The Cold War
The Cold War was a post World War II struggle between the United States and its allies and the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between the two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in an escalating ideological rivalry.
Background
After a century of friendship, Americans and Russians quarreled over Asian questions in the 1890s, and became enemies in 1917 when the communists seized power, established the Soviet Union, and declared ideological war on the capitalist nations of the West. The United States intervened in the Soviet Union, sending some 10,000 troops between 1918 and 1920, and then refused to recognize the new state until 1933. The two countries fought against Germany during World War II, but this alliance began to dissolve in 1944-1945, when the Russian leader Joseph Stalin, seeking Soviet security, used the Red Army to control much of Eastern Europe. U.S. President Harry S. Truman opposed Stalin's policy and moved to unite Europe under American leadership. Mistrust grew as both sides broke wartime agreements. Stalin failed to honor pledges to hold free elections in Eastern Europe. Truman refused to honor promises to send reparations from the defeated Germany to help rebuild the war-devastated Soviet Union.
Moves and Countermoves
U.S. officials, concerned over Soviet pressures against Iran and Turkey, interpreted a 1946 speech by Stalin as declaring ideological war against the West. In 1947 the president proposed the Truman Doctrine, which had two objectives: to send U.S. aid to anticommunist forces in Greece and Turkey, and to create a public consensus so Americans would be willing to fight the cold war. He achieved both goals. That same year, journalist Walter Lippmann popularized the term cold war in a book of the same name. In Congress there was a series of highly publicized inquiries into pro-communist activity in the United States. The best-known investigator, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, gave his name to an era of intense anticommunism. In 1948 the United States launched the $13 billion Marshall Plan to rebuild Western and Central Europe. When Stalin responded by extending his control over Eastern Europe and threatening the West's position in Germany, Truman helped to create a military alliance - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - and to establish an independent West Germany.
The cold war widened in 1949-1950, when the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb and the communists in China conquered their vast homeland. The Chinese Communists signed an alliance with Stalin, but the United States refused to recognize the new regime. In Japan, then under U.S. control, economic development was accelerated to counter Asian communism. When Communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, Truman sent the American military into action (Korean War). The conflict ended three years later in a truce that left the prewar border intact. In 1953 Stalin died and Truman left office, but both sides continued to struggle over Europe. The USSR tried to protect Communist East Germany from serious population loss by building the Berlin Wall in 1961. Each superpower also attempted to gain influence over emerging nations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. A serious crisis arose in 1962 when the USSR placed missiles in Cuba, their new ally. President John F. Kennedy threatened nuclear retaliation, and the Soviets withdrew the missiles in return for Kennedy's promise not to invade Cuba.
Sobered by this crisis, the Soviets were also weakened when the Chinese split from Moscow and the East Europeans grew restless. Nationalism was proving stronger than communism. The United States, meanwhile, was fighting the Vietnam War, a bloody military action that cost 57,000 American lives in a failed effort to retain South Vietnam. In addition, the postwar economic superiority of the United States was challenged by Japan and West Germany. By 1973 the two stumbling superpowers had agreed on a policy of détente; it was an attempt to cool the costly arms race and slow their competition in the Third World. Détente ended by 1980, however, as Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to save a Marxist regime. Newly elected U.S. President Ronald Reagan began a massive arms buildup and new challenges to Soviet-supported groups in the emerging nations.
The End of the Cold War
In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev, representing a new generation of Soviet leaders, came to power in the USSR. He and Reagan agreed to cut back the superpowers' presence in Europe and to moderate ideological competition. Tensions eased as Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan. In the early 1990s Gorbachev largely cooperated with the U.S. military effort to defeat Iraq's aggression in the Middle East. The cold war ended in Europe as the newly freed East European nations elected non-communist governments and the two Germanys became one, the arms race was cut back, and ideological competition decreased as communism was discredited.
