlin Airlift
June 1948 to May 1949
Western allies started a massive airlift to counter the Berlin blockade imposed by the Soviet regime.
The U.S. and U.K. delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and supplies to West Berlin via more than 278,000 airdrops.
American aircrews made more than 189,000 flights.
Threat of Nuclear War
The Soviets were the first after the United States to test their own atomic bomb. In response, President Truman developed even more powerful nuclear weapons for national defense.
The Soviets were dominating Eastern Europe with communism, and the U.S. wanted to stop them.
The Marshall Plan
On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948.
It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe.
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan sought to:
1. Stabilize governments
where unemployment was
high
2. Rebuild infrastructure
damaged during the war
3. Increase cooperation
between European governments
It did not, however, lend aid to pay for the damage caused by the atomic bombs.
U.S. Policies in the Cold War
Containment (1947) – Stop the spread of communism, or contain it.
Truman Doctrine (1947) – The primary goal of the Truman Doctrine was to prevent the spread of communism.
America and the Soviet Union formed alliances with other nations based on their economic and governmental systems at the onset of the Cold War.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
In 1949, America formed a military and political alliance with 11 other nations, signing the North Atlantic Treaty to help defend each other in case of attack.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
The main goal of NATO was to form an alliance where any attack on a NATO member was met with armed force.
Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union responded to the creation of NATO by creating an alliance with all Eastern European nations who embraced communism called the Warsaw Pact.
Brinkmanship
Brinkmanship is the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policies to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.
In the Cold War, it involved the America and the Soviet Union using tactics of fear and intimidation as strategies to make the opposing side back down.
Doomsday Clock
The threat of nuclear war loomed large. In 1947, a metaphorical “doomsday clock” was created to determine the threat of nuclear war by its proximity to “midnight”.
The Cold War ignited a rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United State to prove their dominance on the world stage. One of the ways this rivalry became most obvious was the race to prove superior spaceflight capability.
Space Race
The Soviets first showed the ability of their spaceflight plans by successfully launching a satellite called Sputnik into space. It became the first manmade object to orbit the Earth.
Space Race
The U.S. responded to the success of the Soviet Space program by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Each administration quickly sent animals into space to determine if it would be safe to send humans.
Space Race
The Soviets sent a dog named Laika on Sputnik 2 in November of 1957.
The Americans successfully sent Ham, a chimpanzee, on the Mercury capsule in 1961.
Yuri Gagarin, first human in space
Space Race
The Soviets successfully launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit, making him the first man in space in 1961. The Americans quickly responded by putting Alan Shepard in space the same year. An American named John Glenn orbited the Earth the following year.
The ultimate prize in the space race was still to land on the moon.
Alan Shepard, first American in space
John Glenn, first human to orbit Earth
President Kennedy and Apollo 11
President Kennedy was adamant the U.S. reach the moon before the Soviets. In 1969, a crew of 3 Americans, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins made it to the moon in just over 3 days. Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the moon’s surface.
During this time, Americans became fearful of the possibility of communists living in U.S. in what was known as the Red Scare.
McCarthy’s Campaign
Senator Joseph McCarthy blamed the spread of communism on the presence of traitors within the U.S. government.
In 1953, he declared that there were communists in the military and he was removed.
Proxy Wars
Proxy Wars
Proxy wars are instigated or motivated by a major power who does not usually itself become directly involved in the fighting.
The Cold War pitted the American and Soviet governments against one another in support of their own economic and political interests.
Korean War
The U.S. gained possession of Korea from Japan after WWI.
The Americans and Soviets partitioned Korea along the 38th parallel like
they did with Germany and Berlin.
● As a result Russia controlled North Korea and the U.S. controlled South Korea.
The Cold War
gets Hot
When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, the U.S. feared another country falling to communism.
In June of 1950, members of the United Nations met to support South Korea.
General Douglas Macarthur led U.N. forces into South Korea.
North Korean forces were driven out of South Korea and all the way back to their northern border with China. The North Korean capital of Pyongyang was captured by the U.N. Forces.
The governments of China and Soviet Union came to support the communist North Koreans with financial aid and military resources. These combined forces pushed into the North and drove the U.N. forces back south of the 38th parallel.
End of the Korean War
On July 27, 1953, seeing little hope for a strategic solution, sides signed ceasefire agreement and the war ended in stalemate.
End of the Korean War
Today, North Korea is a Communist Dictatorship and South Korea is a Capitalist Democracy.
