Post World War II...The Cold War

Thesis Statement

The Post WWII era has been dominated by

the Cold War and events today are reflective

of Cold War dynamics (propaganda, us vs.

them, good vs. evil, UN Security Council

votes on Iran, Syria, North Korea .)

What is “The Cold War?”

The Cold War was a state of tension and hostility between nations aligned with the United States on one side and the Soviet Union on the other, without armed conflict between the major rivals. However many "cold war battles”, took place worldwide. The Korean and Vietnam wars are two examples.

What...THE COLD WAR

• During the war, the Soviet Union and the nations of the West had

cooperated to defeat Nazi Germany. After the war’s end, the Allies set

up councils made up of foreign ministers from Britain, France, China,

the United States, and the Soviet Union to iron out the peace

agreements.

• The nature of the governments of Eastern Europe caused divisions to

deepen between the former Allies.

• Conflicting ideologies and mutual distrust soon led to the conflict known as

the Cold War.

What was the Berlin Wall?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZCwlKiiZrs

What ...The United Nations • In April 1945, delegates from 50 nations convened in San Francisco to

draft a charter for the United Nations (UN). The UN would play a greater

role in world affairs than did its predecessor, the League of Nations.

• Under the UN Charter, each of the member nations has one vote in the

General Assembly. A much smaller body called the Security Council has

greater power. Each of its five permanent members—the United States,

the Soviet Union (today Russia), Britain, France, and China—has the

right to veto any council decision.

What ...The United Nations

• The goal was to give these great powers the authority to ensure the

peace. The Security Council has the power to apply economic sanctions

or send a peace-keeping military force to try to resolve disputes.

• Differences among the nations on the Security Council, most notably

the United States and the Soviet Union, have often kept the UN from

taking action. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, more

peacekeeping delegations have been approved.

What ...The United Nations

• The UN’s work would go far beyond peacekeeping. The organization would take

on many world problems—from preventing the outbreak of disease and improving

education to protecting refugees and helping nations to develop economically.

• UN agencies like the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural

Organization have provided aid for millions of people around the world.

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and Warsaw Pact

• Cold War confrontation began in Europe, where the two superpowers’ armies

confronted each other after World War II.

• Each superpower formed a European military alliance made up of the nations

that it occupied or protected.

• The United States led the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, in

Western Europe.

• The Soviet Union led the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe.

• The two alliances in Europe faced each other along the Iron Curtain, the tense line

between the democratic West and the communist East.

Cold War ...The Nuclear Arms

Race • One of the most terrifying aspects of the Cold War was the arms race that began right after

World War II.

• At first, the United States was the only nuclear power.

• By 1949, however, the Soviet Union had also developed nuclear weapons.

• By 1953, both sides had developed hydrogen bombs, which are much more destructive than

atomic bombs.

• Both sides engaged in a race to match each other’s new weapons. The result was a “balance

of terror.” Mutually assured destruction—in which each side knew that the other side

would itself be destroyed if it launched its weapons—discouraged nuclear war.

• Still, the world’s people lived in constant fear of nuclear doom.

Cold War Threat... Nuclear War

• American and Soviet arms control agreements led to an era of détente (daytahnt), or relaxation

of tensions, during the 1970s.

• The American strategy under détente was to restrain the Soviet Union through diplomatic

agreements rather than by military means. The era of détente ended in 1979, when the

Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

• By the late 1960s, Britain, France, and China had developed their own nuclear weapons.

• In 1968, many nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).urther. These

nations agreed not to develop nuclear weapons or to stop the proliferation, or spread, of

nuclear weapons.

Cold War Battle...The Korean War On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s

Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south.

This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War.

By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were

concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself.

After some early back-and-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted

with nothing to show for them. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort

of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia

and China–or even, as some warned, World War III.

The Chinese sent 1 million troops into Korea in October 1950.

Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their

lives during the war. The Korean peninsula is still divided today.

Cold War Battle...The Vietnam War

Southeast Asia’s wars were, for many local participants, nationalist struggles against foreign domination.

Like Korea, however, Southeast Asia eventually played a part in the global Cold War.

After 1954, (the French were giving up colonial control of Indochina) the struggle for Vietnam became part of the

Cold War.

At an international conference that year, Western and communist powers agreed to a temporary division of

Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh communists controlled North Vietnam. A non communist government led by Ngo

Dinh Diem supported by the United States, ruled South Vietnam. The agreement called for elections to

reunite the two Vietnams. These elections were never held, largely because the Americans and Ngo Dinh Diem

feared that the Communists would win.

By the early 1960s, communist guerrilla fighters had appeared in the jungles of South Vietnam. Many saw their

fight as a nationalist struggle to liberate Vietnam from foreign domination. Others viewed it as the struggle

between communist and non communist forces.

Cold War Battle...Vietnam War • American foreign policy planners saw the situation in Vietnam as part of the global Cold

War.

• They developed the domino theory—the view that a communist victory in South Vietnam

would cause non communist governments across Southeast Asia to fall to communism,

like a row of dominoes.

• Ho Chi Minh remained determined to unite Vietnam under communist rule. At first, the

United States sent only supplies and military advisors to South Vietnam. Later, it sent

thousands of troops, turning a local struggle into a major Cold War conflict.

• Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964. The resolution

authorized the President to take all necessary measures to prevent further aggression in

Southeast Asia.

Vietnam ...continued

• After the resolution passed, the United States began bombing targets in North Vietnam.

Eventually, more than 500,000 American troops were committed to the war. At the same

time, both the Soviet Union and China sent aid—but no troops—to help North Vietnam.

