The Constraint of Global Peace and Security by Military Policies during the Cold War - Assignment Example

The Constraint of Global Peace and Security by Military Policies during the Cold War The Cold War was the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. It began almost immediately after the World War II. Being one of the superpowers, the Soviet Union during that period was a real competitor to the United States in terms of the international influence. Instead of partnership, between the victorious countries was a constant distrust. The latter soon turned into the indirect war that was called “cold war”. In our opinion, the essence of the study of this topic is in analysis of possible outcomes of this conflict that could be fatal for every modern man. No country is immune from such situation in the future that can lead to a new round of confrontation and arm race, which in turn can cause an irreparable harm to society and to the world at large. It is a common knowledge that war, nuclear weapon, and its tests are destructive in the international conflict solution. However, no matter what, the idea of superiority and supremacy instinctively makes people fighting and trying to win. During the Cold War, our world faced with such situation, when two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union put at stake the further existing of the whole humanity. In the current paper, basing on the facts from the analyzed literature, we will try to present objectively the course of war, understand the reasons that shaped the situation, and draw the appropriate conclusions. In this respect, the main question of the current paper is how the parties of the conflict finally managed to restrain the military tension during the Cold War. After the fall of the Third Reich there was no power in Europe that was able to oppose the Soviet Union. Therefore, in many Western European countries increased the influence of the left parties (the Labor Party won the elections in the Great Britain in 1945) and the positions of the Communists strengthened. The USSR and the USA were the most powerful and influential countries economically, as well as in terms of military power. These countries were divided by the ideological contradiction, specifically communism against capitalism. The latter led to the obvious hostility in the international relations. The internal situation in these countries was characterized by the active impersonating and search of the enemy. The dissidence was also recognized as a form of subversive activity. Such atmosphere was quite a common situation, since it was a characterizing feature of the totalitarian regime. In the United States such internal tension gave birth to McCarthyism, the persecution of the citizens, who were suspected in anti-American activities (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob and Von Laue, 2012). The phrase “cold war”, introduced by the popular American journalist, was soon taken up by the press. This term is still used to refer to the period from the end of WWII up to the end of the late 80ies. The Cold War began with the speech made by the former British Prime-Minister Winston Churchill on March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, in the presence of the US President Harry Truman. In a rather aggressive form Churchill said that “the iron curtain”, built by the Soviet Union, separated the Eastern Europe from the European Civilization, and facing the communist threat the Anglo Saxon world should unite (Perry, Chase, Jacob, Jacob and Von Laue, 2012). The conflict of interests of the warring powers manifested itself when implementing the resolutions of the postwar structure, especially concerning the Polish and the German questions. There was no unity between the recent allies on the internal policy of the Eastern European countries. The United States demanded the democratization of the electoral law, common control of the election, and the inclusion of different political forces in the governments of the Eastern European countries. The future of postwar Germany was discussed at Yalta and Potsdam conferences. As the result, Germany was divided into four occupation zones: Soviet, American, French, and English. In all these areas the policy of democratization, demilitarization, and denazification (the extermination of the remnants of the Nazis) was held. In the Soviet part of Germany the policy held was aimed to strengthen the positions of the left powers. Berlin received a special status and was divided into four sectors, headed by the commandants, subordinated to commanders of the occupant troops. However, the peaceful reconciliation of the German problem from the very beginning faced with a number of difficulties that aggravated the misunderstandings between the Soviet Union and other members of occupation. In 1949, both sides took a number of steps to the final division of Germany into two separate states. In May, 1949, the West German Landtag adopted a constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. October 7, 1949, the German Democratic Republic was created. The official Kremlin considered three main problems to communism after the World War II: the hostility of the western European countries to communism; the resistance of the majority of the population in the Eastern and Central European countries to the imposed communist transformations; and the disappointment of the Soviet people by the higher level of life in the West (most of them believed that they have build the best and just society). Joseph Stalin was aware of the fact that restoring broken and weakened by the war country and its security will require new heavy casualties from the Soviet people. The