The U-2 Spy Plane Incident
USSR was aware of American U-2 spy missions but lacked technology to
In May of 1960, CIA agent Francis Gary Powers’ U-2, was shot down by Soviet missile. Powers was unable to activate plane's self-destruct mechanism before he parachuted to the ground, right into the hands of the KGB.
stop them until 1960.
The U-2 Spy Plane Incident
When US learned of Powers' disappearance over USSR, it issued a cover statement claiming that a "weather plane" crashed after its pilot had "difficulties with his oxygen equipment." US officials did not realize:
• The plane had crashed intact
• The Soviets had recovered its photography
equipment
• They had captured Powers, whom they
interrogated extensively for months before he made a "voluntary confession" and public apology for his part in US espionage
The Brain Drain
Fearing a mass-departure of well-educated young people or a “Brain Drain” from East Germany to the west, Soviet leaders took desperate measures to keep them in.
The Berlin Wall
In August of 1961, East German workers started building a wall between East and West Berlin. The wall extended 27 miles dividing East and West Berlin. President Kennedy sent 1,500 troops to West Berlin to stop the construction but the wall remained because the U.S. didn’t want to go to war.
The Berlin Wall
In the decades to come, the wall would be reinforced, equipped with sniper towers, anti-vehicle ditches, border patrols, control strips (sand to show footprints), barbed-wire, and landmines.
Containment and Cuba
The Americans feared threats the Soviet Union would use Cuba as a base to attack the U.S. and spread communism to Latin America.
When John F. Kennedy became
Rising Conflict with Cuba
president, he wanted to help Latin America become Democratic, especially Cuba.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro had attacked American businesses in Cuba and was developing a strong relationship with the Soviets.
In 1961, President Kennedy authorized the CIA to send a surprise force of Cuban exiles into the Bay of Pigs on the southwest coast of Cuba.
Fidel Castro
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Cuban Revolutionary Army predicted the invasion, met them at the beach, and apprehended nearly the entire invading force.
The Bay of Pigs was a massive failure for several reasons including poor planning and execution by the CIA, which oversaw the operation. The CIA underestimated the strength of the Cuban military and the level of popular support for Fidel Castro's government.
Cuban Missile Crisis
Starting in 1961, the Soviet Union was sending increased numbers
of military personnel to Cuba. The following summer, they started arming Cuba with missiles which the Soviets said were to protect Cuba from potential invasion.
In Sept. of 1962, President Kennedy warned Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev not to place missiles in Cuba that could attack U.S. targets.
Khrushchev denied anything being there but American spy planes took photos proving otherwise.
Blockade in Cuba
A month later, Kennedy demanded Khrushchev remove the missiles.
The U.S. threatened to attack the Soviet Union if they fired missiles anywhere in Western Hemisphere and President Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to create a blockade around Cuba and stop Soviet ships from entering.
Ultimately, the Soviets removed the missiles, and the U.S. promised not to invade the island.
The Vietnam War
Domino Theory
President Eisenhower had developed the Domino Theory that if Vietnam fell to communism, all of Southeast Asia would fall like dominoes (China and North Korea already had).
The Geneva Accords
The Geneva Accords had divided North and South Vietnam after WWII into a communist North Vietnam and capitalist South Vietnam.
Communists within South Vietnam called Viet Cong tried to take over the country with help from the North Vietnamese.
The Start of War in Vietnam
How the Ho Chi Minh Trail was used in the Vietnam War
The North Vietnamese under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh began supplying guerilla fighters in South Vietnam to attempt a takeover of the south and assassinate their leader Ngo Dinh Diem.
They used what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia to do so.
America Gets Involved
In the early 1960s, the American government had started sending supplies to support the South Vietnamese in attempt to prevent a communist takeover.
August 2, 1964 – A U.S. destroyer was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin (off Vietnamese coast).
August 7, 1964 – After the Tonkin Incident, the U.S. government passed Tonkin Gulf Resolution which allowed President Lyndon Johnson power to take any measures he believed were necessary to keep peace in southeast Asia.
Operation Rolling Thunder
In March of 1965, the first U.S. combat troops arrived in South Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder. This was a series of air attacks meant to destroy the war industries of North Vietnam but it was largely unsuccessful and America was now fully involved in the war.
Americans were divided over whether the U.S. should be militarily involved in Vietnam.
This unfortunately led to the mistreatment of many service members who obeyed the law and were drafted into service and sent to Vietnam.
