Cold War ( 1945 - 1991)

The Cold War was the conflict between the United States and its NATO allies - loosely described as the West - and the former Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies - loosely described as the Eastern Bloc. A full-scale "east versus west" war never actually broke out, hence the metaphor of a "cold" war, rather than a "hot" shooting war. Instead, the conflict was fought primarily on economic, philosophic, cultural, social, and political levels. It continued from the end of World War II until the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Except for the Korean War, Vietnam War and the conflict in Afghanistan, the aggression between those two parts of the world never shaped in an armed conflict, but was conducted by or against surrogates and through spies and traitors which were working undercover. In each of those conflicts, at least one of the major powers operated mainly by arming or funding surrogates. Because of that, the population of the major powers were rarely directly impacted by this "war".

In the war between the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. a major arena was the strategy of technology. This cold war also involved covert conflict, through acts of espionage. Beyond the actual fighting and killing that went on through intelligence services, the Cold War was heavily manifest in the concerns about nuclear weapons and the wars which could be fought with them, as well as in the propaganda wars between the United States and the USSR. It was far from clear, going through these times, that global nuclear war would not result from the smaller arenas of conflict, giving each of them an added degree of concern. These pressures impacted many aspects of life throughout the world, much more so than the actual fighting going on between intelligence services.

One major hot spot of conflict was Germany, particularly Berlin. Arguably, the most vivid symbol of the Cold War was the Berlin Wall, isolating West Berlin (the portion controlled by West Germany and allied with France, England and the United States) from East Germany, which completely surrounded it. Many East Germans risked death attempting to cross the defenses surrounding the wall to reach freedom in West Berlin, and many were killed in the attempt. President Ronald Reagan's challenge "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" in 1988 seemed mere grandstanding, yet the wall was torn down within two years -- not by Premier Gorbachev's order, but by the citizens of East and West Berlin.


Causes of the Cold War:

A major difference of opinion between the two sides was over the merits of the political philosophy of communism. The West, which opposed communism, called itself the "Free World" - arguably a misnomer, as many of the nations on the Western side of the conflict were dictatorships. In some cases, the United States overthrew democratic governments and replaced them with dictatorships friendly to its interests, such as Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973.

The cold war was waged through attempts to gain influence over intermediary countries, with popular conception making much of spies and traitors working undercover. The Korean War, the Vietnam War and the conflicts in Afghanistan, Grenada, Chad, Angola, Cuba and of course the Middle East were aspects of the Cold War. The war was also fought by intelligence organizations like the CIA (United States), MI6 (United Kingdom), Mossad (Israel), BND (West Germany), STASI (East Germany) and the KGB (USSR).


The End of the Cold War:

Enormous defense spending by America (the implications of which were first hinted at by President Eisenhower's speech on the Military-industrial complex) under President Ronald Reagan is often seen as a major factor in the end of the war. According to this theory, the robust Western economies could absorb the expenses of programs such as the Star Wars missile defense but the Eastern bloc countries crippled themselves trying to match them. However, Reagan's policy towards the Soviet Union defined Eastern bloc governments as "totalitarian", under a doctrine which denied that such regimes could ever undergo internal transformation towards democracy. Thus Reagan's foreign policy was never intended to bring about the changes which actually occurred in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Corrupt governments and citizens' desire for greater personal freedom and greater individual wealth were also major factors in the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries.

Others argue that the Soviet Union's collapse was already inevitable. There is certainly evidence that the CIA played up Soviet military power through the 1980s.


The Effects of the Cold War:

The United States believed that the Soviet Union's expansion threatened the developing nations of the world. So, in 1949 President Truman and Congress approved nearly $400 million for technical development programs in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The goal of this Point Four Program was to modernize and strengthen developing nations and discourage the growth of communism.

Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost eliminated the strict censorship practiced for hundreds of years. Glasnost stands for openness, and Soviet citizens were now allowed to speak openly about their country's problems. Perestroika, or "restructuring," was Gorbachev's attempt to end the inefficiency and corruption in government.

The United States and other Western nations decided to form alliances against possible Soviet attempts to extend their sphere of influence. In April 1949 the United States signed the North Atlantic Treaty. Members agreed that an attack on one of them would be considered an attack on all of them. The Soviets later formed an opposing alliance known as The Warsaw Pact. Because of the arms race many countries in the world now own nuclear weapons.



