During all this the US also mentioned that a ‘New World Order’ was emerging and that it required some governing principles and institutions (signs of Liberal Reformism or at least great power responsibility?)
“Tension was growing even at the Yalta Conference (Feb 1945). On the surface, the conference seemed successful. But afterwards, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt that ‘The Soviet Union has become a danger to the free world.’ At the Potsdam Conference (July 1945), the arguments came out into the open. In March 1945, Stalin had arrested the non-Communist Polish leaders. Also America’s new president, Truman, was determined to ‘get tough’ with the Russians. So, the Allies openly disagreed about how to divide Germany, the size of reparations and Soviet policy in Eastern Europe” .
Stalin during 1946-47 made sure that that Communist governments came to power in all countries of Eastern Europe. He used ‘Salami Tactics’, which is a divide and conquer process of threats and alliances used to overcome opposition. With it the an aggressor in this case Stalin could influence and then eventually dominate any of the Eastern European countries, typically piece by piece. As Stalin did this to bring in power communist powers of the European Countries for example Hungary.
On March 5th March 1946, Winston Churchill, on seeing the way Stalin broke many agreements of the past conferences gave his Fulton speech. Here it is where he said famously that the countries of Eastern Europe were being cut off by ‘an iron curtain’ and were ‘subject to Soviet influence …totalitarian control and police governments’.()()
Russia’s reply was that Churchill had declared war on them; it was certainly open acknowledgement of a rift.
The Americans got involved into the conflict when Truman (now the US president after the death of Roosevelt in 1945) paid British soldiers to keep in Greece to fight the communists.
It was really Truman who officially declared ‘cold war’ on the Soviet Union. It was in the ‘The Truman Doctrine’ a special message to congress in which he indirectly condemned communism and said it had to be contained. The speech also justified why he had to help Greece to fight communism. “The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government's authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries.” It was clear that the Truman was fighting communism and really it was the difference in ideologies that fuelled the Cold War. As the US was really the only superpower not to be completely affected financially by WW2, they were quite a financial power. The aspect of this threatened the Soviet rule to some degree. What the US wanted to achieve financially was also outlined in the Truman Doctrine: “I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes”.
The Economic and military of the US was increasingly apparent during the late 1940s it was the first signs of American hegemony, by the 1947 the US had embarked upon building of a global Institutionalised liberal, capitalist world order.
It was not just that the two ideologies were conflicting – they were militant and expansionist. The US found that communism was a threat to them and to the global politics as voiced by Truman. On the other hand the communist USSR was threatened by the power of the US.
In June 1947, the American general George Marshall went to Europe; He said that every country in Europe was in such a weak state that in danger in turning Communist! This did not at all go down well with the Soviet Union. The US further flexed their financial muscles by introducing ‘The Marshall Plan’. In stated that as the eastern Europeans countries was heavily influenced by communist rule they stressed the importance of a joined western force in the financial markets, so the US pumped $13 billion of aid into European countries including West Germany.
To The Marshall Plan Stalin Retaliated. He forbade Communist countries to ask for money. Instead, In October 1947, he set up Cominform. Every Communist party in Europe joined. It allowed Stalin control of the Communists in Europe. The American Congress at first did not want to go ahead with the Marshall Aid. In 1948 Communists took power over Czechoslovakia, consequently this lead to the US to vote for the aid package, thus marking the beginning of the Cold War.
It was debated if Stalin had a master plan to control Europe through communist rule and also what were his motivations. The US however further built its power by funding Japan to build its economy and forming NATO to respond to Soviet military superiority in Europe, this was all seen as preparation for ‘hot war’.
The first major confrontation of the cold war took place was over Berlin in 1948, as the USSR was excluded from the conference in response Stalin took extreme action. He severed communication by surface and restricted personal in and out of the capital, it required the west to provide those inside by airlift. It was policy that failed and after nearly a year the communication block was brought down.
It was the events after the Berlin Blockade which brought the world closet to nuclear warfare. The crises saw deployment of American long range bombers in Britain, described officially as ‘atomic capable’, though none were armed.
