Cold War Containment

1. Cold War Containment History 17B Lecture 14

2. Cold War • Trillions of dollars and millions of lives. • What caused it? Why was the U.S. response containment?

3. A “Monstrous” Regime • Americans denounce 1917 Soviet government. • Leaders are maniacs who deny freedom and property and promote class warfare. • A “complete repudiation of modern civilization.” • U.S. seeks to overthrow Bolshevik regime after WWI • Red Scare of 1920s • FDR recognizes USSR in 1933.

4. World War II Allies • Mistrust on both sides • Stalin calls for a “second front” in Europe. • U.S. fears Stalin will negotiate a separate peace. • Yalta Conference • FDR’s efforts to hold free elections in Eastern Europe • Stalin, desirous of “friendly governments,” makes a vague promise.

5. United Nations • FDR’s effort to integrate U.S. and U.S.S.R. into international community. • General Assembly and Security Council • FOUR POLICEMEN • United States • Great Britain • Soviet Union • China

6. FDR’s Death

8. Post-War Europe

9. Definition • The Cold War was a contest between ideological and economic systems. • Cold war is a heightened state of tension between nuclear powers.

10. Josef Stalin • Sought Soviet security through creation of buffer states in Eastern Europe. • Mistrustful of West” • Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech. • Harry Truman’s anticommunist views.

11. President Harry Truman • Distrustful of Stalin and unwilling to compromise like FDR was. • Didn’t believe USSR wanted “security” – he believed it wanted “world conquest.” • Political pressure to take a “hard-line.”

12. National Security Interests • Definition: Interests that the U.S. defined as politically, economically, and militarily vital to American safety. • America sought to redesign the world in its own “liberal-capitalist” image (democracy and free markets). • Soviet efforts against this goal perceived as threats to U.S. national security.

13. Economic Interests • Promote international capitalism. • U.S. industrial production rose 90% during WWII. • America wanted to be able to sell its goods abroad to prevent another depression.

14. Ideological Interests Fear of the “disease” of communism to democracy.

15. Military Security • No more “Pearl Harbors” • U.S. sought military bases around the world. • Why target the USSR as the aggressor? • Wartime alliance made Americans forget Russian totalitarianism. • After war, looked no different from Nazi Germany.

16. Paradox of American Power • America had the bomb but Stalin had million of troops in Eastern Europe. • America was the riches and strongest nation in the world, but it was weak in imposing its will on the world.

17. George Kennan and Containment • USSR believed peaceful coexistence impossible. • Stalin needed foreign threats to maintain tyrannical rule. • U.S. should be patient and “contain” Soviet expansion

18. Truman’s Response • Truman Doctrine (1947) • Military assistance to Greece and Turkey • Open-ended commitment to aid the “free world.” • Marshall Plan (1948) • Fear that the “disease” of communism would spread in a weak Europe. • $17 billion to jumpstart European economies.

19. Stalin’s Strategic Blunders • Stalin tightens grip on Eastern Europe • Coup in Czechoslovakia • Blockade of West Berlin • Stalin seeks to drive the West out by cutting supplies to Western sector. • Truman responds with massive airlift for 11 months. • Wins the hearts of Germans.

20. “Three Shocks”

21. Korean War (1950-1953)

22. Containment and the Third World • U.S. goal was to keep Soviet and Chinese communism out of the Third World • Third World: Latin America, Africa, Asia, Middle East • Political instability, pre-industrial economy, mass poverty. • Criticism of U.S. domination of their economies. • Calls for “nationalization of industries.”

23. U.S. Interests • Third World must have free-market economies and to be anti-communist. • John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State under Eisenhower) • No neutrality allowed. • Nationalization of industries seen as “communist inspired.”

24. Iran (1953) • America looking for enemies (even if they’re not there!) • Iran takes control of its own oil fields from British and American companies. • Eisenhower has CIA overthrow government and install the Shah.

25. Guatemala (June 1954) • Guatemala elected government nationalizes some land owned by United Fruit Company • CIA overthrows government and installs a brutal dictator. • U.S. could not see distinction between “communism” and “nationalism.”

26. Cuban Revolution (1959) • Fidel Castro overthrows brutal Batista regime. • U.S. isolates socialist leaning government and drives it into the arms of the USSR. • JFK reluctantly supports Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) • No popular uprising against popular Castro regime.

27. Anti-Castro Policy • Tremendous political pressure to overthrow Castro. • Failure of Bay of Pigs invasion leads to: • Trade Embargo • Assassination attempts on Castro • Forced Cuba closer into Soviet camp.

28. 13 Days in October • Reconnaissance planes in October 1962 discover installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba. • Range of 2,200 miles could reach U.S. targets easily.

30. Why Missiles to Cuba? • Nikita Khrushchev believed they would serve as a deterrent to an American invasion of the islands. • Redress the military balance on the cheap. • U.S. military technology superior to USSR. • U.S. also had short-range nuclear missiles in Turkey along Soviet border.

31. Kennedy’s Response • Demands the missiles be removed. • Places an embargo on offensive military equipment intended for Cuba (an act of war). • Warns the public to prepare for nuclear war.

32. Eyeball to Eyeball • Khrushchev sends two cables. • First one demands U.S. promise not to invade Cuba. • Second one demands U.S. removal of missiles from Turkey. • JFK agrees to first and ignores second (but secretly agrees to remove missiles in Turkey at a later date). • USSR “blinks” and removes missiles from Cuba.

33. Aftermath • Thaw in Relations • “Hot Line” established • Partial Test Ban Treaty • No more atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. • Convinced Russians they could never again be in a weakened nuclear position. • Begin a crash building program in nuclear missiles.

34. Who is to blame? • Both sides made choices and took actions that exacerbated the already tense relationship between the two. • Mistrust on both sides led to misperception that the other was hostile.