war against the Nazis showed the strong national and patriotic feelings along with the emerging discontent with Stalin’s rule. In this respect, the main arguments in favor of continuing the hard communist order after the war and strengthening Stalin’s power in the USSR and Eastern European countries was the exposure of the “hostile capitalist West”. The latter was drawn in the blackest colors. It was extremely necessary for Washington to understand the intentions of the Soviet leadership. It was obvious that the Russian were greatly concerned about their safety, because Stalin held long the USSR in isolation from the rest of the world and built the military and industrial capacity at the expense of living standards (Spielvogel, 2011). During this time, the United States were actively developing nuclear weapons. The first successful testing of the nuclear charge was held on July 16, 1945. Already on August 6 and 9, 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. The atomic bomb introduced in the USA gave them an unquestionable world threatening superiority. The United States refused to share the secrets of nuclear weapon, keeping them as the main threat. In this respect, the Soviet Union began seeking the routes to break the US monopoly. Already in the prewar period, several soviet physicists had discovered the basic processes of obtaining a controlled chain reaction of atomic nucleus disintegration. Thus, the polarization of the world moved to a new stage of its development and was accompanied by the arm race. In June, 1946, the Americans offered the Baruch Plan. According to this plan, the UN international commission on nuclear energy was aimed to control all stages of nuclear weapon production. The United States, in their turn, wanted to keep their bombs until all stages of supervision and control were finalized. In other words, the Soviet Union had to share their nuclear developments, and Americans would continue to possess a monopoly on nuclear weapon. The Soviet Union has put forward its proposal to ban the production of nuclear weapons and to destroy the existing ones. The USSR also vetoed the US Baruch Plan. Since there was a mutual distrust between the USSR and the USA, no plan worked (Spielvogel, 2011). The establishment of communist governments in Eastern Europe during the late 40ies was seen in the United States as a communist expansion. From here originated the foreign policy U.S. doctrines to hold back and discard communism. The Soviet leadership saw these doctrines as a new proof of the hostility of the West and its purpose to undermine the authority of the USSR. March 12, 1947, the Truman Doctrine was proclaimed. According to this doctrine the United States rendered military assistance to those countries over which the communist threat overhung. Among the latter were Turkey and the Mediterranean countries. After the Berlin crisis, there began to form an anti-Soviet alliance. April 2, 1948, the U.S. Congress approved the Marshall Plan that covered 17 countries (including France, the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and later Germany). This Plan was aimed at accelerating the economic revival of the free Europe, preventing the further spread of communism, and strengthening of the foundations of capitalism. According to this plan, in addition to financial assistance, the plan provided the exchange of knowledge and innovations, the use of German technical and scientific information, and its engineers and scientists instead of paying reparations. Despite this, Western Europe continued to suffer sharp shortage of food and it had no means to pay for the U.S. supplies. On the other hand, without this aid there could begin the social uprisings and depression. Such disposition of events was fraught with the popularization of communism, especially regarding Germany, Italy, and France (Spielvogel, 2011). In this respect, being afraid of the communist influences, Americans had to act to their detriment. Naturally, the Soviet Union could not allow the possibility of the spread of this economic plan in the sphere its influence (Eastern Europe). Considering the strict soviet policy according Germany and Eastern Europe, the economic union born within the plan soon began to transform into political and military union. April 4, 1949, the USA and Canada, together with 10 Western European countries (France, United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Portugal, and Norway) signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to defend from the threat of communist aggression that was looming over the countries of the Western Europe (Roberts, 1999). In the same year, the TASS news agency reported that the USSR had nuclear weapons. The first soviet atomic bomb was tested September 26, 1949, and August 20, 1953, the thermonuclear bomb was tried (in the USA it was tested a year later). The latter meant that the United States no longer had a monopoly on the nuclear weapon. In the USA there appeared strategic bombers and in the USSR acquired intercontinental missiles; both countries have improved the means of antiaircraft defense and antimissile systems. The arm race accelerated. 