To What Extent Did the US Escalate the Cold War - Research Paper Example

 To What Extent Did the US Escalate the Cold War? The cold war wasn’t a war in essence. It was a continued state of competition, inconsistency and tension, mainly between the two superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union, including their allies as well. The war started in the mid 1940s and went up to early 1990s. Throughout this period, the war was not that of wars and attacks on one another, but more of a verbal war, in which both the countries tried to upstage one another through various techniques such as acquiring new weapons, surveillance weapons, the development of and acquiring new techniques and strategies, media and propaganda, and above all, a competition in each and everything. Over the years it’s been scrutinized and debated as to actually who was the reason behind the escalation. Was the U.S behind what is termed the “Domino Effect” in the war, or was it the USSR? Looking over what the historians say, some of my own points, and a general overview of the war, clearly puts one in the argument to state that the US were the reason behind the escalation of the cold war. To what extent though? We will further discuss. As we skim through the history pages and read page after page of the cold war and the continued conflict between the USSR and the US, we are forced to think over who was doing what and to what extent? There were several events and episodes which were fuel to the fire burning between the two countries, a fire of mistrust and suspicion. There are events such as the Bolsheviks’ challenge to capitalism which was to be brought about through the ruthless banishment and overthrow of the capitalists’ regimes, to replace it with communism. Then there was Russia’s withdrawal from World War I, US interruption when Russia was supporting the White Army in the Russian civil war, and then to top it all, The United States completely refused to acknowledge the Soviet Union till the year 1933. There were other such incidences such as the Treaty of Rapallo, which fueled the fire and deepened the feelings of distrust and suspicions among the two countries. In his book, The Specter of Communism, Melvyn Leffler writes “American officials had concluded as early as 1940 that they could not live in a world dominated by totalitarian nations, even if these powers refrained from attacking the United States.”(Leffler 120) .This shows the countries unwillingness to tolerate a communist state, let alone one that might overpower them. Their paranoia with communism was so great that they ended up setting up an entire committee which had no purpose other than to find people who supported communism. The House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was established in 1938 to hunt down communist sympathizers, be it civilians, public employees, or anyone else for that matter. With the rising tension with the USSR the support for the group grew against all rationality. The committee had the power to subpoena individuals to court and hold people in contempt against congress. There were many times that the organization was involved in heinous harassment and placed great pressure on the people to extract confessions and information to make arrests on people who they thought were communists. In a way the committee went about cleansing the country by targeting whoever they deemed a danger. People who did not comply or struggled were labeled “red.” It was based on the interrogative techniques of the HUAC which formed the basis of the workings of Senator McCarthy’s censure. In his book, Nightmare in red, Richard M. Fried describes the McCarthy era has one of the “grimmest time in recent memory.”(Fried 3) He subsequently writes “Beset by the cold war anxieties, the Americans developed an obsession with domestic communism that outran the actual threat and gnawed at the tissue of the civil liberties. For some politicians, hunting Reds became a passport to fame-or notoriety. It was the focal point of the careers of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy…” (Fried 3). He further goes on to describe the hysteria by telling us about the general atmosphere of the country where most people had to take loyalty oaths against communism. These very actions cited hatred in the hearts of the nationals against communism. In their eyes it became an enormous threat which had to be removed with such ferocious vigor that in the end it could even threaten their own lives. The HUAC inadvertently ended up mustering support against communism and it was the main factor that contributed to the rest of the policies that were made against communism which includes the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, both of which would not have been as successful without support of the general public opinion. If we take a look at all that had been happening between the Russians and the US we will see that it was the US who took the initial step to aggravate not just the Russians but other countries as well. The Truman Doctrine was the first step towards the aggravation of the war. According to the Truman Doctrine of 1947 it was stated that “the US would offer any kind of help to any state that was fighting against a communist state. It was in late February of 1947, that the British government pulled back its financial support from Greece and Turkey leaving the US to pick up the pieces. The United States would have to provide them with assistance, if they were to require resources to resist communism.” (Jones 36). What is known, as the domino theory, was expressed by the Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in a meeting between congressmen and state department officials. He stressed that “the future of Greece and Turkey was at stake and if the two important nations were to fall into the hands of communist countries then there was a risk that they would gain control over the Middle East and India as well”.