The Birth of the Cold War

Cold War

• Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, and the atomic bomb, created a global order dominated by confrontation between USA and USSR.

• Most European countries aligned with either NATO or Warsaw Pact.

• This confrontation characterized virtually every international event between 1945 and 1990.

Post-Potsdam Euro Order

• Post Potsdam global order recognized– Spheres of influence– Struggle to maintain

sphere of influence– Struggle to contain

opponent's influence– Allegiance to one bloc or

the other; few countries remained neutral, even if they stayed out of NATO or Warsaw Pact

Immediate Results of Conferences

• Division of Germany/Berlin to subdue Germany,

• Tacit allowance of Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe

• Understanding that appeasement had failed to serve Western objectives:

1. Appeasement of Hitler had not prevented WW2

2. Appeasement of Stalin had divided Europe

3. Future conflicts would strive for containment rather than appeasement

First Cold War Crisis: Greece

• 1942-1949, clash between “communists” and nationalists

• ’42-’44: ideological conflict within anti-Nazi resistance

• ’44: Communists emerged in control of most of Greece; conservatives gov’t in exile returned from Cairo

• ’46-’49 USSR-supported Communists defeated by US-supported nationalists

• Greece remains polarized between leftist and conservative politics

Containment and Aid: Marshall Plan

• Aid and cooperation: recognized interconnections between modern economies

• 1947: Marshall Plan began; lasted 4 years; passed Congress after USSR seized power in Czechoslovakia

• $13 Billion in aid; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) created

• Offered to USSR and eastern bloc, but refused

• USSR created COMECON to encourage two-way trade between Eastern Bloc countries

• After plan, all Western participating economies produced above pre-war levels

• Laid basis for EU, as it erased many tariff barriers

Containment: Berlin Airlift

• 1948: US, UK, France agreed to create unified West Germany

• Stalin responded by closing ground access to West Berlin

• US/UK transport planes supplied Berlin: 270,000 flights

• B29 planes stationed in UK: atomic threat?

• USSR relented, but formally created the DDR (East Germany)

Containment: NATO

• Western European nations, USA, Canada agree to defensive pact

• 4 April 1949: Brussels headquarters

• ANZUS linked Australia, NZ to US

• 1952: Greece, Turkey joined• 1954: USSR suggested it

should join; rejected• 1955: West Germany joined;

east responded with formation of Warsaw Pact

Increase in Eastern Power• 22 September 1949: USSR

detonated atomic bomb– atomic race for superiority

began – American monopoly on atomic

power broken – Western security in superior

strength was broken

• 1949: Mao Tse-tung victorious in China

– USSR-People's Republic of China bloc feared

– Geographical proximity of revolutionary communism to "hot spots" of de-colonizing Asia

Conclusions• With mutual fear, containment in

third countries became the objective.

• With atomic capabilities, each international crisis became a potential for mass destruction.

• Isolationism no longer an option for US or USSR.

• Military expenditures became priority during "peace“ time.

• Vulnerability of man to total war extended into "peace“ time.

• Colonialism replaced by competition -- military,economic, and propagandistic -- between USSR and USA.