Vietnam War protests in 1967
The American Homefront
The Tet Offensive
In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Vietcong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries sustained heavy losses before finally repelling the communist assault.
The Secret War
The Laotian Civil War was taking place throughout the Vietnam War. The CIA lent aid to Hmong guerilla fighters in an effort to combat communism in Laos.
The Secret War
From 1964-1973, the United States conducted a secret bombing campaign over significant portions of Laos which was technically a neutral country.
35,000 Hmong people died and most others were forced out of Laos and Cambodia. Most fled to Thailand and America (mainly California).
Hmong (Laotian) freedom fighters during the Secret War
Vietnamization
When Richard Nixon was elected president, his administration introduced the policy of "Vietnamization", designed to shift the responsibility of the war from the U.S. to the South Vietnamese, allowing the United States to gradually withdraw its troops from Vietnam.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT, were a series of meetings and treaties signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union with the goal of reducing the number of long-range ballistic missiles (strategic arms) that each side could have and build.
U.S. Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter all signed these treaties between 1969 and 1979
End of the Vietnam War
In 1973, President Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords, ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese accepted the ceasefire but as U.S. troops departed Vietnam, North Vietnamese military officials continued plotting to overtake South Vietnam.
In April of 1975, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was seized by communist forces and the government of South Vietnam was forced to surrender. U.S. Marine and Air Force helicopters transported more than 1,000 American civilians and nearly 7,000 South Vietnamese refugees out of Saigon in an 18-hour mass evacuation effort.
Fall of Saigon
Costs of the War
Over 58,000 Americans died
with another 300,000 wounded.
The war cost $168 billion dollars which is equal to $1 trillion today.
Veterans suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as result of what they saw and experienced in war.
Iranian Revolution
Oil production and value had surged on the world stage after WWII and Iran had lots of it. The U.S. and Soviets had high demand for it and great interest in determining the economic and political systems that governed Iran.
Iranian Revolution
The people of Iran wanted to institute an Islamic Republic and in order to do so they needed to overthrow the Imperial Pahlavi Dynasty. The Iranian (Islamic) Revolution ended in the overthrow of Shah Pahlavi and his replacement by Ayatollah Khomeini and a theocratic state.
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Americans generally supported the Shah remaining in Iran. Militarized Iranian college students who supported the Ayatollah and an Islamic State in Iran, took over the American embassy in Tehran and took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days.
8 American service members were killed during and attempt to rescue the hostages and their bodies were put on display for Iranian television cameras.
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Ultimately, all of those held hostage were released in exchange for an end to embargoes and frozen assets against Iran.
Iran-Contra Affair
The American government continued trying to slow the spread of communism in South America.
Contras in Nicaragua
Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the illegal sale of arms to Iran, who was subjected to an arms embargo at the time. The goal was to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a rebel group in Nicaragua and prevent a communist takeover there.
Communism in China
Communism in China
After WWII, Mao Zedong was a military and political leader who led the Communist Party of China to victory against the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War.
He would remain the leader of the People’s Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976.
Communism in China
Many of Mao's programs, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, severely damaged the Chinese culture, society, economy, and foreign relations. These programs ultimately led to the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people.
The Rise of Communism
The People's Republic of China was established in 1949.
The Communist Party assumed control of all media in the country and used it to promote the image of Mao and the Party.
The Chinese people were exhorted to devote themselves to build and strengthen their country.
Chinese Suppression
Mao’s first political campaigns after founding the People’s Republic were land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, which centered on mass executions, often before organized crowds.
Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949–1953.
China and the Soviet Union
Following his consolidation of power, Mao launched the First Five-Year Plan (1953-1958). The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence upon agriculture in order to become a world power. with assistance from Soviet Union.
New industrial plants were built and agricultural production got to the point China no longer needed the USSR's support.
The Great Leap Forward
The success of the First Five Year Plan encouraged Mao to start the Second Five Year Plan he called the Great Leap Forward, in 1958.
Land was taken from landlords and more wealthy peasants and given to poorer peasants.
The Chinese government also started large-scale industrialization projects.
The Great Leap Forward
The main goal of the Great Leap Forward was to modernize China’s agriculture and industry.
The Chinese people were forced to give up all ownership of tools, animals, and even homes to the government as China was reformed into a series of communes.
Families eating in their commune’s dining hall
The Great Leap Forward
Millions starved to death in what became the largest famine in human history.
The Great Leap Forward resulted in somewhere between 30-45 million deaths.
