THE COLD WAR

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the
Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which
began following World War II.

The Cold War never escalated to the point of direct confrontation between the US and
the USSR. In fact, aside from the nuclear arms race
Thus, the struggle for world dominance was primarily waged through propaganda
campaigns, espionage, proxy wars, athletic rivalry at the Olympics, and the Space Race

The Cold War ended in 1991, after the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Origin of Cold war

Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II,
the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one
hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel.

The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern
Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the
democracies of western Europe.

The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe
in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were
intent on spreading communism worldwide

Why was it called the cold war ?

It was called the Cold War for the following reasons:

First of all, neither the Soviet Union nor the United States officially declared war on the
other. In fact, there was never any direct large-scale fighting between the two
superpowers

The war was only waged through indirect conflict. The US and USSR supported
regional conflicts in their own interests, known as proxy wars
It describes the ‘chilly’ relationship between the two Second World War allies

Causes of the Cold war

● Early tensions

The wartime alliance between the US and USSR was one of circumstances and not
ideology.
When Hitler broke the non-aggression pact he had signed with Soviet Union, making
important territorial gains, it forced the Soviet Union to join allied powers

Thus, at the end of the Second World War, the uneasy wartime alliance had begun to
unravel and had begun to take a different course all together
Ideological differences

● The emergence of communism

The Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 replaced Russia’s Tsar with a “dictatorship of
the proletariat”, and established a communist state.

The Bolsheviks then decided to withdraw Russia from World War One as civil war
engulfed the country, leaving Britain and France to fight the Axis powers alone.

The White Army, tsarist supporters who fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil
War, were then supported by the Western powers

● Capitalism and communism: ideological opposites

The political and economic systems of the capitalist USA and communist USSR were
ideologically incompatible.

Both sides wanted to affirm their model and force countries around the world to conform
to their ideologies

● Disagreements over Germany

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the US, USSR, and Britain agreed to divide
Germany into four zones. Each zone was administered by one of the Allied powers,
including France.
The Western powers envisioned a booming capitalist Germany that contributed to world
trade
While, Stalin, on the other hand, wanted to create a Socialist state in Germany,

As a result, The French, US, and British sectors remained free to trade and
reconstruction was started, whilst Stalin forbade the Russian zone from trading with
other zones.On June 24, 1948, Soviet forces blockaded Berlin, cutting off all road and
rail access from the West.The three Allied zones merged and became the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) or West Germany while the former Soviet occupation zone
became the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or East Germany.

● Alliances
The western alliance was formalised into an organisation, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO), which came into existence in April 1949.

It was an association of twelve states which declared that armed attack on any one of
them in Europe or North America would be regarded as an attack on all of them.
Each of these states would be obliged to help the other.

While, the eastern alliance, known as the Warsaw Pact, was led by the Soviet Union.
It was created in 1955 and its principal function was to counter NATO’s forces in
Europe.
Members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Members of Warsaw Pact – led by the Soviet
(NATO) – led by the USA Union

Canada Poland
Denmark Czechoslovakia
Norway Hungary
Romania
Portugal
Bulgaria
Iceland German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
Britain
France
Belgium
Luxembourg
Holland
Greece
Turkey
Spain
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)
Iron Curtain is the political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union
after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies
from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas.
On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or
influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were
allies of the US, UK or nominally neutral.

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): The NAM is an international forum of 120

developing countries that believe in the idea of non-alignment with the major power
blocs. It was established in 1961 in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia under the leadership of
the then Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, President of Egypt Gamal
Abdel Nasser and the President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito.

In the aftermath of the Second World War and the decolonisation process, many
countries in the developing world in Asia and Africa felt the need for a strong movement
towards securing peace and prosperity and establishing security for all countries.
This was when the world was divided into two power blocs, that of the USA and the
Soviet Union, especially after the signing of the NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Most of these countries felt the need for mutual cooperation and coordination with
respect to not formally aligned with or against any of the power blocs.
The collapse of colonialism and the cold war led to the need for improved coordination
among the Global South.
It is interesting to note that the term ‘third world’ arose during the cold war era to denote
countries that were not aligned to either of the two power blocs.
Space race

The “space race” was a Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet
Union to develop aerospace capabilities, including artificial satellites, unmanned space
probes, and human spaceflight.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958 as the
federal agency with primary responsibility for the development of civilian aerospace
research.
Early Soviet successes in the space race had a major impact on US society and culture,
altering strategic defense doctrines and leading to new educational initiatives.

