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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR
We ended Unit 7 by talking about how the United States emerged from World War II as the most
powerful nation on earth. But there was a group of folks who were not so happy about the
ascendancy of the democratic United States, and those folks lived in the Soviet Union . As you can
imagine, after the war was over, everyone wanted to go back to normal life, but the growing
tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union would make that impossible.
So instead of going back to normal, what we got was the Cold War , which when being defined, is
a conflict between two belligerents in which neither engages in open warfare with the other. In other
words, a Cold War is more of a battle of ideologies than a war with weapons.
But the tension was so thick that it really could have erupted into actual fighting at any moment.
There had been tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union stretching all the way back to the
Russian Revolution in 1917. From the moment of its birth, the United States could see that
communism was ugly baby, and it needed to stay in its crib.
But the ugly baby of Soviet Communism would patently not stay in its crib, and wanted to crawl
everywhere it could and claim whatever it grabbed. The United States, however, was staunchly
opposed to this kind of authoritarian communism and instead wanted to make the world into a
democratic capitalist utopia.
Both of these ideologies are expansionist by nature—each of them can’t rest until the world is remade
in its image . That was the central question of the Cold War: would the world be remade into the
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR cont’d.
image of Soviet Communism or would the world be remade into the image of American democratic
capitalism ?
The mistrust between these two powers began even before World War II had ended.
Remember, the U.S. and Russia were allies during that war. But a few events sparked mutual
suspicion and distrust.
First, the Allies agreed that when the war was over, central and eastern European countries would hold
free elections . But Joseph Stalin , leader of the Soviet Union, decided he’d rather keep
Soviet troops stationed in those countries after the war and therefore create a kind of buffer zone
between Russia and Germany.
After all, in both World Wars, Germany had done immense damage to Russia, and so such a desire
is easy to understand. But the problem was, that was not the agreement they made. Therefore, when
Stalin kept his troops in those nations, basically turning them into communist satellite states of
the Soviet Union whose sole reason for existence was to serve the purposes of the Soviet Union,
the U.S. saw this as a flagrant violation of their agreement to allow these countries the right of
self-determination , and more to the point, democratic governments.
Then there was even more distrust when it came to the postwar agreement for the city of Berlin . One of
the provisions of the treaty that ended the war is that Germany would be divided into four occupation
zones: one for the British , one for the French , one for the Soviets , and
one for the United States . But zoom in further and we see that they also divided up
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR cont’d.
Berlin according to that arrangement as well, and that made things complicated because that city sits squarely in
Soviet territory.
These German occupation zones were intended to be a temporary peacetime necessity, but the eastern
section which belonged to the Soviets quickly became just another communist state. The Soviets
intended to keep Germany weak so they would pose less of a threat and furthermore,
they wanted to extract reparations from them.
But the Western powers wanted to help Germany become strong again, especially economically,
because they saw a revitalized Germany as one of the keys to a stable central Europe. So it was clear
by this point that there was a significant political and ideological division running straight through
Europe. Winston Churchill famously said that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
SUMMARIZE the notes above in your own words. (2-4 sentences)
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
HOW THE U.S. RESPONDED TO SOVIET EXPANSIONISM
The first term you need to know is containment , and it’s exactly what it sounds like: many
resources were poured into containing the spread of communism. To this end, president
Harry Truman issued what became known as the Truman Doctrine which essentially
advocated containment of communism by lending support to any country that was threatened
by Soviet communism. Truman issued this doctrine as a result of Soviet pressure on Turkey and
Greece to accommodate Soviet goals. Congress agreed to send $400 million in economic
aid and military support to fend off the Soviets.
A second illustration of the Truman Doctrine was the Marshall Plan . It was developed by Secretary
of State George Marshall and essentially allocated almost $ 13 billion in financial aid for European
countries to rebuild . This was a key strategic move because as these countries were struggling to
rebuild , the communists seemed to have a good plan to support them.
The rationale behind the Marshall Plan was that if nations had a healthy economy , they would more
likely opt for a democracy rather than communism, and in many cases it worked.
Of particular annoyance to Stalin was the U.S. meddling in Berlin . Because Berlin was
deep inside Soviet occupation territory, and because western powers kept west Berlin alive with the hope of
democracy , Stalin decided to block their entry to the western part of the city in something that became
known as the Berlin Blockade which included Soviet blockade of canals, roads, and railways by
which western powers supplied western Berlin.
The goal here was to absorb West Berlin into the Soviet occupation. But in response to the blockade, the
U.S. organized the Berlin Airlift which included over 200,000 flights in U.S. and Allied airplanes to carry
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
HOW THE U.S. RESPONDED TO SOVIET EXPANSIONISM cont’d.
supplies into western Berlin. The Berlin Airlift effectively prevented the Soviets from
taking over the city.
Another illustration of the U.S. commitment to containment was the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization otherwise known as NATO . The NATO member nations entered a military
alliance to resist any aggressive actions of the Soviet Union. Not to be outdone by such an alliance, the Soviets
formed a counter-alliance called the Warsaw Pact which did the same thing for the communist nations
of Eastern Europe.
SUMMARIZE the notes above in your own words. (2-4 sentences)
NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IN THE COLD WAR
Another key feature of the Cold War was nuclear proliferation. Another way to say this is that there
was a fierce arms race between the United States and the Soviets. Remember that the United States had
developed the first iteration of the atomic bomb in 1945. Thanks to Soviet infiltration in
American intelligence agencies, the Soviets were able to test their first atomic bomb in 1949.
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IN THE COLD WAR cont’d.
So Truman ordered the development of a more powerful hydrogen bomb which was completed and
tested in 1952. The next year the Soviets tested their first hydrogen bomb.
The point here is that as the U.S. and the Soviet Union stockpiled increasing amounts of increasingly
powerful nuclear bombs, the possibility that the world would get blown to a smoking husk of carbon
ash became very real. But both sides came to understand that even though they couldn’t stop producing
these weapons, they could never use them because to do so would result in mutual assured destruction .
SUMMARIZE the notes above in your own words. (2-4 sentences)
PROXY WARS: KOREA
We’ve been talking about the Cold War as an ideological battle that never erupted into actual
fighting , but that’s not quite accurate, because there were many proxy wars that occurred
over the course of the Cold War. A proxy is one thing that stands in for another thing. So these proxy
wars had real fighting, but not directly between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Korea was a Japanese colony before the end of World War II, but after the war it was divided along
the 38 th parallel. The Soviets administered the affairs of the north , and the U.S. administered
the affairs of the south .
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
PROXY WARS: KOREA cont’d.
In June of 1950, North Koreans invaded South Korea using Soviet munitions and
supplies. The United Nations sent a whole host of troops to support the South, mainly made up of
American troops. Under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur , the UN troops
pushed back the North Koreans nearly to the southern border of China .
China sent troops to repel the U.N. troops back below the 38th parallel. That’s basically how the
war ended, which is to say, Korea was in the exact same position as it was when it began: divided at the
38th parallel with communists in the north and U.S. allies in the South.
But what you need to know about this war is that it illustrates two things. First, it was a proxy
war between the U.S. and Soviet Union, and second, it was a direct result of Truman’s containment policy.
SUMMARIZE the notes above in your own words. (2-4 sentences)
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UNIT 8 TOPIC 2
The Cold War H E I M L E R S H I S T O R Y. C O M
THEME : America in the World
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
RESPOND to the learning objective with an evidence-based, argumentative thesis.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE : Explain the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
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