Day 4 – The Cold War

The Cold War dominated American Foreign Policy from 1947 to roughly 1989

• Virtually all of American Foreign Policy was framed in Cold War Terms
• Economic and Security policy was seen in Cold War Terms

• Provide economic stability and growth to maintain happy citizens
• Promote the integration of the Western Economies to bind them together in opposition to the Soviets

• Block Soviet expansion through military alliances

How did America view the Cold War?

A Manichean struggle of good vs. evil

NSC - 68 selected quotes

• The Soviets were seen as a pure form of evil
• The US was seen as a force of good

Containment as the dominant policy doctrine for the Cold War

The United States would "contain" the Soviet Union

This was first formulated by George Kennan in the famous "Long Telegram"

The original Kennan version was based on two ideas

• The key to world domination was control of the major productive centers of the world (N. America, W. Europe, the Trans-Ural region, Japan, and the Middle East)
• The USSR's economic system could never compete with the West

If the USSR was prevented from expanding into the key areas, it would collapse

This basic doctrine evolved into two schools

"Soft" Containment -

• A limited effort to prevent the USSR from controlling the major areas of the world
• This leaves the rest of the world to the USSR if they want to go after it
• The idea is that the areas outside of the major productive areas cost more to hold than they are worth
• The goal was to be very strong in N. America, Europe, and Japan and to keep the Middle East out of the hands of the Soviets

• This is limited in geographic scope and clearly defines important areas

"Hard" Containment -

• The US must stop the USSR at every point of its attempts to expand
• The "domino theory" - if one state falls, the next state will go soon
• This involves a major global commitment to stop the USSR everywhere
• It places all conflict, everywhere in a Cold War context

Hard Containment comes to dominate most thinking

The trigger is the "loss" of China and the Korean War

• The Chinese communists win the civil war in China
• Shortly after, the North Koreans invade South Korea
• Soft Containment says Korea is peripheral
• Hard Containment says Korea is the first domino
• Hard Containment wins the day and the US dives in with both feet

Hard containment dominates and causes the US to get involved in many conflicts around the world.

Vietnam weakens this position when the US is defeated by the North Vietnamese

Hard Containment has a brief resurgence under Reagan

• The idea was that the USSR was fundamentally a weak system and it could be run into the ground
• US defense spending increases and new programs were intended to push the USSR to the breaking point and cause its collapse

This is a high risk strategy

• What happened? - the Soviet Union collapses
• What could have happened? - the Soviets could have decided to go out with a bang and invaded Western Europe, triggering WWIII

Significant features of the Cold War:

The world is divided into three groups of states:

"First World" – The US and its advanced industrial allies

"Second World" – The USSR and its advanced industrial allies

"Third World" – Pretty much everyone else

There are essentially two world powers that must be dealt with: a bipolar system

Each of the two superpowers constructs a system of institutions to govern its sphere

• The US sphere is governed by the organizations created at the end of WWII
• The Soviets create a similar set of institutions for their sphere based on communist principles
• Non-aligned states often join organizations from these two spheres in economic areas

The exception is the UN – both sides participate in the UN

• This creates problems for managing collective security
• The US and USSR both have vetoes
• In practice (with the exception of the Korean War) the two sides veto any action they see as benefiting the other
• Global governance is problematic as a result – the UN is weakened by East – West divisions

Nuclear Weapons

• The US and USSR had, at their height, enough nuclear weapons to exterminate all human life on the planet several times over

• Once nuclear weapons are fully deployed the dominant strategy for both sides becomes deterrence:
• Both sides have so many weapons even a successful sneak attack can't get them all
• Surviving weapons can still exterminate the other side
• This comes to be known as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)
• The basic idea is that no one can win a nuclear war - so starting one is a bad idea

This has an important consequence:

• Conventional forces heavily favored the Warsaw Pact
• It was widely understood (by both sides) that a conventional invasion of Europe would be met with the NATO use of battlefield (tactical) nuclear weapons
• Virtually every battle simulation involving the use of battlefield nuclear weapons escalated into a strategic nuclear exchange in which both sides were annihilated
• The short version is that conventional war was essentially un-winnable in Europe from the early 1960's on - and both sides knew it

The non-aligned movement gains momentum:

Several major Third World states refuse to take sides in the Cold War

• They want an independent path
• Brazil, India, and Egypt all play a major role in creating the non-aligned movement
• The goal is a path that does not require siding with the superpowers
• The states try to have cordial relations with both sides in the Cold War

The non-aligned movement attempts to create several institutions to give voice to their view:

• The Group of 77 – a group of non-aligned states in the UN that want an alternative to the world economic order (they call for a "New International Economic Order") that focuses on development issues
• The Non-Aligned Conference – a regular meeting of non-aligned states to discuss relevant global issues

The basic problem is that no non-aligned state can match the power of the superpowers

Collectively the non-aligned movement lacks the power to have much impact on the Cold War

The effects of the Cold War on global institutions:

The UN is unable to act in areas of disagreement between the superpowers

The UN General Assembly voting is clearly divided between East, West, and the non-aligned movement

The UN Security Council is hampered by the US and Soviet vetoes

The global economic institutions that exist only work in the Western block with some non-aligned participation

• The economic progress of the world is very uneven
• Western allied states become more integrated and see more economic success
• Soviet bloc states progress to a point, then begin to fall behind in the late 1960’s
• The developing world is largely left out of this process – many states stagnate

The result:

• A highly interdependent and wealthy set of industrial states in Europe and North America (Japan is also part of this group)
• A group of new industrial states who experience strong economic growth (newly industrializing countries, NIC’s)
• A group of slow growing or stagnant states in the Soviet bloc
• A group of states treading water or declining in the developing world
• These four groups gradually emerge through the Cold War period