Lecture 9 The Origins and Causes of the Cold War: from Containment to Korea Flashcards by Antoni Olendzki

New global architecture after WWII?

• United Nations (security council↔hierarchy of
power) [diplomacy]
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) [Financial
Stability] + dollar-centric system
• World Bank [Economic Aid & Reconstruction]
• Gatt [Trade]
• Common denominator: lesson of the 1920s/1930s

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FDR’s (failed) assumptions about the post war world

• Post-1945 Cooperation with URSS
• UK’s ability to act as regional 
hegemon/counterbalance v. USSR
• Domestic/international consensus on 
liberal/laissez faire order

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What is a Cold War

• Unique condition: “peace impossible/war
unlikely”
• Spurious/asymmetrical bipolarism

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US economic/strategic superiority over USSR

• 1945: 2/3 of world gold reserves, 75% of
military expenditure
• 1943 Arms production US : USSR = 3 : 1
• 1945 GNP US : USSR = 3 : 1

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Paul Kennedy, 1988 USSR quote

USSR in 1945 as “the largest defence

establishment in the world”

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Pre-cold war commonalities

Punishment of Germany
Bipolar equilibrium in Europe
Recognition of Soviet sphere of influence

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Soviet responsibilities for the Cold War

- Brutality of occupation (Eastern   
Germany/Europe)
- Opportunism and attempt to exploit 
weaknesses of Western Europe
- Stalin’s fears of «encirclement»
- Diffidence towards US and capitalism (no 
interest in being “co-opted”)

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US responsibilities for the Cold War

Disengagement = no financial aid to USSR
Harsher attitude of Truman
Return of anti-Communism (domestic factors)
Abandonment of punitive policies vs.
Germany → tensions with USSR
From globalism to US sphere of influence (empire?)

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Anti-Communism in the US during Cold War (domestic factors)

- Conservative politicians (bipartisan «red-
baiting»)
- Anti-union businessmen
- Religious fundamentalists
- Southern Segregationists
- White ethnics

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Structural Factors for Cold War

Bipolarism itself: no third way, zero-sum game
Ideological competition: alternative, universalitic views; competition based on what recipe for modernity and progress would prevail elsewhere
Security dilemma (Power Vacuum in Europe + fears/misperceptions)

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What kind of empire was the US after WWII?

“Consensual Hegemony” (C. Maier)
“Empire by Invitation” (G. Lundestad)
“Irresistible Empire” (V. De Grazia)

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“Consensual Hegemony” (C. Maier)

Collaboration of influential local elites who shared American values

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Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech

03/1946

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Deterioration of USSR-US (and Western)

Relations

Reaction to USSR rhetoric and policies
Churchill’s Speech (iron curtain, 03.1946)
George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and X article
(Containment)
Truman’s doctrine (two worlds, 02.1947)

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Containment definition Kennan

“adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points,
corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet
policy.”

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Truman Doctrine

02/1947 “It must be the policy of the United States to
support free people who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures“

Truman Doctrine and US ideology

♣ Emphasis on external threat ↔ domestic support
- («to scare hell out of the country», Sen. Vandenberg)
♣ Local crisis ($400 mln aid to Greece, Turkey) → global projection of US power
♣ From FDR globalist outlook to Cold war Western/Atlantic outlook
♣ «Freedom v. Totalitarianism» ↔ US exeptionalist tradition (Evocation of historical tradition of US)

German Dillemma after WWII

Punishment:
- Could stimulate German revanschism and
nationalism
- Germany (resources and industrial know how)
needed for European reconstruction
- Risk of a German/Soviet rapprochement
- Already punished (bombing + brutality occupation)

Inaction:

Fear of social unrest/pro Communist consensus
Lack of US credibility as hegemon

Creation of Bizone

The combination of the American and the British occupation zones in 1947 during the occupation of Germany after World War II. With the addition of the French occupation zone on the first of 06/1948. the entity became the Trizone. Later, on 05/1949, the Trizone became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany.

Berlin blocade

02/1948 - reaction to Bizone and Trizone

Marshal Plan

European Recovery Programme 02/1948 - 06/1952 $13 bln

ERP and American Empire

«Politics of productivity» reproduced/adapted
European recovery/integration v. Soviet
influence
US as consensual hegemon

The cold war goes global: 1949/50

Chinese revolution: the «loss» of China (GOP
v. Truman)
USSR atomic bomb: end of US monopoly
Korean war, 1950-53

Why US intervention in non-strategic

area like Korea?

Monolitic view of world Communism v. local
conditions
No appeasement (Munich analogy, Stalin as
Hitler)
US credibility vis à vis USSR, allies
Stabilization (stalemate on 38’ parallel) v.
escalation in China

George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet conduct” (X article), July 1947

Kennan is arguing that the Soviets can only maintain their position internally and externally though using the organs of oppression and that it is an inherently weak from of controlling the population. If the US would be able to show the Soviet population that there is a better life in the western world the regime would be destroyed from within. That can only happen when the US will contain Soviet expansion. How? Through containment.

Walter Lippman on “X article” by Kennan, July 1947

Soviet foreign policy should be seen as aiming at rebuilding at the territorial empire lost in 1917 and not and ideological crusade to spread communism around the world. Lippman says that whilst the US will spread democracy it may force the creation of friendly authoritarian regimes – “he may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch”. Lippan criticises containment because it will lead to cold war and maybe a hot war. De-escalation would only be left with the threat of a hot war, which will always be there, whatever the case.

Anders Stephanson, Fourteen Notes on the Very Concept of the Cold War (1997)

The Cold War with the Soviets is similar to the US position to Nazi Germany – a threat, no matter how far away, is still a threat. ♣ The CW was an US project ♣ FDR, Atlantic Charter and Four Freedoms --> not secure at home until other gov. recognize --> unconditional surrender.

Asymmetrical bipolarism

♣ US economic, military superiority ♣ US capacity of global ideological projection ♣ US capacity of leadership/consensus-building

Dimensions of the antagonism

♣ Geopolitical (centrality of Europe: Germany) ♣ Ideological: competitive modernities/teleologies/narratives of progress ♣ Military (USSR conventional prepondernce vs. US nuclear monopoly)

Why the cold war?

♣ Soviet reponsibilities ♣ US responsibilities ♣ Structural factors

Melvin Leffler, The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952 in Westad and Leffler (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War. I: Origins (2010), pp.66-89

"The strategy of the Truman administration was never limited to deterrence and containment. The strategy was to wage a cold war and win in it." (p.88) ♣ The CW was a US project ♣ FDR laid out the foundations in 1939-41 with the notion of unconditional surrender --> Four Freedoms in Atlantic Charter --> the US would remain insecure as long as other gov. failed to recognize such freedoms.