Origins of the Cold War Chapter II. Clash of national security interests 1945-1946.

Origins of the Cold War

Chapter II.

Clash of national security interests 1945-1946

Potsdam conference, 1945 the Cecilienhof Palace

Potsdam conference, 1945: to divide Germany, and to divide the Far East

1) Stalin and Truman crossed Berlin by car. Truman assessed Stalin as following: “I can cooperate with him” However, cooperation is failed due to:

2) New position of Truman and Byrnes to Germany for

1) Idea of British Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Eden to create the “Western European block” (later, Atlantic partnership and later, NATO) in order to stop communists and draw lines of influence in Europe, 1945 >> Germany must be reconstructed and included (it was an idea), but

2) Germany was said to be a better partner than Russians

Potsdam conference, 1945: to divide Germany, and Japan War

3) Byrnes cut Stalin’s proposals for German reparations

4) Truman’s story of the atom bomb: US tested it and tried to shock Stalin

5) The only shared problem: The war against Japan became a question, but Stalin was involved to return Kuril islands lost in 1905

A Division of a Far East, summer 1945

• Byrnes came to Moscow to ask Stalin to continue a war with Japan:– He acted like Roosevelt: to find a compromise with

Molotov– Both divided Korea for North K. and South K.– He changed the American influence in Japan for the

Russian one in Romania and Bulgaria (U. S. would recognize them, Soviet Russian – a regime of MacArthur in Japan)

– USA and USSR against Japan: Soviet moved to Manchuria, U. S. dropped bombs on two Japanese towns and in August Japan was surrendered.

Kuril Islands• Stalin went

to Far East to take over Kuril islands for possible future threat from Japan

Far East: Japan, Kurils, Korea, China

• Japan was occupied by U.S. in August 1945

• Stalin got 4 Kuril islands from Japan• Korea was divided into two zones until free

elections (Kim Il Sung -Ким Ир Сен and Syngman Rhee-Ли Сын Ман)

• China continues the Civil War between Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek

Conclusion: mutual expansion and clash of interests in Germany and Iran

Iran, February 1946

• Iran supported Germany and was occupied by Soviet and British troops

• Soviet had to leave country• But: Stalin decided to reunify the Northern

Iran with Azerbaijan to have additional oil and to keep the West far from the Soviet borders

• It was failed (Feb, 1946) because Iran (Ahmad Qavam, prime minister) moved to the West and sent the question to the UN.

1946 – the year of “Cold War in writing” – the establishment of Cold War discourse

• The Joint Chiefs of Staff (US) predicted the tension between members of the Grand Alliance, January 1946 in order to get funds from US Congress.

• Kennan telegram, February 1946: aggressive Soviet policy

• Speech of W. Churchill in Fulton ( at Westminster College), March 1946: Iron Curtain exists

• Clark Clifford report, Sep, 1946: deterrence of Russians

• Novikov’ Telegram, Sep, 1946: deterrence of Americans

Clark Clifford and Kennan

Kennan Telegram

• The USSR perceives itself at perpetual war with capitalism;

• The USSR views systems of socialism and social democracy as incompatible;

• The USSR would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as allies;

• Soviet aggression was fundamentally not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with economic reality, but in historic Russian xenophobia and paranoia;

Churchill and Truman in Fulton

Nikolai Novikov, Soviet Ambassador to the UN and US

• American monopolistic capital is characterized a striving for world supremacy

• USSR's international position is currently stronger than it was in the prewar period

• The "hard-line" policy with regard to the USSR announced by Byrnes

• the prospect of war against the Soviet Union

The evaluations of Kennan’s ideas

Kennan and Clark undermined the Roosevelt approach to the Soviet Union:

Perceptions of the Soviets• a permanent aggressiveness of the USSR instead of a

rational behavior as Roosevelt claimed; • a deviate behavior of the Soviet Union instead of correct

motives in Soviet foreign policy and as result • a permanent containment of the Soviet system instead of

integration of the SU in world community >>Containment VS. roll back on all azimuths was formed finally in 1951

Cold War takes shape

1947-1951

Some facts, 1947-19501947, March – Truman doctrine speech and

1947, June – Marshall plan speech;

1947, July – Paris conference on the Marshall plan;

1947, September – Zhdanov “two camps” speech;

1948, June – Berlin blockade; Yugoslavia expelled from Cominform

1949, April – NATO was established and 1949, May – Federal Republic of Germany was established

