SOTs and historian quotes Flashcards
(27 cards)
TRADITIONAL/ORTHODOX
BLAMES USSR AND STALIN overall USSR
- western 1950s historians
- defenders of american containment policy
- russia’s inherent expansionism, doctrine of marxism leninism bc world communism and intl revolution, stalin’s anti west paranoia
US passive/reactive role
> didn’t want territory in 1945 when entered negotiations
> guided by principles not self interest
> roosevelt and truman sought conciliation with stalin and post war relations w USSR
> when stalin violated YALTA b4 potsdam they acted in terms of defense of democracy and self determination
criticises soviet econ policy + political repression
ignores shortcomings of american capitalism
> aligned w american interests
> justified american econ hegemony like truman doctrine marshall plan and domino theory
john lamberton harper ORTHODOX
“the conflict was unavoidable owing to the nature of Soviet objectives and Stalin’s character.”
stalin was “a ruthless dictator determined to extend his totalitarian system far beyond the strict requirements of Soviet security. Nothing the United States or Britain might have done would have persuaded him to moderate his designs.”
arthur m. schlesinger jr ORTHODOX
American policies were “the brave and essential response of free men to communist aggression”.
“Peacemaking after the Second World War was not so much a tapestry as it was a hopelessly ravelled and knotted mess of yarn.”
condemns them for equating the US with the Soviet Union which “was not a traditional nation-state” but “a totalitarian state… with an all-explanatory, all-consuming ideology”
> fundamental diff between ideologies
thomas a. bailey ORTHODOX
US had no choice to respond as Stalin acted as an aggressor and broke the promises he made at the Yalta
martin f. herz ORTHODOX
The Soviets’ desire to plunder and establish a sphere of influence undermined the possibility of cooperation among the two emerging superpowers
> Poland was a critical clash in the early stages – Soviets wanting a friendly govt on their border eliminated the possibility of an independently elected and governed Poland that the West demanded.
REVISIONIST
BLAME USA and truman
soft revisionists - truman
hard revisionists - the way USA developed economically over the years
not benign or reactive
worked on self interests and economic considerations
want european capitalist nations to trade and for american exports
^ evidence is lend lease, post war loans, marshall plan/truman doctrine
atomic diplomacy - gar alperovitz
aim not defeat japan but flex USA diplomatic muscle
> threaten USSR, collapse of alliance, no post war conciliation
william appleman williams REVISIONIST
US FP has been to secure foreign markets for american goods > OPEN DOOR POLICY remove tarrifs and trade barriers
> global capitalist system, soviets threatened (security and sovereignty of non aligned states)
polarised world against US effort bc they kept insisting countries keep markets open to US goods and give them access to natural resources like oil
> seen as self serving/aggressive so tension so became resistant so divided the world and they had to push harder for support for econ policies globally
ideological stance turned manageable disagreement into long hostile standoff
> avoided by US being flexible and accepting soviet sphere of influence/eastern bloc being closed off
USA = inflexible
USSR = conciliatory
^ post war
false and exaggerated vision of their own omnipotence led them to overplay their hand, american postwar foreign policy was fundamentally flawed because it lacked the means by which it could attain its objective
“America’s traditional view of itself and the world is composed of three basic ideas or images. One maintains that the United States was isolationist until world power was ‘thrust upon it’… Another holds that… America has been anti-imperialist throughout its history. A third asserts that a unique combination of economic power, intellectual and practical genius and moral rigour enables America to check the enemies of peace and progress and build a better world – without erecting an empire in the process.”
what revisionists claim about US FP and econ concerns
USA fp driven by econ concerns
desire for
1) markets
2) resources
but not actually economically deesperate, didn’t heavily rely on exports for econ growth unlike brit or germany
had own resources, didn’t need imports
american elite & public believed in national-self determination not economic & political control/ imperialism
> thought the real reasons for American actions post-WWII were about security, containing communism, and maintaining geopolitical influence, not purely economic interests.
> promoting an open, capitalist global economy (the Open Door) wasn’t about exploitation – genuinely believed it would benefit all countries.
^ opped the revisionists
robert james maddox
“They see a sharp break between the foreign policies of Roosevelt and Truman and the men around him. Truman, according to this view, broke apart a functioning coalition soon after he took office..”