Timeline of the Cold War:



1940s


1945: February 4-11-- Yalta Conference Cold War Begins

1945: August 6 -- United States first used atomic bomb in war (A bomb was dropped on Hiroshima + Nagasaki)

1945: August 8 -- Russia enters war against Japan

1945: August 14 -- Japanese surrender End of World War II

1946: March -- Winston Churchill delivers "Iron Curtain" Speech

1947: March -- Truman declares active role in Greek Civil War

1947: June -- Marshall Plan is announced

1948: February -- Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia

1948: June 24 -- Berlin Blockade begins

1949: July -- NATO ratified

1949: May 12 -- Berlin Blockade ends

1949: September -- Mao Zedong, a Communist, takes control of China

1949: September -- Soviets explode first atomic bomb


1950s


1950: February -- Joe McCarthy begins Communist witch hunt

1950: June -- Korean War begins

1951: January 12 -- Federal Civil Defense Administration established

1953: June 19 -- Rosenberg executions

1953: July -- Korean War ends

1954: March -- KGB established

1954 -- CIA helps overthrow unfriendly regimes in Iran and Guatemala

1954: July -- Vietnam split at 17th parallel

1955: May -- Warsaw Pact formed

1956: October - November -- Rebellion put down in Communist Hungary. Egypt took control of Suez Canal; U.S. refused to help take it back.

1957: October 4 -- Sputnik launched into orbit

1958: November -- Khrushchev demands withdrawal of troops from Berlin

1959: January -- Cuba taken over by Fidel Castro

1959: September -- Khrushchev visits United States; denied access to Disneyland


1960s


1960: May -- Soviet Union reveals that U.S. spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory

1960: November -- John F. Kennedy elected President

1961: April -- Bay of Pigs invasion

1961: July -- Kennedy requests 25% spending increase for military

1961: August 13 -- Berlin border closed

1961: August 17 -- Construction of Berlin Wall begins

1962: -- U.S. involvement in Vietnam increased

1962: October -- Cuban Missile Crisis

1963: July -- Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified

1963: November -- President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas

1964: August -- Gulf of Tonkin incident

1965: April -- U.S. Marines sent to Dominican Republic to fight Communism

1965: July -- Announcement of dispatching of 150,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam

1968: January -- North Korea captured U.S.S. Pueblo

1968: August -- Soviet troops crush Czechoslovakian revolt

1969: July 20 -- Apollo 11 lands on the moon


1970s


1970: April -- President Nixon extends Vietnam War to Cambodia

1972: July -- SALT I signed

1973: January -- Cease fire in Vietnam between North Vietnam and United States

1973: September -- United States helps overthrow Chile government

1973: October -- Egypt and Syria attack Israel; Egypt requests Soviet aid

1974: August -- President Nixon resigns

1975: April 17 -- North Vietnam defeats South Vietnam

1979: July -- SALT II signed

1979: November -- Shah of Iran overthrown; Iranian Hostage Crisis


1980s


1983: -- President Reagan proposes Strategic Defense Initiative

1983: October -- U.S. troops overthrow regime in Grenada

1985: -- Iran-Contra Affair (arms sold to Iran, profits used to support contras in Nicaragua)

1985: -- Mikhail Gorbachev ascends to power in Soviet Union

1986: -- Gorbachev ends economic aid to Soviet satellites

1986: October -- Reagan and Gorbachev resolve to remove all intermediate nuclear missiles from Europe

1986: November -- Iran-Contra Affair revealed to public

1987: October -- Reagan and Gorbachev agree to remove all medium and short-range nuclear missiles by signing treaty

1989: January -- Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan

1989: June -- China puts down protests for democracy; Poland becomes independent

1989: September -- Hungary becomes independent

1989: November -- Berlin Wall falls

1989: December -- Communist governments fall in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania; Soviet empire ends


1990s


1990: March -- Lithuania becomes independent

1990: May 29 -- Boris Yeltsin elected to presidency of Russia

1990: October 3 -- Germany reunited

1991: April -- Warsaw Pact ends

1991: August -- End of Soviet Union, Cold War Ends