1949, August – Soviet atomic bomb test and hydrogen bomb1949, October – Democratic Republic of Germany and PRC

came into existence;

1950, February – China-Soviet treaty of friendship was concluded

1950, June – Korean war breaks down

1950, December – a final of containment policy decision making

Decision-making: “ Mainstream” Dean Acheson, “Dissident” Henry Wallace

Decision-making: “ Mainstream” A. Zdanov

• He was put in charge of the Soviet Union cultural policy;

• In 1947, he organized the Cominform, designed to coordinate the communist parties of Europe

• 1947 speech of Zhdanov about two camps

Truman doctrine: to save the Middle EastBlack Sea, straits to Mediterranean sea

Truman doctrine, March 1947 (not to let Russian to press on Turkey) >>

Draft by Dean Acheson: global offensive and American help to free nations.Kennan was against

How to save the part of Europe? A question for the US

• June 1947 George Marshall speech– about American economic assistance to all countries,

which wanted to cooperate with USA, became the real strike for Stalin (Molotov proposed to join, however)

• Paris conference, July 1947: – Molotov proposed to change the procedure of

transferring the American money: bilateral agreements instead of American control over a national budget

– Molotov rejected the participation of Eastern European countries. >> Czechs became a problem (Masaryk)

– The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, 1949

Europe• Policy Planning Service at the DOS under

Kennan– the conception of Atlanticism became the leading in

the American political establishment. A conception of Atlantic security and military assistance to Europe>>

– Ideas: to unify W. Europe and integrate part of Germany in it and the alliance of all democratic states should be created (+Japan)

• Stalin was not satisfied with desire of the USA to integrate the Western zones of Germany in Atlantic community>> to stop it was to blackmail with closing the routes to Western Berlin, June 1948 >>

• Russian concept: the Americans were building up Europe as a base to attack the USSR and the SU must respond accordingly, therefore: unilateral action was the best tactic.

Europe

>> talks between Washington and Europeans in 1948 as to the Western block

• Brussels Treaty, March 1948 on Cooperation and collective self-defense >> USA joined

• NATO as a military alliance between the USA and Western Europe became a new reality of 1949

• Opposition of Kennan:– PPS 37: we should not build a separate Germany and

military alliance in Europe, because it diminishes the chances to build peaceful relations with Russia >>

– He was changed for Paul Nitze, the future author of NSC-63/3 of 1950

New events: Russian bomb, and Communist China 1949

• A test of the Soviet atomic bomb in August that changed the image of the Soviet Union

• Kurchatov: “We felt a happiness when we saw our fireball, because having made it our bomb, we have belittled the United States”

• Mao has done his revolution in October, 1949 • American political establishment was elaborating

the strategy of military containment in January 1950 >> the first hot event of the Cold War became Korea

Korean War, 1950-1953: the course of events

• Korea was divided into two zones of occupation –Soviet in the north part with Kim Il – Sung (Ким Ир Сен) and American in the south part with Syngman Rhee (Ли Сы Ман);

• Similar to Germany: the occupants developed the zone on their terms and the both sought to unify the country;

• 1947-Truman proposed to Stalin: “Let’s arrange the elections” (There were more population in the south); and Stalin – to withdraw the troops

• Since 1949 the clashes between zones were started, and it was clear that the zones would seek the unification on their terms.

• At the same time: February 1950 – Stalin met Mao Zedung in Moscow and they established the alliance; however,

• Stalin did not trust Mao;

Documents evidence about Stalin’s position as to the unification of Korea

• The meeting with Kim in Moscow, March 1949: Kim was asking for military aid, but Stalin avoided the answer.

and in 1950 Stalin wrote to the Soviet ambassador:

“...I understand the dissatisfaction of...Kim..., but he must understand that such a large matter in regard to South Korea....must be organized so that there would not be too great risk....

The significance of the Korean War

• What was happened in June 1950 was the first hot war of the Cold War;

• It was signalized that the East-West tension is deep and permanent;

• It has demonstrated to the Soviet Union that the USA was ready to fight against the Soviet expansion in all, even insignificant (strategically) parts of the world;

• The both sides were ready to be involved in a war against each other;

1950: containment policy

• January 1950 – Truman asked to revise the military budget and reexamine the national strategy of the US

• Nitze and Acheson drafted several ideas how to find convincing foundations for increasing the budget as the NSC policy papers >>

• NSC 68/3 – there is a threat from USSR >> we need a high military budget for containment of the USSR

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