> wanted to contain communism bc wanted a european continent w capitalist nations open to trade and american exports
gar alperovitz
blame for cold war on US and atomic diplomacy
used nuclear weapons in japan not for military reasons but to flex american diplomatic muscle when negotiating w stalin > atomic diplomacy
USA escalated tensions, unnecessarily by using aggressive diplomacy and the atomic bomb as a tool to intimidate the Soviet Union
truman lacked diplomatic awareness and relied on hardline advisers > missed cooperation opportunities w stalin
stalin cautiously moderate but truman dropped bomb to influence future soviet behaviour not save lives/end war
increased US confidence in ability to influence soviets bc prev unable
but bomb had little actual effect’
ALSO roosevelt more pragmatic and accomodating to soviet secutiry concerns but truman was influenced by harriman and kennan and provoked soviet suspicions
> shifted US policy
view popular 1960s when people questioned american FP after vietnam war flop
POST REVISIONIST
blame USA AND USSR BOTH
1970s
john lewis gaddis
misperception and miscalc started CW
- clashing post war visions nd mutual misperceptions
- US misunderstood soviet security concerns as aggressive not defensive
- USSR misunderstood US econ and ideological goals, saw as threat
- secutiry dilemma = each side defensive actions was offensive to eachother
ADV of time and hindsight
cooling passions of detente
eclectism, borrowed from existing research
revisionists called it new orthodoxy bc believed pushed blame back to USSR
CW balancing act
stalin = opportunist and pragmatic not trying to be intl revolutionary and spread communism
US = driven by econ imperatives to an extent
focus on domestic systems and factors of both, party politics, domestic econ conditions, security agencies
john lewis gaddis POST REVISIONIST
“Stalin’s post-war goals were security for himself, his regime, his country and his ideology, in precisely that order.”
john lewis gaddis POST REV; factors
factors contributed to emergence of CW
> past problems pre 1941 including lack of comm and formal recognition
> delay in second front
> washington refusal to recognise soviet sphere of influence in eastern europe
> truman atomic diplomacy and refusal to share nuclear tech w soviets
CW bc of miscomm and rigid ideologies
> prevented meaningful compromise
john lewis gaddis POST REV; US FP
internal contradictions in US foreign policy
american policy confused in terms of eastern europe future
want to maximise self determination in eastern europe
but also maintain good relations w soviets
^ COULDN’T DEVISE POLICY TO SIMULTANEOUSLY SATISFY THE CONTRADICTORY OBJECTIVES
john lewis gaddis POST REV; stalin motives
inability to accurately assess motives desires goals
US couldnt separate pragmatic soviet need to survive german onslaught
and future goals after nazi defear
so they assumed they’d cooperate post war
the soviets perceived a change in US FP when truman - abrasive rhetoric - succeeded roosevelt - conciliatory approach
personality of stalin central
his paranoia
rise and retention of power in USSR
sought self total security
> deprived others of it
maxim litvinov: conflict between the communist and capitalist
worlds was ‘inevitable’. This was due to the concept that security was
based on territory – the more one has the more secure one is
john lewis gaddis POST REV; contradictory schemes for peace > cold war
US and soviet post war policies intended to preserve peace and security > BUT LED TO HOSTILITY
US believed needed to defeat and disarm enemy, promo self determination among all nations, prevent worldwide depression, guarantee unity of grand alliance post victory, new collective security org
soviets could not agree w US peace vision post war
martin leffler
Soviet archives indicate that power considerations were more important in shaping Soviet foreign policy than ideology
Cold War resulted from a contest of great powers, not a conflict of ideologies, where both US and the Soviet Union should bear the responsibility
trachtenberg
CW was really about settling the German question in the aftermath of World War II
conflict and tension inevitable until german question solved and satisfied euros americans and soviets
cw decelerated 1963 bc each side accepts status of divided germany state
> west NATO but no military capability alone (to reassure USSR)
> east in soviet sphere of influence (west tolerated as practical reality)
POST POST REVISIONIST
blame on STALIN and his soviet policies
Cold War as an ideological struggle, rather than one based on power or geopolitical rivalry
perestroika > glasnost > soviet archives opened
john lewis gaddis POST POST REV
took a much firmer line on Stalin, who “partly driven by ideological and geostrategic ambitions, partly responding to the opportunities that lay before him, built a post-war European empire”
his new book in 1997
francis fukuyama
claimed that the end of the Cold War was the final victory for democracy and capitalism. Liberal democracy had emerged as mankind’s highest-evolved and best form of government, surpassing all other systems. According to Fukuyama, this marked the “end of history”: not of historical events or change, but of the great historical struggle between ideologies.
> IDEOLOGICAL END OF HISTORY BC WESTERN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY MOST SUCCESSFUL
samuel p. huntington
significant changes in the world order
future tensions and conflicts, he argued, would be driven not by ideology or competing economic interests, but by fundamental differences in social structure, culture and religious values
william hardy mcneill
first to posit that Stalin was fundamentally responsible for the beginning of the Cold War because he supported the spread of communism throughout the world
broke promise of popularly-elected govs in EE so US couldn’t trust him to cooperate
> no realistic chance for postwar peaceful cooperation
only presence of common enemy kept them united
stalin acted as traditional russian nationalist during war to take adv to russian patriotism in war time
when war ended, back to bolshevism and soviet communism
thus cold war inevitable bc of expansionary nature of soviet communism
wilson d. miscamble 2011 POST REV
presents Truman as much more realistic than Roosevelt. The former’s efforts to forge good relations were frustrated by the Soviet leader
