Cold War History - Research Paper Example

Cold War History The term “cold war” was introduced by Winston Churchill during his speech at Fulton (USA), March 5, 1946. That speech (the Iron Curtain speech) was recognized as the symbol of the beginning of the Cold War. The term appeared very soon after World War II when the Allies began to sum up its results. What did they see? First, half of Europe was in the Soviet zone of influence and was ruled by pro-Soviet regimes. Secondly, there was a mighty wave of liberation movements in the colonies against the colonial powers. Third, the world quickly turned into polarized and bipolar. Fourth, two superpowers appeared in the world with military and economic power which gave them a significant advantage over the others. Plus, the interests of Western countries in different parts of the globe began to come up against the interests of the Soviet Union. The new political conditions, formed after World War II, were quickly understood by Churchill, who announced the new realia and called them the Cold War1. The defeat of such powerful monsters as Germany and Japan testified that the balance of power in the world was changed. The Allied forces of the Four Powers - the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France occupied the territory of Germany and Austria in accordance with the decisions of the Potsdam Conference. The political influence of the Soviet Union extended to Poland, part of Germany, occupied by Soviet forces, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania. Though the country was exhausted by war, it badly needed to recover economic and human resources, it still had the most powerful and experienced army of about 11 million soldiers2. On the other hand, the U.S. became the dominant global power after the Second World War, which has enormous economic, air, sea and nuclear power. As a result of the effective strategy the United States increased the gross national product by 1.7 times (excluding inflation) during the war and lost only 300 thousand soldiers. The U.S. dollar became the most stable currency and New York - the largest financial market in the world. The country quickly overcame inflation, raised wages and had the world’s highest productivity. Economic power of the United States, its industrial and financial expansion, contributed to the fact that the United States got the role of global hegemon3. Growing distrust among the former Allies led to the fact that the countries of Western Europe and the U.S. joined forces against the USSR. The Soviet Union, in an effort to protect its borders, created a kind of a buffer of the countries which formed pro-Soviet government after the war. Thus, the world was divided into two camps: capitalist and socialist. Both established the so-called systems of collective security - military blocs. On 4 April 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed and the world saw a new military organization - NATO, which included the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. In May, 1955, the Warsaw Pact was signed as a countermeasure. It included (that year) Albania (later, in 1968, it denounced the pact), Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, USSR, Czechoslovakia. The polarization of the world was over4. The created coalitions, led by their leaders, began to struggle for influence in third world countries. One of the most memorable results of the Cold War is Arms Race Its start was related to atomic weapons. In 1945 the United States was the only nuclear power in the world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki got “informed” about that. That strategic superiority fostered the U.S. military begin to build a variety of plans of pre-emptive strikes on the Soviet Union. But the American monopoly on nuclear weapons remained only four years. In 1949 the USSR tested its first atomic bomb. This event was a real shock to the Western world and an important milestone of the Cold War. So, any global wars, like in Orwell’s 1984, became very dangerous for all and unnecessary for the ruling regimes as undermined their power. Mad competition has affected all areas of the arms industry. America surpassed the Soviets in a number of nuclear weapons. USSR surpassed the U.S. in a number of missiles. USSR launched the first satellite in the world and got the first man into space in 1961. That was a clear superiority Americans could not stand. The result is landing on the moon. The arms race was voluntarily stopped by both parties. A number of treaties that limit the accumulation and use of weapons were signed (Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and under water (1963); Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, nuclear-free zones (1968); Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (1972) and many others)5. The other “front” of the Cold War was Struggle for Influence in Third World Countries Since the achievement of strategic priority (early sixties), the military component of the arms race was gradually pushed into the background and struggle for influence in third world countries came to the fore. If, at first, the fact of confrontation of two powerful systems led to a large-scale decolonization (the period of the liberation of Africa), then, later on, a number of countries negotiated and traded a choice of their political orientation choosing between superpowers6. Construction of the Berlin Wall In 1955 the division of Europe between East and West got its final shape. There was only one unclosed “window” - Berlin. The city was divided in half. East Berlin was the capital of the German Democratic Republic and West Berlin was considered a part of the Federal Republic of Germany. Two opposite social systems coexisted within the same city and everyone could easily get from socialism to capitalism and back again, moving from one street to another. Many East Germans, taking advantage of open borders, moved to the West, that a very troubled East German authorities. In August 1961, Soviet and East German authorities decided to close the border between the two parts of Berlin. The Western countries recognized the division of the city only ten years later, in the four powers agreement (the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France), signed in 1971. Erection of the Berlin Wall was a symbolic completion of the post-war division of Europe7. Cuban Missile Crisis January 1, 1959, Cuba won the revolution, headed by 32-year-old guerrilla leader Fidel Castro. The new government started a struggle against American influence on the island. Needless to say, that the Soviet Union fully supported the Cuban revolution. However, the authorities in Havana seriously feared U.S. military invasion. In May 1962, Nikita Khrushchev put forward the idea of ​​a surprise - to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. After some hesitations Cuba have approved the Soviet proposal and in the summer of 1962. 42 nuclear missiles and bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs were sent to the island. The transfer of missiles was made in great secrecy, but in September, U.S. officials became suspicious. October 14 U.S. spy plane photographed launch pads for rockets. In an atmosphere of strict secrecy, the U.S. government started to discuss the response. The U.S. began a naval blockade of Cuba. The UN Security Council was called. The Soviet Union continued to deny stubbornly the existence of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The situation in the Caribbean Sea was getting more and more tense. Two dozen of Soviet ships were sent to Cuba. American ships were ordered to stop them and shoot if necessary. Khrushchev ordered Soviet ships to stay on the line of the blockade. October 27, the Black Saturday of the Cuban missile crisis, was the day when the world war nearly broke out. That day the Soviet troops in Cuba hit with an anti-aircraft missile a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and killed the pilot. The situation escalated to the limit and the U.S. president made a decision to begin bombing the Soviet missile bases and start a military attack on the island two days later. But on Sunday, October 28, the Soviet leadership decided to remove the missiles from Cuba without consultation with the Cuban leadership even. Fidel Castro has strongly objected to the removal of missiles. Cuban (or Caribbean), the crisis peacefully ended8. The Cold War was in general characterized by frequent appearance of hot spots on the map, where superpowers defended their global interests – Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan wars. The fall of the Iron Curtain, the visible embodiment of which was the Berlin Wall, has not led to the establishment of good-neighborliness among peoples and destabilization of international relations under the collapse or weakening of intra-bloc discipline9. It is clear that the ending of the Cold War has not led to unconditional victory of world peace but to the intense search for the answer to the question: in what world we are to live? Works Cited Painter, David. The Cold War: An International History. London: Routledge, 1999.  Gaddis, John. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.  Read More