The Cold War

An International History

David Painter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134742523
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The Cold War dominated international relations for forty-five years. It shaped the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union and deeply affected their societies, domestic situations and their government institutions. Hardly any part of the world escaped its influence.

David Painter provides a compact and analytical study that examines the origins, course, and end of the Cold War. His overview is global in perspective, with an emphasis on the Third World as well as the contested regions of Asia and Central America, and a strong consideration of economic issues. He includes discussion of:

• the global distribution of power
• the arms race
• the world economy.

The Cold War gives a concise, original and interdisciplinary introduction to this international state of affairs, covering the years between 1945 and 1990.

1 Introduction

The Cold War dominated international relations for over forty-five years (1945–1991). Within a framework of political relations, economic linkages, and military alliances, the Cold War was characterized by a high degree of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union; a costly and dangerous arms race; the polarization of domestic and international politics; the division of the world into economic spheres; and competition and conflict in the Third World. Understanding the Cold War is central to understanding the history of the second half of the twentieth century.

The Cold War shaped the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union and deeply affected their societies and their political, economic, and military institutions. By providing a justification for the projection of US power and influence all over the world, the Cold War facilitated the assumption and assertion of global leadership by the United States. By providing Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and his successors with an external enemy to justify their repressive internal regime, the Cold War helped legitimate an unrepresentative government and maintain the grip of the Communist Party on the Soviet Union.

In addition to its impact on the superpowers, the Cold War caused and perpetuated the division of Europe, and, within Europe, Germany. It also facilitated the reconstruction and reintegration of Germany, Italy, and Japan into the international system following their defeat in World War II. The Third World especially felt the effects of the Cold War, which overlapped with the era of decolonization and national liberation in the Third World. These two momentous processes had a profound and reciprocal effect on each other. The Cold War led to the division of Vietnam and Korea and to costly wars in both nations. Indeed, all but 200,000 of the more than 20 million people who died in wars between 1945 and 1990 were casualties in the more than one hundred wars that took place in the Third World in this period. In addition, most of the crises that threatened to escalate into nuclear war occurred in the Third World.

Far-reaching and long-lasting, the Cold War gave rise to a multitude of often conflicting interpretations regarding responsibility for its outbreak, its persistence, and its ultimate demise. Almost all of these interpretations were themselves shaped by the ongoing Cold War, and many were profoundly political in that the positions they argued were part of contemporary political as well as scholarly debates.

The end of the Cold War and the limited opening of archives in the former Soviet Union and its allies have not ended these debates. Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War provides an opportunity to move beyond fruitless, and often ahistorical, controversies over responsibility in order to understand what happened and why. It is now possible to ask new questions about the origins, persistence, and end of the Cold War.

To provide a fresh perspective, this study focuses on the interaction of international systemic factors and national politics and policies and looks at events all over the world. An international, as opposed to a national or binational, perspective is essential. Although Soviet- American rivalry was the dominant feature of the international system from 1945 to 1991, the Cold War encompassed much more than US-Soviet relations. It also involved political and economic competition among the core capitalist states, ideological conflict within and among states, and political, social, and economic change in the Third World. To understand the Cold War in all its dimensions, it is necessary to examine the interaction between changes in the global distribution of power; advances in weapons technology; shifts in the balances of social and political forces within and among nations; the evolution of the world economy; and the transformation of the Third World.

These various aspects of the Cold War were interrelated. The global distribution of power intersected with military technologies and strategies, ideological crosscurrents, the ongoing restructuring of economies and societies, and political, economic, and social change in the Third World to produce, prolong, and, eventually, end the Cold War. This study is organized chronologically in order to highlight the interaction of these factors.

In this book, emphasis is placed on structures and processes rather than individuals. I have chosen this focus not because individuals were unimportant but rather because it is essential to understand the larger contexts in which individuals acted. While an ideal history of the Cold War would include both, a study of this length cannot. For the same reasons, this study does not deal in depth with the domestic sources of foreign policy. Although domestic dynamics were very important, I have chosen to focus on the international dimensions of the Cold War.

I have tried to be balanced and fair, but I have given my own views on important issues. Due to the brevity of this book, I have not always found it possible to alert readers to alternative interpretations. I also regret that the format of this series does not allow me to provide detailed references to the many fine studies I have relied on in crafting this account of the Cold War. This is a work of synthesis, and while I alone am responsible for what I have written, I want to acknowledge my debt to others. In addition to the works cited in the Notes, I have tried to list the main works I found useful for this study in the Suggested Further Reading. I am also especially grateful to William Burr, Eric Evans, Benjamin Fordham, Robert McMahon, John McNeill, Aviel Roshwald, Richard Stites, Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, John Voll, and J.Samuel Walker, who took time from their own work to read and comment on a draft of this study. An early version of the approach utilized in this study appeared in my essay “Cold War” in the Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations. I want to thank Oxford University Press for permission to utilize portions of that essay, and Thomas G.Paterson for his help and advice on that project. I also want to express my appreciation to my editors at Routledge, especially Heather McCallum, for their assistance and patience.

