Case Study: Cold War Seismograph
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were left as the world's two major powers; they became known as superpowers. After WWII, each superpower attempted to extend its influence, quickly leading to a "Cold War" – emerging first in Europe and then in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The Cold War was "cold" only in the sense that the two Superpowers never confronted one another directly in open warfare. But their global competition led to crises and conflicts on every continent, dominating world events for the next 45 years.
Directions: Read through the following events that occurred during the cold war. After reading complete the form on OneNote deciding who was more responsible for the conflict of the Cold War.
Event 1: Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of England: Iron Curtain Speech
On March 5, 1946, Sir Winston Churchill visited Westminster College as the Green Lecturer and delivered "Sinews of Peace," a message heard round the world that went down in history as the "Iron Curtain Speech." |
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow…Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy."
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Event 2: Acheson's Domino Theory and President Truman introduces the Truman Doctrine also known as containment.
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In a meeting between Congressmen and State Department officials, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson articulated what would later become known as the domino theory. He stated that more was at stake than Greece and Turkey, for if those two key states should fall, communism would likely spread south to Iran and as far east as India.
Addressing a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman asked for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Greece and Turkey and established a doctrine, aptly characterized as the Truman Doctrine, which would guide U.S. diplomacy for the next 40 years. President Truman declared, "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of America's containment policy: the United States would not overturn Communism where it already existed, but it would take steps to prevent Communism from spreading any further. |
Event 3: The Marshall Plan and Map that shows which European countries benefited the most
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In the speech Marshall outlined the problem: "Europe's requirements are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character." He then suggested a solution: that the European nations themselves set up a program for the reconstruction of Europe, with United States assistance.
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Event 4: The Berlin Airlift and the Division of Germany
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At the Yalta Conference, before WWII ended, leaders from the US, the Soviet Union, and England agreed to divide Germany into four separate zones of occupation, controlled by the three allies and France. In 1948, the Western allies took the first steps to merge their zones of occupation in Germany. Stalin reacted by closing all Western highway and railroad links to Berlin, which was located in East Germany. The Western allies began a massive airlift to feed and supply the city. Within a year, Stalin admitted defeat and lifted the blockade.
In 1949, the three Western zones of occupation were officially merged into a new independent state, known as the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Stalin responded by turning the Soviet zone into the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). |
Event 5: Formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact
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In 1949, the United States, Canada, and ten Western European countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to protect Western Europe from Soviet aggression. With NATO, the US pledged to defend Western Europe with its nuclear weapons. SOVIET leaders responded in 1955 by creating the Warsaw Pact with their Eastern European allies. When Hungary tried to drop out from the pact, Soviet forces moved in to crush the uprisings.
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Event 6: The Korean War (1950 - 1053)
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After Mao’s victory in China, Western leaders feared communism was on the march. Like Germany, Korea had been divided in 1945 into a Communist and non-Communist state; Korea was divided at the 38th parallel, with the communists in the North and an American backed government in the South. In 1950, Communist North Koreans invaded South Korea. President Truman and other Western leaders believed it was necessary to take a firm stand against Communism.
Under a UN resolution, the United States and other countries intervened and forced the Communists back to North Korea. UN forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, then invaded North Korea. When they approached the Chinese boarder, Communist China intervened. General MacArthur thought of using nuclear weapons against China, but President Truman refused to consider this option. Instead, he removed MacArthur from his command. In 1953, a compromise finally ended the war, leaving North and South Korea divided exactly as hey had been before the conflict began. |
Event 7: The Cuban Missile Crisis
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“We went eyeball-to-eyeball with the Russians, and the other man blinked!”
Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet leader) and American President John F. Kennedy After Bay of Pigs invasion, the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba. After U-2 flights Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba on October 22 until the Soviet Union removed its missiles. On October 28, the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles, defusing one of the most dangerous confrontations of the Cold War. In exchange for the Soviets removing their missiles, the United States agreed to stop trying to overthrow Castro and to remove American missiles in Turkey. |
Event 8: The Arms Race and the Space Race
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In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bombs. Soon both the United States and Soviet Union also developed far more destructive hydrogen bombs and the missiles to deliver them. Americans and Soviet leaders quickly realized that these weapons could hardly ever be used because of their immense destructiveness. Instead nuclear weapons served as deterrents, preventing the Superpowers from attacking one another. The Superpowers became locked in a new "Balance of Terror," which forced them to find other channels for competition.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (under John F. Kennedy & Lyndon Baines Johnson) set out the following formula for the number of nuclear weapons needed by the US: If a country (the US or USSR) had and deployed 200 nuclear weapons, within the 1st hour, they would’ve killed 75% of the population and destroyed 50% of industry of their enemy. This would keep MAD (mutually assured destruction) certain and keep both sides from using nuclear wars. By 1986, the United States had 1919 missile launchers with 11,740 nuclear warheads attached. The Soviet Union had 2504 launchers and 9,980 nuclear warheads. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. This launched something known as the “space race.” |