When the Soviets launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in October 1957,
it set off alarm bells in the Eisenhower administration and created intense fear and
anxiety among the US public that the Soviet Union had surpassed the technological
achievements of the United States.

In response to perceptions of Soviet technological success, the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration (NASA) was established on October 1, 1958 as the primary
federal agency responsible for aerospace research and the civilian space program.
Nuclear arms race
The Americans believed that the Soviets had caught up technologically, which led to a
nuclear arms race.
The two superpowers tried amassing nuclear weapons, both sides fearing they might
fall behind in research and production.
Over 55,000 nuclear warheads were produced during the Cold War, with the US
spending an estimated $5.8 trillion on nuclear weapons, laboratories, reactors,
bombers, submarines, missiles, and silos
Nuclear warfare eventually became a deterrent rather than a weapon.

Wars around the world

There was never any direct large-scale fighting between the US and USSR. The two
superpowers waged war only by supporting different regional conflicts, known as proxy
wars.

Korean War
In 1950, Korea was divided into two zones: the communist north, and the capitalist
democratic south. In a bid to contain the spread of communism to South Korea, the US
sent troops to the country. The Chinese responded by sending their own troops to the
border.
This war however ended in a stalemate, while till present both North & South Korea are
still at war

The Cuban Missiles Crisis

Cuba got involved in the Cold War when the US broke off its diplomatic relations with
Cuba in 1961, and the Soviet Union increased their economic aid to Cuba.
In 1961, the USA planned the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, intending to overthrow the
head of Cuban state (Fidel Castro), who was backed by the Soviet Union . However, the
operation failed.
Fidel Castro then appealed to the Soviet Union for military help, to which the Soviet
Union decided to set up a nuclear missile launcher in Cuba aimed at the USA.
Cuban Missile Crisis, brought two superpowers on the brink of a nuclear war. However,
the crisis was averted diplomatically..

Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was an extremely long and costly conflict that pitted North Vietnam
against South Vietnam and the United States in the 1960s.
The Soviet Union sent money and supplied weapons to the communist forces. By 1975,
the US was forced to withdraw, and the North seized control of the South.

Afghanistan War
In the 1980s, just as the United States had done in Vietnam, the Soviet Union
intervened in Afghanistan
In response, the US supported the Mujahideen (Afghani guerrillas) against the USSR,
by sending them money and weapons
The USSR was unsuccessful in its efforts to turn the country into a communist state
during the Afghan War, and the Taliban, a US-funded Islamic extremist group,
eventually claimed power in the region.

How did the Cold War end?

End of the Cold War

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed due to multiple factors which marked the end of the
Cold War, as one of the superpowers was weakened.

Factors behind the fall of USSR :

➔ Break of Unity in Eastern Bloc

Unity in the Eastern bloc started to falter during the 1960s and 1970s when the alliance
between China and the Soviet Union fell apart.

In the meantime, some Western countries as well as Japan became more economically
independent of the US

This led to more complex relationships internationally, which meant that smaller nations
were more resistant to efforts to vie for their support.
 Mikhail Gorbachev

➔ Gorbachev: perestroika and glasnost

The Cold War began to break down properly in the late 1980s, during Mikhail
Gorbachev’s administration
He introduced reforms to distract people from the Economic problems in the Eastern
Bloc where goods were in short supply.

To stop citizens from revolting, economic reforms known as perestroika, or

‘restructuring’, were passed and the restrictions on freedom of expression were relaxed
in a policy called glasnost, or ‘openness.’

But, these reforms came in too late.

As Communist regimes in Eastern Europe were collapsing as democratic governments
rose to replace them in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia

➔ Military reasons
The space race and the arms race drained a considerable proportion of Soviet Union's
resources for military needs.The Soviet-Afghan (1979–89) was another key factor in the
breakup of the Soviet Union, as it drained the economic and military resources of the
Soviet Union.