the cold war, 1945-1990

The Cold War, 1945-1990

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“Perhaps the defeat of this little so-calledchampion will be an example of how pathetically weak your society has become.”

Rambo and the escalating Cold War

World politics

• Multipolar system• Bipolar system (1945-1991)• Unipolar system (1991-?)

• Creation of a vast system of alliances organized around clear ideologies

• “‘Forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history. Freedom is pitted against slavery, lightness against dark.”

Characteristics of the bipolar system

• Dominant/hegemonic role of the two superpowers

• Two rival military/political alliances

• Germany, a key player in European politics, was divided into two states

• Structure of world politics underpinned by threat of nuclear war

• Question: did this system provide a fundamental stability to world politics?

• Blaming the USSR

• The Soviets were always the aggressor.

• The USSR was always hostile to the west.

• Soviet leadership had a grand plan to capture the entire world for Communism.

• International Communism was a monolithic organization that was controlled by the Soviet Union.

• Communism represented the enslavement of peoples and was never accepted willingly. It had to be dictated by force.

• Blaming the US

• Through an enormous sacrifice of lives and material, the USSR won the war against Hitler. The West never showed an appropriate level of gratitude.

• The United States was ideologically committed to the annihilation of Communism and would do anything to achieve this.

• Capitalist nations were essentially imperialistic. They attempted to colonize the world in order to secure new markets for their goods. The attempt to expand American power brought the US into conflict with the USSR.

Containment

…the main element of any United States policy toward

the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm

and vigilant containment of Russian expansive

tendencies... Soviet pressure against the free

institutions of the Western world is something that can

be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of

counterforce at a series of constantly shifting

geographical and political points, corresponding to the

shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but which

cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.”: (Keenan)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

NATO (1949), Rio Pact (1947), ANZUS (1951),

SEATO (1955)

Alliance Systems

• The United States had more than 1,000,000 soldiers in 30 countries, was a member of four regional defence alliances and an active participant in a fifth, had mutual defence treaties with 42 nations, was a member of 53 international organizations, and was furnishing military or economic aid to nearly 100 nations across the face of the globe.

“[the] formation of a new

military grouping in the shape of the "Western European Union" together with a

remilitarised Western Germany, and for the integration of

Western Germany in the North Atlantic bloc, …increases the threat of another war and creates

a menace to the national security of the

peaceloving states.”

Defense Expenditure, 1948-1970

Mutually Assured destruction

How stable was the bipolar system?

• “…a relatively stabilized international system … symbolized by the installation of the telephone hot line which now came to link the White House with the Kremlin.”

• “balance of terror system that seemed to guarantee stability and peace.”

• Proxy wars