The Cuban missile crises in 1962 was also a major factor in the Cold War as the US had photographic evidence of ballistic missiles built in Cuba by the Soviet. This lead to a quarantine imposed by the US over Cuba. This event made every one believe nuclear warfare was inevitable. However the crisis was quelled when Kennedy agreed to move all missiles from Italy and Turkey in exchange for the missiles in Cuba to be removed.
Now we must answer the question of who did start the Cold War. Even though each part took many actions from each side there is still no clear answer on who was to blame. There is however the main views form the four groups below:
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Russian historians blamed Churchill (the British Prime Minster) and Truman (the American president, 1945-1953). They said Truman and Churchill wanted to destroy the USSR, which was just defending itself.
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Orthodox View – Soviet Expansion created US insecurity. This view tends to depict that the aggressive USSR expansion justified what the US did in defence of its core liberal values. This view was also found in more realist version, which the USSR was a threat to US national security. This view is more widely accepted in the west however I believe it does not point out the wrongdoings of the US especially with nuclear arming and its hot wars with aligned states of the USSR.
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The revisionists view – US commitment to expansion of capitalism created Soviet insecurity. The revisionists argue the Soviet merely reacted defensively to an aggressive US containment policy. I also reject this view as the Berlin crises clearly show that Stalin did not only act defensive bur also provocative and that breaking the agreements of Yalta was not really a defensive strategy.
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The post revisionist views(s) – This view rejects the simplistic ascription of responsibility to one side or the other. The view sees the Cold War as a product of security – orientated ‘power politics’, suggesting the Cold War was inevitable (you could say this is a realist/neorealist type of view). Others within the view see that the manipulation of ideology by elites on both sides, misperception and domestic politics all causes. The view also states that the Cold War was a key stage of US dominance and favoured the US greatly but Stalin was still blamed as well.
The final view is one that I accept I believe both was at fault and really the Cold War was inevitable, when there was no single axis the allies would become bored of each other and turn on each other at some point. However the policy making by both groups were mostly done out of perceptions and fear, which propelled the Cold War in my opinion.
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Calhoun, Craig (2002). . Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press.
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Bullock, Alan, edited by Alan Bullock and Oliver Stallybrass , Harper & Row, 1977
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Donette Murray, To What Extent was the Cold War a Struggle between Irreconcilable Ideologies? (1999) (Donette Murray was a lecturer at the University of Ulster.)
- Herz, J. (1950), ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’
- Jhon Baylis et al. The Globalization of World Politics, An Introduction to International relations 4thE, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-929777-
- http://www.johndclare.net/EC1.htm
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Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, Steve Smith. Intenational Relations Theories, Discipline and Diversity 2nd Edition, , Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-954886-6
- Trueman Doctrine, March 12, 1947
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- Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, From Stalin to Khrushchev, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England 1996.
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Winston Churchill, Sinews of Peace (5th March 1946), Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri.
Donette Murray, To What Extent was the Cold War a Struggle between Irreconcilable Ideologies? (1999) (Donette Murray was a lecturer at the University of Ulster.)
Intenational Relations Theories, Discipline and Diversity 2nd Edition, Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, Steve Smith, Oxford 2007, Classical Realism, page 69. ISBN 978-0-19-954886-6
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Describe the events between 1945 and 1948 which plunged Britain and the USA into a Cold War with the USSR.
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http://www.johndclare.net/EC1.htm
http://www.johndclare.net/EC1.htm
= Trueman Doctrine, March 12, 1947
= Trueman Doctrine, March 12, 1947
http://www.johndclare.net/EC1.htm
The Globalization of World Politics, An Introduction to International relations 4thE, Jhon Baylis et al. Oxford 2008, page 60 - Cold War, ISBN 978-0-19-929777-1
The Globalization of World Politics, An Introduction to International relations 4thE, Jhon Baylis et al. Oxford 2008, page 60 - Cold War, ISBN 978-0-19-929777-1
Marfleet, B. Gregory. "The Operational Code of John F. Kennedy During the Cuban Missile Crisis: A Comparison of Public and Private Rhetoric". Political Psychology 21 (3): 545
Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, From Stalin to Khrushchev, Authors Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England 1996.
Calhoun, Craig (2002). . Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press. .
Calhoun, Craig (2002). . Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press. .
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