1950ies were the decade of the Cold War, when the world was actually in the shadow of the nuclear weapons of two superpowers. The nuclear testing caused the irreparable damage to the environment and caused cancer in people. However, at that time only few knew about such influences of nuclear radiation. Both countries tested the intercontinental ballistic missiles; although, in this regard the Soviet Union was a little behind. In the mid 1950ies began a new era in relations between the USSR and the United States as well as in the world history. The essence of this era was concentrated in three words: mutual assured destruction. Predominant in the Soviet-American relations was the fact that exchange of nuclear attacks would merely destroy both warring parties (D’Anieri, 2009). In this respect, the huge arsenal of nuclear weapons made impossible the direct war. However, the crucial events to understand the essence of the constraining of peace during the Cold War took place at the end of 1950-ies. In 1960 John F. Kennedy became a president of the United States. He increased the military spending, and broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a socialistic revolution took place in 1959 and the Communist party was legalized. In June, 1962, in Moscow a secret agreement was signed, according to which Soviet nuclear weapons were deployed in Cuba. The official Kremlin decided to give political, economical, and military support to the small country. There began the preparations for a large operation Anadyr on placement of the large group of armies in the ultimate vicinity of the United States. The first troops arrived in Cuba in August and then the transfer of nuclear warheads started. The crisis reached its culmination in October, when the U.S. reconnaissance plane discovered the launch pads for launching the midrange ballistic missiles. The official Washington responded with the blockage of Cuba and preparing a military invasion. October 27, 1962, could end with a nuclear catastrophe, because John Kennedy delivered an order to bomb the soviet rocket launchers, Cuban military bases, and then seize the island (Garthoff, 1992). Facing the threat of nuclear war became a crucial point. The Soviet Union removed its missiles from Cuba, and Washington in turn promised to stop the attempts to invade the island, to keep its allies from this, and to remove American missiles targeting the Soviet territories from Turkey. Fidel Castro, Cuban leader, was strongly opposed to the fact that the Soviet Union was removing its missiles from Cuba. Very difficult negotiations were held by the soviet party member Anastas Mikoyan. As the result, November 20, 1962, Kennedy announced the end of the blockade of Cuba, and the Caribbean Crisis was resolved (Garthoff, 1992). In this respect, it is worth considering the idea and the reasons of the arms reduction. An uncontrollable arm race caused a growing concern among the leaders of the opposing regimes. It was stipulated by four circumstances. Firstly, in some regions the “dead-end balance” formed, when the further expansion of certain weapons, primarily related to the weapons of mass destruction did not give any significant benefits either to the one party or to the other. It only distracted the resources from development of more important and promising systems. Secondly, there were defined the possible areas of the arm race that were not considerably invested yet, but played a crucial role in shaping the strategic balance. Thirdly, it was very important to maintain the monopoly of the leading countries in the nuclear field to prevent the spread of the weapons of mass destruction. And fourthly, the two opposing blocs were interested in maintaining the situation of mutual nuclear restraint (Larsen, 2012). These factors pushed the leaders of the USSR, the USA, and in some cases other nuclear-weapon states to find means and methods of the limited control over the arms race. Their efforts were aimed to block on the mutual basis certain areas of the arms race that were not of the crucial importance, but rather expensive. The latter would allow focusing on more promising areas of military technical progress. It was also important to prevent the development of such systems that could undermine the situation of mutual nuclear deterrence and increased the risk of spontaneous undesirable escalation of the nuclear threat. Such efforts were called the “arms control” (Larsen, 2012), the crucial notion in the investigation of the current question. Of the particular desire was the desire to limit those weapon systems that gave the advantage to the partner and to prevent the restrictions on the weapon systems where the state had own superiority. It significantly dragged out the negotiations of the parties. At the same time, the fact of the negotiations and agreements led to the emergence of trust of a certain degree between the leadership of the opposing states, experience in solution of extremely sensitive issues related to security (Larsen, 2012). Despite these factors, there was a certain influence of public opinion. People were convinced that the arms race would sooner or later lead to the military clash. Especially strong public pressure in question of prohibition of nuclear weapon tests was in the second half of 1950-ies and in the first half of 1960-ies. The following outbursts of the public resentment were caused by the active development of new medium-range missiles by both parties of the conflict. The political leaders could not ignore public attitudes, and even tried to take an advantage in the field of arms control to establish its credibility. However, they treated their own interests of the military superiority as a sincere desire to keep the peace and stop the arms race. As the result, there appeared a series of myth and propaganda campaigns among population. Their goal was to convince the public in the sincerity of own intentions and in devilry of the partner (Westad, 2004). Thus, the implementation of arms reduction was only possible in case of the mutual interest of the parties of the conflict. The first major agreement on arms control was Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed in Moscow, 1963, between the USSR, the USA, and the