I have endeavored to write a non-nationalist history. Although the relative emphasis on the United States and its actions is, in part, due to my personal background and professional training, it is also due to the dominant role the United States played in the Cold War.

This study is not the last word on the Cold War. Rather its purpose is to provide a reliable starting point from which interested readers can explore for themselves the conflict that dominated international relations in the second half of the twentieth century.

2 The Cold War begins, 1945–50

Following World War II, the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union interacted with the chaotic and fluid state of international relations to produce the Cold War. Understanding the impact of World War II on the international system and its members is crucial to understanding the origins of the Cold War. World War II accelerated fundamental changes in the global distribution of power, in weapons technology, in the balance of political forces among and within nations, in the international economy, and in relations between the industrial nations and the Third World. In addition, the diplomatic and military decisions made during the war had a profound impact on the shape of the postwar world.

THE WORLD IN 1945

World War II was the culmination of a series of events that profoundly changed the global distribution of power. As National Security Council Paper No. 68, the seminal statement of US Cold War policies, pointed out in April 1950, “within the past thirty-five years the world has experienced two global wars of tremendous violence…two revolutions—the Russian and the Chinese—of extreme scope and intensity …the collapse of five empires—the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian, and Japanese—and the drastic decline of two major imperial systems, the British and the French.” The result was the end of the European era and the rise to dominance of two continental-size superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.¹

Before World War II there were six great powers: Great Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States. The United States entered the postwar era in a uniquely powerful position, its relative standing greatly increased by its mobilization and war effort, its allies exhausted, and its rivals defeated. Around 410,000 US citizens lost their lives in the war, but US farms, factories, mines, and transportation networks escaped unscathed. Wartime mobilization and production lifted the United States out of the depression, and during the war the US economy almost doubled in size. In 1945, the United States controlled around half the world’s manufacturing capacity, most of its food surpluses, and a large portion of its financial reserves. The United States also held the lead in a wide range of technologies essential to modern warfare. Possession of extensive domestic energy supplies and control over access to the vast oil reserves of Latin America and the Middle East further contributed to the US position of global dominance.

Despite a rapid demobilization that reduced the level of its armed forces from 12.1 million in 1945 to 1.7 million by mid-1947, the United States still possessed the world’s mightiest military machine. The US Navy controlled the seas, US air power dominated the skies, and the United States alone possessed atomic weapons and the means to deliver them. In addition, the US role in the defeat of fascism and US espousal of such principles as the four freedoms (freedom of speech and worship, freedom from want and fear) had earned tremendous international prestige for the United States.

Although analysts began to speak of a bipolar world, divided between roughly equal superpowers, the Soviet Union was a distant second, its power largely concentrated along its borders in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and northeast Asia. World War II devastated the Soviet Union. Late twentieth-century estimates of Soviet war-related deaths range from 20 to 27 million. Six of the Soviet Union’s fifteen republics had been occupied, in whole or in part, by the Germans, and extensive destruction of crop land, farm animals, factories, mines, transportation networks, and housing stock disrupted the Soviet economy and left it barely one-quarter the size of the US’s. Though impressive, Soviet military capacity lagged behind that of the United States. The Red Army had emerged as a formidable fighting force, but the Soviets lacked a long-range strategic air force, possessed meager air defenses, and, aside from a large submarine force, had an ineffective navy. Soviet military forces demobilized rapidly following the war, from around 11.3 million troops in mid-1945 to some 2.9 million by early 1948. Finally, until August 1949, the Soviets also lacked atomic weapons.

The positioning of a large part of Soviet military power in Eastern Europe posed a potential threat to Western European security. The devastation and defeat of Germany and Japan, powers that historically checked Russian power in Central Europe and northeast Asia respectively, improved the Soviets’ relative position, at least in the short run. Similarly, the decline of British power opened opportunities for the Soviets to improve their position along their southern border in the Middle East. On the other hand, the measure of security the Soviet Union had enjoyed as a result of divisions among its capitalist rivals was now lost. The defeat of Germany and Japan and the weakening of Great Britain and France raised the possibility that the capitalist powers might unite under US leadership. The proximity of the Soviet Union to the main European and Asian powers also increased the likelihood that they would look to the United States for help in balancing Soviet power.²

Great Britain, the third major power in 1945, occupied an important position in the postwar international system due to its empire, its military power, and its role in the international economy. The empire, including such Commonwealth countries as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, enabled Britain to function as a world power. Spanning the globe, the Commonwealth crucially provided the network of bases that allowed Britain to project its power throughout most of the world. After the war, the British maintained a large military establishment, and in 1952 added atomic weapons to the traditional pillars of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Britain’s economy was the strongest in Europe in 1945, and the pound sterling currency area played an important role in the international economy.³

On the other hand, six years of warfare had cost Britain around 400,000 lives, wiped out a quarter of its prewar wealth, and resulted in a massive external debt. Maintaining its military might severely strained Britain’s precarious financial position. Moreover, the Commonwealth countries were essentially independent: India had been promised independence, Britain’s other Asian colonies were restive, and Britain’s influence in the Middle East was in decline.