The Great Propaganda
Despite the obvious effects of the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s state-controlled media led to the promotion of more social programs and forced compliance. Propaganda became synonymous with the cover-up for all the ills of the Chinese Communist Party’s policies.
The Great Propaganda
Chinese propaganda depicted the Chinese people happily in unquestioned support of all government programs and China achieving greatness as a result.
Red Guards
The Red Guards were the enforcement wing of the Chinese government joined by youth groups who travelled throughout China to schools, institutions, and universities spreading the teaching of Mao.
Mao’s Little Red Book
These were published by the Government of the People's Republic of China from April 1964 until 1976.
They were a collection of quotations from Mao's past speeches and publications.
Every Chinese citizen was required to own, read, and carry it at all times during Mao's rule.
The Cultural Revolution
Evidence of old culture being burned
In order to maintain his grasp on power in China, Mao launched a Cultural Revolution in 1966. The primary focus of the Cultural Revolution was getting rid of the Four Olds: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas.
The Cultural Revolution
The goal of the Cultural Revolution was to purge the Communist Party of his opponents and instill revolutionary values in the younger generation.
Many religious buildings such as temples, churches, mosques, and cemeteries were looted and destroyed.
The Cultural Revolution
Dissidents were placed on public display for humiliation to instill fear in the people and compel support for the Maoist regime.
Cost of the Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution crippled the Chinese economy and resulted in the deaths of approximately 1.5 million people and the banishment of approximately 20 million others, including China’s current president, Xi Jinping.
Cost of the Cultural Revolution
Education came to a halt across the country. Wealthy, educated individuals were shipped out to perform forced manual labor in the countryside. Skilled professionals were persecuted or executed leaving behind poorly educated people, ill-equipped for the 20th century.
Chinese workers in labor camps of the Cultural Revolution
China After Mao
After Mao’s death, the new Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping led a series of economic and political reforms which started a gradual implementation of a market economy and some political liberalization that relaxed the Maoist communist system.
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square became the center of student uprisings in the late 1980s and brought much of what China had tried to hide for the previous 5 decades to light on the world stage.
Tiananmen Square
Chinese students sought greater reform, freedoms of speech and the press, social equality, and greater input on reforms.
Tiananmen Square
These government sent the Chinese military in to quell the uprising but struggled to use their traditional violent methods because international media was present and the world was watching.
Protesters burn tanks sent to disperse the crowds
Tiananmen Square
Most famously, Tank Man, an unknown Chinese protester stepped out in front of tanks sent to disperse the crowds and demonstrate the strong arm of the Chinese government. Tanks stopped short of running him over though he was eventually pulled away. No one has ever publicly said what happened to him.
Limited Freedoms in China
Today, China publicly claims they exist as a bastion of communism though their market is almost entirely capitalistic. Individual freedoms are still very restricted.
People in China cannot practice their own religion or beliefs and cannot express their opinions openly without fear of harassment, arrest, or retribution. Internet censorship and surveillance are tightly implemented and sites like Gmail, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (X) are blocked from use by the Chinese people.
The End of the Cold War
Perestroika
The Soviet Union was struggling mightily in the 1970s with economic stagnation. Communism was failing and Soviet leaders were desperate to find a solution. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader at the time, proposed perestroika or a “restructuring” of policies and economics.
Perestroika
Though Brezhnev was never able to gain enough support to implement perestroika, his successor Mikhail Gorbachev actively implemented this restructuring but tried to avoid westernizing.
This at first made Gorbachev wildly unpopular because Soviet laws contradicted much of this plan.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
Glasnost
Gorbachev sought to implement another policy he called glasnost, which meant “openness” and would open up the political system to democracy and gave the media more freedom to express themselves.
Strategic Defense
Tensions remained high between the U.S. and Soviet Union with the constant threat of nuclear missile launches. President Ronald Reagan initiated the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI which proposed a weapons defense system based in space. It became known as “Star Wars”.
The Cold War Thaws
An increased willingness by both President Reagan and President Gorbachev to come to diplomatic terms between the two nations allowed the Cold War to come to an end in 1989-90.
The people of East and West Berlin began tearing down the wall on the night of Nov. 9, 1989.
The Cold War Ends
One by one, Soviet Republics declared their
independence. East Germans were finally able to leave their country.
In October of 1990, West and East Germany were officially reunited, and a year later, the Soviet Union was broken up into independent countries.
When Gorbachev stepped down as President of
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