The Early Years of the Cold War

“firm containment… at every point where [the Russians] show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.”-George Kennan, 1946

Post WWII

Unscathed by bombs and battles on the home front, US industry and agriculture had grown rapidly

The nation wielded enormous military power -- sole possessor of atomic bomb

Only the Soviet Union represented an obstacle to American hegemony

Why did the defeat of Germany and Japan not bring stability to the world?

Six years of devastating warfare had destroyed prewar gov’ts and geographical boundaries, creating new power relationships that helped to dissolve colonial empires.

Beginning of the Cold War – a protracted global conflict lasting 45 years

What is a “sphere of influence?” Why did Stalin seek to create one for the Soviet Union?

During WWII, as the Soviet army drove the Germans out of Russia and back through Eastern Europe, the SU sponsored provisional gov’s in the occupied countries

Since the SU had been a victim of German aggression in both world wars, Stalin was determined to prevent the rebuilding and rearming of Ger., and he insisted on a security zone of friendly gov’ts in Eastern Europe for further protection.

At Yalta, the US agreed to recognize this “sphere” of Soviet influence

Containment As tensions mounted between the US

and the USSR, the US increasingly perceived Soviet Expansion as a threat to its own interests

Containment: a term for the US foreign policy that required the US to resist Soviet expansion at any and every point on the globe.-became US Cold War policy and involved global military action

George Kennan and the Long Telegram

George F. Kennan was the chief architect of the policy of containment and one of the most influential figures of the Cold War. Trained as a diplomat, Kennan began his career in Moscow in 1933. He served there off and on for the next three decades. In Moscow in 1946, he drafted his famous "Long Telegram," a document that sounded the alarm over Soviet expansionism and became a prescient warning about the coming Cold War.

Kennan describes the Soviet Union…-as an insecure state intent on expansion, subversion, and the export of Communist revolution.-”a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the US there can be no permanent modus vivendi” (way of living)

Influence on Truman Kennan’s telegram found an enthusiastic

audience among Washington policymakers who were eager to define US-Soviet relations.

Its alarmist language helped convince Truman to take a harder line against the Soviet Union and provided an ideological framework for the emerging cold war.

Kennan became one of the most influential advisors in the Truman administration

His telegram became the basis for the containment doctrine

Problems and Limitations of Kennan’s argument

As Kennan himself admitted, his formula for containment was ambiguous and imprecise

He recommended the use of force, but was vague in its application, amount of force, and type of force (i.e., political, economic, military)

No geographical limits / restrictions Allowed for broad interpretation

Greece and Turkey 1st example of Containment is seen in Greece. In the spring of 1946, several thousand communist

guerrillas, who the US believed were controlled by Moscow, launched an attack on the gov’t and British forces

The British informed Pres. Truman they could no longer afford to support the Greek gov’t

American policymakers worried that Soviet influence in Greece threatened American & European interests in the Mediterranean & the Middle East (Turkey, Iran, and oil were at stake)

US response? TRUMAN DOCTRINE… Truman asked Congress for large-scale military and economic assistance for Greece and Turkey.

The Marshall Plan Sec of State George Marshall proposed a plan to

provide economic as well as military aid to Europe.

June 1947, Marshall urged the nations of Europe to construct a comprehensive recovery program and then ask the US for aid

By bolstering European economies devastated by war, Marshall and Truman believed, the US could forestall severe economic dislocation, which might give rise to communism.

American economic self-interest? Stable European economies can purchase American goods / industry

Over four years, the US contributed nearly $13 billion, and western European nations revived

The Berlin Airlift The Marshall Plan was consistent with US and European

efforts to rebuild and unify the West German economy June 1948, the US, France, & Britain agreed to join their

zones of occupation of Berlin, and initiated economic reform

The economic revitalization of Berlin, located deep within the Soviet zone of occupation, alarmed the Soviets, who feared a resurgent Germany aligned with the West.

As a response, they imposed a blockade on all highway, rail, and river traffic to West Berlin.

Truman countered with an airlift: for nearly a year, American and British pilots flew in 2.5 million tons of food and fuel

May 12, 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, which had made West Berlin a symbol of resistance to communism.

NATO

The crisis in Berlin and growing Soviet influence throughout Eastern Europe convinced US policymakers of a need for a collective security pact.

April, 1949, for the 1st time since the end of American Revolution, the US entered into a peacetime military alliance.

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization, comprised twelve nations – the US, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and Iceland – agreed that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” (West Germany joined in 1955)

Soviet Response… Warsaw Pact

October, 1949 – the Soviet Union, threatened by NATO, tightened its grip on Eastern Europe by creating a separate gov’t in East Germany, organized an economic association to coordinate Eastern European economics (COMECON), and a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

NSC-68

Sept 1949 – Soviets test nuclear weapons 1950 – the NSC provided Truman with

recommendations on maintaining US security Filled with alarmist rhetoric and exaggerated

assessments of Soviet capabilities, it suggested,-development of hydrogen bomb-increases in US conventional forces-establishment of a strong system of alliances-increased taxes to fund military