The other prewar great powers were in even worse shape. Humiliated by its collapse in World War II, severely damaged by the Nazi occupation and the war, and deeply divided over the issue of collaboration, France was in danger of slipping from the ranks of the great powers. Around 600,000 Frenchmen had died in the war, and France also faced rising unrest in many parts of its empire that threatened to turn its once valuable colonies into liabilities. Its second bid for European hegemony thwarted, Germany had suffered severe damage during the war. Around 7 million Germans had died in the war, and Germany’s cities were leveled, its transportation networks disrupted, and a large portion of its population displaced. Occupied by its enemies, Germany faced the prospect of partition. Around 3 million Japanese had died in the war, and Japan lay in ruins, devastated by the relentless US strategic bombing campaign that had culminated in the August 1945 atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Shorn of its colonial empire, Japan was occupied by US forces.

Changes in the technology of war reinforced the shifts in the global balance of power. Conventional weapons had reached new heights of destructiveness during World War II. Power projection capabilities had taken a large leap forward as the long-range bomber and the aircraft carrier extended the reach of death and destruction. The systematic application of science to warfare resulted in new technologies—radar, the jet engine, cruise and ballistic missiles, and the atomic bomb—that opened new and terrifying prospects. The atomic bomb was especially frightening because it magnified the destructive force of warfare to a previously unimagined scale and concentrated that destruction in time.

The atomic bomb’s potential to revolutionize warfare quickly made it an important focus of international relations. Some analysts, assuming rapid and widespread proliferation of atomic weapons, argued that the mere existence of such weapons would discourage aggression due to the near certainty of retaliation. Others, driven by fears of an “atomic Pearl Harbor,” were convinced that heightened military preparedness and possibly even pre-emptive strikes were the best ways to safeguard national security in the atomic age. The appearance of weapons capable of such massive destruction started an arms race as the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and subsequently other nations sought to develop their own atomic weapons, and the United States sought to maintain its lead in atomic capability.

At the other end of the technological scale, the diffusion of military technology lessened the power gap between the industrial nations and the Third World. Equally important, Third World nationalist elites were able to organize peasants into formidable fighting forces that could hold their own against Western armies. This emergence of “lethal peasant armies” was particularly important in Asia, where the Chinese Communists had refined guerrilla tactics and had begun to master large-unit warfare.

Changes in the balance of political forces both within and among nations during and after World War II further complicated international relations. The potential impact of internal political alignments on the global balance of power invested domestic political struggles with international political and strategic significance.

Transnational ideological conflict had been especially important in the 1930s, with the Spanish Civil War providing the most notable example. The basic assumption was that a regime’s internal ideological underpinnings would significantly influence, if not determine, its international alignment. Nations internally dominated by fascist or militarist forces—Germany, Italy, and Japan—collaborated. The liberal democratic powers—Great Britain, France, and the United States— tended to share similar interests though they often found it hard to work together. The only communist great power, the Soviet Union, stood alone, without allies until August 1939, when Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact that cleared the way for their conquest and partition of Poland the following month.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 ended the Nazi-Soviet alliance and brought Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and later the United States together in a grand alliance against Hitler. Subsequently, World War II, both internationally and within nations, largely pitted the right—Germany, Italy, and Japan—against an uneasy alliance of the center—Britain (along with its empire and Commonwealth) and the United States—and the left—the Soviet Union. (France had surrendered to Germany in June 1940.) With the defeat of the right in the war, the major fault line in international relations and within most nations shifted to the left, reflecting and underpinning the emerging tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.

By the end of World War II, the future of capitalism as an organizing principle for society was anything but secure. Already on the defensive due to the depth and duration of the Great Depression, capitalism and conservative parties in general also suffered in the eyes of many from association with fascism. The struggle against fascism had expanded to include opposition to authoritarianism and racism, and the defeat of fascism in the international arena discredited the far right in many nations.

The economic climate after the war tended to favor the political left. The experiences of depression and global war accentuated existing social, economic, and political divisions and generated popular demands for widespread land, welfare, and economic reform. Wartime controls had accustomed people to an increased government role in the economy, and many people believed that economic planning would be necessary to ensure economic growth and equity after the war. Among the major capitalist powers, only the United States underwent a shift to the right. Conservative opposition to the New Deal had continued to gain strength during the war, and in the 1946 midterm elections the Republicans captured control of both houses of Congress. While these developments effectively contained further advances, they did not roll back the main achievements of the New Deal—unionization of heavy industry, Social Security, farm subsidies, and the beginning of civil rights concerns. British politics, in contrast, moved to the left with the victory of the Labour Party in July 1945, as deep-seated desires for thoroughgoing social and economic reform outweighed gratitude to Prime Minister Winston Churchill for...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• MAPS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• 1. INTRODUCTION
• 2. THE COLD WAR BEGINS, 1945–50
• 3. COMPETITION AND COEXISTENCE, 1950–62
• 4. FROM COLD WAR TO DÉTENTE, 1963–73
• 5. FROM DÉTENTE TO CONFRONTATION, 1973–80
• 6. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND COLD WAR, 1981–91
• 7. UNDERSTANDING THE COLD WAR
• NOTES
• SUGGESTED FURTHER READING