(Hopkins 107). In his book, Leffler supports this by stating, “If the countries of middle-western and Mediterranean Europe sunk under the burden of despair and become Communist, Scandinavia will fall into the same camp. The strategically and economically vital North African and Middle Eastern areas will follow. This transfer of Western Europe, the second greatest industrial area in the world, and of the essential regions which must inevitably follow such a lead, that a weakened United Kingdom could not resist so powerful a current, the shift would be cataclysmic.” (Leffler 58) The adoption of the Truman Doctrine, which was the president’s proposal to direct US diplomacy for the next four decades, was significant as The US then set aside their policy of isolationism and established themselves as world leaders. In his March 12, 1947 address, President Truman stated: "At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic stability and orderly political process." (Donovon 72) The Marshall plan was another factor that only aggravated the situation. It consisted of the sending huge amounts of American funds to non-communist countries, in their efforts to recover from the disastrous effects of the Second World War. In his address to Harvard, the Secretary of State, George Marshall, spoke about the basic outlines of the Marshall Plan. The plan consisted of “providing aid money to the devastated European states; for things such as improvement of agriculture, industries, financial help for food, medical supplies and transport 16 nations received more than thirteen billion dollars of support.” (Hogan 54) Excerpt from "Design for Reconstruction" planned address for Secretary Marshall June, 1947, drafted May 20, 1947. "What will happen if we do not provide adequate funds and commodities for subsistence and reconstruction abroad? This, I think, is hardly questionable: what if adequate help from the United States is not forthcoming, many of our allies in the late war... will be obliged in the months to come to cease imports of food and reconstruction material. Should this happen, human want, economic collapse, political crisis, collapse of democratic institutions, growth of extremism, and perhaps loss of independence would in many countries quickly follow. Our hopes for peace and prosperity would quickly vanish. We would live in unprecedented isolation. We would live in growing poverty. We would live in growing fear." The Marshall plan and the Truman doctrine were the first of a number of steps and measures the US took to gain power in this war. The wars ultimate motive was to gain power as the worlds “superpower”. The US had their sights set on the particular goal and we can see they were doing what they could to aggravate the states and bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. The last push to this “domino effect” was the policy which was an attempt to 'contain' the Soviet Union and not let them acquire any new territory. For this George Kennan introduced his well known Anonymous X – article in which he suggested: “Long term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” (Kennan-Lukacs 11). This would lead to the inevitable break up of the Soviet Union, which would then let the US take over as the ultimate superpower. Arguably all of the United States foreign policies after the Second World War were in one way or another directed towards that of the Soviet Union and therefore examples of containment. Within this anonymous - X article Kennan suggested three policies the US should adopt in order to accomplish the 'suppression' of the Soviet Union. Kennan recommended that the first goal should be the restoration of the balance of power within Europe. The second goal was the reduction of Soviet power projection by exploiting tensions in international communism. Therefore, it made sense to support conflicting communist states and sometimes even co-operate with their regimes. Since nationalism would prove more durable than communism, Keenan expected international communism to break up sooner or later. The third goal was to lead the Soviet Union away from its universal notion of international affairs toward a particular understanding of reality. It is important to point out that the United States did not adopt its policy of containment primarily because of post World War Two events. Tensions between the United States and Russia had dated back to the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. Firstly, the ideology of communism was deemed to be very unpopular within the Western World, especially within the US. They saw themselves as the leaders of Democracy and the 'Free World', they believed communism contradicted the American way of life. Fears of soviet expansionist policies were increased in February 1946 when US ambassador in Moscow, George Keenan, sent the so called 'Long Telegram' which painted the picture of Russia as an "intractable" enemy that was resolute for an expansionist policy to spread its power and influence. Furthermore, in 1946 Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech increased US fears by stating that the USSR aimed to spread communism worldwide. Churchill stated in his speech that an “iron curtain” had descended upon Europe, lightly aided by the allies (the Russians). He meant that Europe was in total communist control now. In short, the US tried the strategy of “containment” because of their ever growing fear over the expansion of the foreign policy of the Russians and the Soviet Union. The US believed that Stalin was trying to spread his regime of communism and equal rights all over the world with Moscow as the capital. The US introduced the “containment” strategy through the Truman doctrine initially, as a result of Russia’s plans over the future of Poland and Germany. Although the strategy was never carried out as planned, it had the effect that was required and seized the expansion of communism within the European states and also, it gave the US tactical advances over the Soviet Union. In conclusion, there were many aspects and events in which the US managed to escalate the cold war, in their aim to gain absolute power. They were afraid that communism would prevail throughout the world and the US didn’t want that. So with the aid of certain strategies, they overthrew the Russians in the race to become the superpower, managed to abolish the Soviet Union. And became the worlds superpower, finishing the idea of communism altogether. Work Cited George Frost Kennan, John Lukacs : George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946: The Kennan-Lukacs Correspondence: Published :1997 Howard Jones : "A New Kind of War": America's Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece : Published 1990 Melvyn Leffler, The Specter of Communism Michael Francis Hopkins: Oliver Franks and the Truman Administration: Anglo-American Relations, 1948-1952: Published: 2003 Michael J. Hogan: The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952: published : 1990 Richard M. Fried: Nightmare in red: the McCarthy era in perspective Robert J. Donovan: Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948: Published: 1996 The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers."House Un-American Activities Committee." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003). http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/huac.htm [Accessed March 25, 2009]. Read More