More often than not, superpowers, rather than causing regional conflicts, were reluctantly drawn into them." How far does your study of the Cold War in the period 1950-80 supports this view?

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1. “More often than not, superpowers, rather than causing regional conflicts, were reluctantly drawn into them.” How far does your study of the Cold War in the period 1950-80 supports this view?

The period of 1950 to 1980 saw the Cold War spread from the traditional playing field of Europe to other parts of the world. However it is quite clear that the USA and the Soviet Union played only a marginal role in originating these conflicts-at the most setting up the basic framework for it to occur. Furthermore, when they did get involved they each did so to varying degrees. The USA seemed to be much more motivated and interested in involving themselves, while the Soviet Union was more apprehensive. Therefore, to say that both superpowers “were reluctantly drawn into them (the conflicts)” is not completely true. To illustrate my point I will analyse the Korean and Vietnam wars.

There is strong evidence to suggest that US entered the Korean War fairly voluntarily. Firstly, the US was motivated by strong security interests. They misperceived the North’s invasion to be Soviet instigated and an attempt to spread communist ideology into Asia. Thus they felt they had to do something to prevent this spread of communism from materialising. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, US feared that if Korea fell to the communist it would be, as then Secretary of State put it, “a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan”. Japan was very important to the USA as it was their bastion of capitalism and democracy in Asia. To lose it, would be a major blow to the USA and thus they did not wish to risk endangering it. To quote Mark. S Byrnes:

“The United States saw the move (North Korean invasion) as potentially damaging to Japan’s security, and the former enemy had become the centre of American policy in Asia once the communists triumphed in China.”

Secondly, the US were also under the impression that the Soviet Union was winning the war. This was due to mainly two reasons-the fact that by 1939, the Soviet Union had tested their first atomic bomb thus breaking the USA’s nuclear monopoly and the loss of China to the communist. As the Cold War was commonly described as a zero-sum game, the way US saw it, they could not afford to lose anymore territories - such as Korea. Truman was also under much fire back at home for not intervening significantly in China and thus he saw the Korean War as a perfect opportunity to redeem himself. As Geir Lunstead noted:

“The domestic political situation in the United States further undermined the original stance of the Truman administration. Verbal assaults for having ‘lost China’ to the communists became steadily harsher. In February, Senator Joseph McCarthy had begun his attacks on communist influence within the administration. If South Korea fell, too, that would undoubtedly sharpen the tone even further, just a few months before Congressional elections.”

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Thus the fact that US had much to gain from intervening in the Korean War, suggests that they were not reluctant to do so.

US actions in the development of the war also suggested they were not reluctant to get involve. The Americans under MacArthur, were not content with simply driving the North Korean forces back to the 38th parallel. They pushed them further back all the way to the Yalu river. This shows that MacArthur had gone beyond the policy of containment and had adopted roll-back communism. There were several reasons for this shift in policy. Firstly, the ...

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