• Like the French in Vietnam, America faced a guerrilla war. The close connections between

guerrilla fighters and the villagers turned the Vietnamese villages themselves into military

targets. Supplies for the guerrillas came from the north, following trails that wound through the

jungles of neighboring Cambodia and Laos. In response, American aircraft and ground

troops crossed the borders of these nations, drawing them into the war.

• Despite massive American support, South Vietnam failed to defeat the communist

guerrillas and their North Vietnamese allies.

• The Us pulled troops out in 1973 and by 1975 all of Vietnam was under communist control.

Cold War...Asian and African Independence movements

• Southeast Asian and African wars were, for many local participants, nationalist struggles

against foreign domination...eventually they all played a part in the global Cold War.

• During this period, European colonies in Africa and Asia demanded independence.

• As colonies battled for independence, liberation leaders and guerrillas frequently sought

help from one or the other Cold War power.

• On occasion, the Cold War erupted into “shooting wars,” especially in Asia. Both Korea and

Vietnam were torn by brutal conflicts in which the United States, the Soviet Union, and China

played crucial roles.

• More commonly, however, the superpowers provided weapons, training, or other aid to

opposing forces in Asia, Africa, or Latin America.

Cold War... Latin America

• Throughout much of Latin America, reactionary oligarchies ruled through their alliances

with the military elite and United States.

• Although the nature of the U.S. role in the region was established many years before the

Cold War, the Cold War gave U.S. interventionism a new ideological tinge.

• By the 1960s, Marxists gained increasing influence throughout the regions, prompting

fears in the United States that Latin American instability posed a threat to U.S. national security.

• Throughout the Cold War years, the U.S. acted as a barrier to socialist revolutions and

targeted populist and nationalist governments that were aided by the communists.

• The CIA overthrew other governments suspected of turning pro communist.

• Future Latin American revolutionaries shifted to guerrilla tactics, particularly following the

Cuban Revolution.

• Overthrowing such regimes would require a war, rather than a simple CIA operation.

Cold War...Latin America

Argentina, Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, Honduras,

Guatemala, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia,

México are examples of countries in Latin America in

which the United States has intervened. The level of

intervention has ranged from political assassinations

to monetary/military aid to right wing extremists or

anyone who identified as an opponent of communism.

Cold War ...Cuban Missile Crisis The most serious Cold War conflict in the Western Hemisphere involved the Latin American island nation of

Cuba.

In the 1950s, Fidel Castro organized an armed rebellion against the corrupt dictator who then ruled Cuba. By 1959,

Castro had led his guerrilla army to victory and set about transforming the country. This transformation is

known as the Cuban Revolution. Castro sought the support of the Soviet Union. In addition, Castro severely

restricted Cubans’ political freedom.

The United States attempted to bring down the communist regime next door. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy

supported an invasion attempt by U.S.-trained Cuban exiles. The Bay of Pigs Invasion,quickly ended in

failure when Castro’s forces captured the invaders. The United States imposed a trade embargo on Cuba

that remains in effect today.

In 1962, the Soviet Union sent nuclear missiles to Cuba. President Kennedy responded by imposing a naval

blockade that prevented further Soviet shipments. Kennedy demanded that the Soviet Union remove its

nuclear missiles from Cuba, and for a few tense days, the world faced a risk of nuclear war over the issue.

Finally, however, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the Soviet missiles, and war was

averted.

Cold War ...The Space Race

• The Space Race was a competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States

(USA) for supremacy in space exploration.

• Between 1957 and 1975, the Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining

firsts in space exploration.

• It effectively began with the Soviet launch of the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite on 4 October

1957, and concluded with the co-operative Apollo-Soyuz Test Project human spaceflight

mission in July 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project came to symbolize détente, a partial

easing of strained relations between the USSR and the US. The Soviets put the first man in

space and the Americans put the first man on the moon.

• The Space Race sparked unprecedented increases in spending on education and pure

research, which accelerated scientific advancements and led to beneficial spin-off technologies.

• Some famous probes and missions include Sputnik 1, Explorer 1, Vostok 1, Mariner 2, Ranger 7,

Luna 9, Alouette 1, Apollo 8, and Apollo 11.

When...The Cold War

The Cold War began at the end of World War

II...and came to an end with the fall of the

Soviet Union in the early 1990's

Where...Cold War

The cold war was world wide...countries of the world

aligned themselves with either of the two superpowers.

Blue are the western pro-democratic countries and Red

are the Soviet bloc communist countries. The Cold War

played out in numerous conflicts around the world.

Why was the 1980 US Olympic hockey

victory over the Soviet Union so historic?

The US had never beaten the Soviets in Olympic

hockey. The Soviets had dominated International and

Olympic hockey since World War II. The Soviet team

won nearly every world championship and Olympic

tournament between 1954 and 1991 and never failed

to medal in any International Ice Hockey Federation

tournament. The US victory was seen as a Cold War

victory for the US.

How did the Cold War affect me as a

child/young adult?

• I remember seeing the world in black and white, us vs them, the

good guys and the bad guys.

• Any and all things Communist was bad and any and all things

American was good.

• TV shows and cartoons depicted the villains as "Communists"

• Our maps at school were green (US and allies) and red (Soviets

and allies).

• We use to have Nuclear attack drills in school like you have

earthquake drills

Wisdom: Future

• Labeling and identifying entire populations of people

as "bad" because of the political and social system

they live under, leads to misunderstandings and false

impressions. (Think of the War on Terror today)

• Knowledge, awareness, and communication are

essential for humans to create a more peaceful world.