The Cold War

An Uneasy Peace At the end of WW2, the Soviet Union and United States had very different goals. The Soviets’ primary goal was to secure their borders. Its secondary goal was to further the spread of communism. America’s primary goal was to gain access to new markets and new sources of raw materials. America’s secondary goal was to prevent future wars. The way each country decided to pursue these goals brought them into conflict.

Germany At the end of the war Germany was divided into four zones each occupied by one of the Allies. The western Allies soon turned control over to the new German government. To keep Germany weak, the Soviets prevented their sector from rejoining the rest of the country.

The Marshall Plan Part of the United States’ plan to prevent future wars to was to help the nations of Europe rebuild. The US Secretary of State, George Marshall, sent $13 billion in aid to Europe from 1948 to One part of the Marshall Plan was to give Germany a new, stable currency.

Berlin The German capital of Berlin was also partitioned. In June of 1948, when the US announced its plan to stabilize the German economy, the Soviet Union closed all land routes into West Berlin and cut off its electricity. The Berlin Blockade had begun.

The Berlin Airlift The Allies responded by flying in supplies, mainly food and coal. For 11 months, the US and Royal Air Forces flew in over 4000kg each day. By April, they were bringing more by air than had come in by train before the blockade. Faced with the blockade’s failure, the Soviet’s reopened the land routes.

The Berlin Wall With land routes reopened, Berlin returned to normal. Many people seeking freedom and opportunity began to escape to the West. In 1961, the Communist government of East Germany built a 3.6m high wall around West Berlin. The wall was fortified with barbed wire, land mines, machine guns and attack dogs.

The Truman Doctrine The communist revolution in China and America’s increasingly adversarial relationship with the Soviet Union convinced many in the US that communism must be stopped. This leads to the Truman Doctrine—that it would be "the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.“ Many refer to this as the “containment policy”—the US would work to stop the spread of communism. In practice, it often meant supporting friendly dictators against communists genuinely working to better the lives of the people.

Mutually Assured Destruction After the war, US defense policy relied on atomic bombs—no one else had them, so no one would risk war with the US. That ended in 1949, when the USSR detonated its first atom bomb. The US and USSR then entered an arms race, each side trying to build more and bigger bombs than the other. The arms race lead to the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction—that neither side would attack first because the other could retaliate with enough power to destroy the aggressor. Even if the first strike would have destroyed them too.

Brinksmanship Mutually Assured Destruction led to both sides engaging in “brinksmanship”. Each side sought to find advantage by coming as close to the brink of war as possible before giving in.

The Cuban Missile Crisis In October 1962, an American spy-plane spotted Soviet nuclear missile bases under construction in Cuba. The United States responded with a naval and air blockade of the island. For 13 days, the world braced itself for nuclear war, but the United Nations was able to broker a deal. One positive outcome was increased communication between Washington and Moscow.

Detente In the mid-1980s, the US and USSR began to work to reduce the threat of nuclear war. Much of the credit for this goes to the new General Secretary—Michail Gorbachev, who instituted many reforms within the Soviet Union.

The Berlin Wall Falls In 1989, East Germany eased travel restrictions. This resulted in thousands of East Germans leaving for the West. When the government tried restrict travel again in September, tens of thousands began protesting. By November there were hundreds of thousands protesting. The government tried to ease restrictions again, but a confused spokesman announced that the borders were open. East Germans began pouring into the West, by the evening of 9 November, young people from both sides had climbed atop the wall and were dancing in celebration. With in a year, the communist government had fallen and East and West Germany were unified.