The Legacy of the Cold War - Essay Example

Legacies of the Cold War The Cold War was a conflict between the U.S. and its allies against the SovietUnion and its allies which lasted from the end of World War II until 1991. The war was conventional in that it, for the most part, was not fought on the battlefield. It was, however, a war of ideological, political and economic differences fought with propaganda, diplomatic scuffles and the sporadic military skirmish. These inherent differences that preceded WWII intensified following the war. The former allies mistrusted each other which led to a massive arms race which would make both countries military superpowers during this era. The Cold War was fought on many fronts such as Asia, Africa, Cuba and in outer space. The capitalist, democratic U.S and the communist Soviet Union represented two diametrically opposed approaches to government. Each wanted to spread their ideologies throughout the world. The U.S. encouraged free trade while the Soviet Union closed its borders to trade with the West fearing that its people would be adversely influenced by Western culture which would undermine its totalitarian government. Territories in Europe were shared largely by the two countries following WWII. Given the ideological differences, the emergence of both as military superpowers each wanting to dominate the other, world-scale conflicts were unavoidable. By the end of the war, the Soviets had first liberated then occupied much of Eastern Europe. As a result of the Yalta conference following the War, the Soviet Union controlled the Eastern part of Germany along with much of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and half of the German capital Berlin (“The Cold War”, 2006). The Soviet Union’s military atrocities in Poland served as the catalyst for the U.S. dissolving its alliance with its former friend. All economic aid to the Soviets was cut off in May of 1945 by President Truman who, in August of that year declared that Stalin, the Soviet Premier, did not desire peace but to rule the world. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain stood with Truman on February 9, 1946 to give a speech in Missouri, Truman’s home state. He used the term ‘iron curtain’ referring to Stalin’s grip on Eastern Europe and said English speaking peoples were allied against the Soviets to prevent a return to the Dark Ages. This sent shockwaves throughout the Soviet Union. Its official newspaper Pravda compared Churchill and Truman to Hitler. The U.S. policy of aiding Germany in its recovery and suggestions that Russia give back lands seized in the war also irritated the Soviets which still harbored hatred against Germany and thought it should receive reparation funding instead (Smitha, 2001). Truman employed two major policies in the cold war fight. The first was the Truman Doctrine, a policy of containment of the Soviet Union. He said in a speech in March of 1947 that it was “America’s duty to interfere.” He did not want to destroy the country but wanted to stop the Soviet territorial expansion. The Truman Doctrine gave military and financial support to countries vulnerable to communist expansion such as in Turkey and Greece. The second major policy, the Marshall Plan, provided economic assistance to the democratic countries in Western Europe. Marshall said that “America should give $17 billion of aid to get Europe’s economy going and stop Communism” (Marshall, 1947). This strategy was intended to bolster these countries’ economies thereby illustrating the positive influence of democracy and undercut the appeal of communism. The policy further turned up the heat between the two super powers (Truman, 1947). In 1949, the U.S. again flamed the fire when it took the lead in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a multi-national military organization meant to stop the Soviet military from advancing in Europe. The Soviet Union retaliated by forming the Warsaw Pact in 1955 with its Eastern European allies (Pike, 2005). Truman’s 1950 decision to build up armaments as a defense to the imminent Soviet threat gave the U.S. a global military presence for the first time in history. This, along with a similar strategy by the Soviets, started what is commonly referred to as ‘The Arms Race.’ The U.S. and Soviets built up arms for decades in a competition for the greatest military might. Because the U.S. lacked intelligence information on the Soviet military, it was compelled to assume that it was always behind in the Arms Race. The proliferation of armaments included conventional weapons but the main focus for both countries was nuclear arms. “America believed that if Russia were to have more nuclear warheads than the U.S. that they would be less afraid to use them, and so the U.S. should strive to maintain, at minimum, nuclear equality with Russia” (Pop, 2004). The leaders of both countries, Dwight Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin met in Geneva, Switzerland in June of 1957 along with the leaders of France and Britain. Eisenhower wanted an agreement which allowed both countries access to the others military bases which Bulganin refused. Following that meeting, Cold War hostilities fluctuated during the mid- to late-1950’s as both countries vigorously attempted to have an effect on the political development of other countries. The Soviet Union, for example, provided technical, economic and military assistance to communist regimes in Asia. The U. S. retaliated by helping eight Asian countries oppose the communists by creating the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Additionally, both superpowers offered economic assistance to Egypt but the U.S. recanted when Egypt acquired arms from Czechoslovakia, a satellite nation of the Soviets at that time (Pike, 2005). Cold War tensions improved a bit in 1959 when Nikita Khruschchev, the new Soviet leader, made a visit to Eisenhower’s holiday residence. But in 1960, when a U.S. spy-plane was shot down in Russia, tensions resumed. Eisenhower acknowledged the U.S. U-2 planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years. This incident was followed a year later by the Bay of Pigs invasion ordered by then U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Cuban exiles that were secretly trained by the Central Intelligence Agency invaded Cuba but failed miserably in the attempt to overthrow the government headed by communist dictator and Soviet ally Fidel Castro. In August of 1961, tensions continued to grow when the Berlin Wall was built by the Soviet puppet government of East Germany to stop the many thousands of East German people from fleeing their impoverished oppressed life to the hopes of a better future in the West. The wall was heavily fortified and guarded. Many were killed in the effort to escape. (Gaddis, 2005) The Cuban Missile Crisis which began in October 1962 brought the two countries as close to nuclear war as they would ever come. U.S. intelligence photographs showed that Soviet missiles were being delivered to Cuba. Following a week of high tensions and a U.S. naval blockade of the Cuban island, Khruschchev reached an agreement with Kennedy to remove the missiles if the U.S. would not overthrow the Cuban government. After this time of intense anxiety on a global scale, the Cold War turned toward cooperation as both sides feared a nuclear holocaust. The two countries took a major step closer to one another by signing an arms control agreement in 1963 which banned nuclear tests anywhere but underground. The ‘Red Phone’ was also implemented which gave the leaders direct access to each other. Relations continued to ease between the Soviets and the U.S. during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev had several meetings and agreed to many arms control pacts. (Gaddis, 2005) Though, when Ronald Reagan was President he referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev had four meetings with Reagan. Gorbachev removed the Soviet army from Afghanistan and signed a nuclear missiles reduction agreement with the U.S. There was extensive instability among the ‘communist block’ countries of Eastern Europe by 1989. Unlike previous Soviet leaders, Gorbachev chose not to interfere militarily as these nations broke off from the Soviet Union. That year, the Berlin Wall was torn down, again uniting East and West Berlin. The demise of this symbol of Soviet domination along with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union itself soon after marked the end of the Cold War (Pike, 2005). The Cold War era was a time of great suspicion and intense political positioning between the Soviet Union and the U.S. in addition to a protracted nuclear arms race. This obsession with building up arms left in its wake a legacy of perils associated with those weapons that were intended to protect the countries’ borders and citizens. When the Cold War ended, both countries had the capability to destroy the earth several times over. Now, each has spent billions in an effort to destroy the weapons. Many lie within the ex-Soviet territories and many people fear that these nuclear missiles could possibly be sold to terrorist organizations. Much hatred and money was expended for a war that was never declared. If that money had been used to prop up the economy and for other useful purposes, the world would be a much better place today. Works Cited Gaddis, John Lewis (December, 2005) “The Cold War: A New History” The Penguin Press HC “(The) Cold War: 1945-1960.” The Corner. (May 6, 2006). December 4, 2008 Marshall, George C. “The Marshall Plan.” The History Place Great Speeches Collection. (June 5, 1947). December 4, 2008 Pike, John. “Cold War.” Global Security. (July 6, 2005). December 4, 2008 Pop, Florin. “The Arms Race.” Cold War Project. (February 4, 2004). December 4, 2008 Smitha, Frank E. “The Cold War Begins.” Macro History. (2001). December 4, 2008 Truman, President Harry S. “The Truman Doctrine.” Address before a Joint Session of Congress.” (March 12, 1947). December 4, 2008 Read More