Great Britain, banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space. On the one hand this agreement was the result of a very significant pressure of public opinion. It was alarmed by serious environmental and health effects of nuclear testing that released large quantities of radioactive substances into the atmosphere. To the great extent, this agreement was the result of a very significant pressure of public opinion. It was alarmed by serious environmental and health effects of nuclear testing that released large quantities of radioactive substances into the atmosphere (Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, 1963). The search for a compromise and “arms control” between two superpowers was expressed in the signing of mutual agreements. Thus, in January, 1967, there was adopted the Outer Space Treaty; in April, 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed; and in 1973 they signed the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War. Of the particular importance was the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed in 1972. According to this treaty the deployment of the missile defense systems capable to defend the territories of the countries was prohibited. Each of the parties was allowed to have no more than two missile defense systems that can protect from missile attack the limited areas of the national territory around the capital of the country and the districts of the strategic systems deployment. The treaty did not also allow the development, testing, and deployment of missile defense systems of air, sea, space, and mobile basing. Thus, the development of the missile defense systems in the future was strictly limited. However, the ABM Treaty did not prohibit the research work in the area of the development of new missile defense systems (Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems). The ABM Treaty remains important up to these days, because it substantially limits a hopeless direction of the arms race. This agreement is crucial means of stabilizing mutual nuclear deterrence. International environment began to acquire the features of confrontation. Ronald Reagan, who was a president that time, was the supporter of the hard measures against the Soviet Union and called it “evil empire”. The United States began to develop Strategic Defense Initiative to establish a nuclear shield in space (“star wars”). At the same time the NATO Council decided to place a number of medium-range nuclear missiles. In response to this, the Soviet Union placed their missiles in Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany. In order to prevent the further escalation of the tension, the Kremlin has offered to make several concessions and reduce the presence of their nuclear weapons in Europe and settle the Afghan issue. The Soviet leadership was aware of the fact that American missile that were deployed in Western Europe could hit the target in several minutes and the Soviet ABM systems would be powerless against them. After very difficult negotiations, it was decided to destroy all medium-range missiles. The treaty on this was signed in 1987 in Washington. It obliged the parties of the conflict to destroy all ballistic and land-based missile systems (Treaty Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, 1987). In fact, this agreement signified the transition to a new paradigm of arms control. For the first time in history, instead of cutting off a unpromising areas of the arms race to free hands for the development of the breakthrough areas, it was agree to destroy a whole class of the highly weapons. It resulted into the improvement of the strategic situation in Europe and Far East, and, thus, in the world. With the end of the Cold War ended the great threat to all humanity. For the first time in the history of the twentieth century the powerful nations were no longer preparing for the war. There was a reassessment of the relations, the atmosphere of mutual trust, and the partial destruction of the military supplies. However, there still remain the hot spots on the planet that threaten the regional and international stability and peace. As a century ago, the world turned out to be on a transitional stage of development. References D’Anieri, P.J., 2009. International politics: power and purpose in global affairs. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Garthoff, R. L., 1992. The Cuban Missile Crisis: An Overview. In: J. A. Nathan, ed. 1992. The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 41-55. Larsen, J., 2012. Strategic arms control since World War II. In: R. Williams, and P. Viotti, ed. 2012. Arms control: history, theory, and policy. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Perry, M., Chase, M., Jacob, J., Jacob, M. and Von Laue, T. H., 2012. Western civilization: ideas, politics, and society. Volume II: from 1600. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Roberts, J. K., 1999. The Soviet Union in the world politics: coexisting, revolution, and Cold War, 1945-1991. Routledge. Speilvogel, J.J., 2011. Western civilization: since 1500. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, 1963. Available at: < http://www.state.gov/t/isn/4797.htm >. [Assessed 5 November 2012]. Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, 2001. Available at: http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/abm/abm2.html. [Assessed 5 November 2012] Treaty Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, 1987. Available at: < http://www.state.gov/t/isn/trty/18432.htm# >. [Assessed 5 November 2012]. Westad, O. A., 2004. The Cold War: the history in documents and eyewitness accounts. 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