C 36 continued: The Bipolar World
C 36 continued:The Bipolar
World
Origins of the Cold War
• US, USSR, Great Britain unnatural allies during World War II– Tensions submerged until close of war
• Yalta Conference (Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt) 1945• Potsdam Conference (Stalin, Truman) (1945)
– Decided on USSR declaration of war vs. Japan, setting up of International Military Tribunal
– Free elections for Eastern Europe (The Atlantic Charter)
• Stalin arranges pro-communist governments in Eastern European countries (By 1948: Satellite Countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania).
• In wake of two revolutions (Russia, China), collapse of five empires within last 35 years (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian, Japanese), decline of two great imperial powers (British, French) =TWO global superpowers (US and Soviet Union) with diametrically opposed political agendas
• 1946: “Iron Curtain” descends
Soviet threat is different than all prior forms of imperialism: they seek to impose their absolute authority over the rest of theentire world.
Occupied Germany:1945-1949
Truman Doctrine 1947: CONTAINMENT
Marshall Plan 1947-1951
Berlin Crisis/ Berlin Airlift 1948-1949
The Cold War 1949-1962
Bipolar Alliances:
Whose Side??Some Independence:
France (Charles DeGaulle)
Yugoslavia (Marshall Tito)
Soviet Allies:Eastern EuropeanSatellite Nations
ChinaNorth Korea
Cuba North Vietnam
1956 Khrushchev =Peaceful Coexistence
1949 Truman announced that the Soviets have successfully tested anuclear device1950 US developed Hydrogen Bomb1953 Soviets developed Hydrogen Bomb
Sputnik:October 4, 1957
1958
1956 Khrushchev =Peaceful Coexistence?
Peaceful Coexistence??? What Did It Look Like??
Senator Joseph McCarthy and The Red Scare
PROXY WARS:
Korean War 1950-1953
Vietnam War (1954)-1975
Caribbean 1980s
1954 Eisenhower’s “Domino Theory”:Used to justify US response to real or Imagined communist threats in Central and South America, Africa and Asia
The Cold War: The Caribbean 1980s
August 1961 Berlin Wall fortified
1949-19613.5 million East GermansFled to the West
Fall of the BerlinWall:
November 9, 1989
Peaceful Coexistence???Hungary 1956Prague Spring 1968 =
Brezhnev Doctrine
STANDOFF:Bay of Pigs: April 1961
Cuban Missile Crisis: October 1962
Soviets agree to remove missile sites and return missiles to USSR in exchange for US promise not to
invade Cuba, and to remove US missiles in Turkey (private)
Ho Chi MinhNgo Dinh Diem
Vietnam War 1946-1975Unification 1976
Kent State May 4, 1970
Johnson’s “Credibility Gap”Johnson does not run for re-
election in 1968
Nixon’s Vietnamization: gradual withdrawal
Negative effect for Cambodia: Pol Pot
The Pentagon Papers 1971
Fall of Saigon April 30, 1975
DÉTENTE 1960s
Soviets and the US agree to reduction in hostility ??????Nuclear Arms race was too costlyNew spirit of cooperation : SALT Treaties 1972, 1979Continued in spite of Vietnam War, Soviets in Africaand Soviet human rights violations
Demise of Détente:
1. 1972 Nixon became first US President to visit Communist China2. 1979 US established full diplomatic
relations with China3. 1981 US announced sale of weapons
to Chinese military4. 1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan5. However, SUPERPOWERS are on
the wane: US lose in Vietnam,Soviets lose in Afghanistan
1983 Strategic Defense Initiative: “Star Wars”Soviets are forced to spend heavily to meet this technological match
November 9, 1989
The End of the Cold War
Mikhail Gorbachev 1985-1991
1989 Restructuring of the Soviet Union
Perestroika=“restructuring the economy
Glasnost =“openness to public criticism”
Boris Yeltsin demanded independencefor Russian Republic
Collapse of the SovietUnion = December 1991Germany reunited 1990
Yeltsin dismantled Communist partyCommunism exists now only in Cuba and North Korea
Ethnic and Religious Conflicts
Iranian Revolution 1979Iran-Iraq War 1988
Democracy in China
Deng Xiaoping 1981Cultural, economic
reformPolitical
Authoritarian: 1989
Tiananmen Square
Decolonization of Africa1960s
South Africa: Abolition of Apartheid
President Nelson Mandela 1994