United States During the Cold War
Overview
Introduction
Following World War II, the United States saw an advanced economic and political growth. The United States foreign policy was to be against the Soviet Union. This meant that in many ways the United States had deep economic and political ties throughout the world in the middle of the 20th century. The Truman Doctrine played a significant role in how the United States grew during this period.
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate the differences between Soviet Communism and United States Capitalism.
- Analyze the impact of the end of World War II on the post-war societies.
- Evaluate the role of United States foreign policy in shaping the post World War II world.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
containment: a military strategy to stop the expansion of an enemy; the goal of the United States and its allies to prevent the spread of communism
“Long Telegram”: a 1946 cable telegram by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan during the post-WWII administration of U.S. President Harry Truman that articulated the policy of containment toward the USSR
Marshall Plan: an American initiative to aid Western Europe in which the United States gave more than $12 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II
National Security Act of 1947: a bill that brought about a major restructuring of the United States government’s military and intelligence agencies following World War; a bill that established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination for national security policy in the executive branch, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S.’s first peacetime intelligence agency
North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO): an intergovernmental military alliance signed on April 4, 1949 and including the five Treaty of Brussels states (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom) plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland
Truman Doctrine: an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical spread during the Cold War, announced by Harry S. Truman to Congress in 1947
NATO
The North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty signed on April 4, 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
NATO was little more than a political association until the Korean War galvanized the organization’s member states and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955.
Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defense against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO’s military structure in 1966 for 30 years.
The Treaty of Brussels 1948 is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement; it was signed on March 17 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom. The treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Union’s Defense Organization in September 1948. However, none of these organizations were thought to be sufficient without participation of the United States, which was thought necessary both to counter the military power of the USSR and prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. In addition, the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'etat by the Communists had overthrown a democratic government, and British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin reiterated that the best way to prevent another Czechoslovakia was to evolve a joint Western military strategy.
In 1948, European leaders met with U.S. defense, military, and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon under U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C. on April 4, 1949. It included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization’s goal was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
The members agreed that an armed attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. Consequently, they agreed that if an armed attack occurred, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense, would assist the member being attacked, taking such action as it deemed necessary; this would include the use of armed force to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor. Although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so.
The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 was crucial for NATO as it raised the apparent threat of all Communist countries working together and forced the alliance to develop concrete military plans. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) was formed to direct forces in Europe and began work under Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower in January 1951. In September 1950, the NATO Military Committee called for an ambitious buildup of conventional forces to meet the Soviets, subsequently reaffirming this position at the February 1952 meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Lisbon.
In 1954, the Soviet Union suggested that it should join NATO to preserve peace in Europe. The NATO countries, fearing that the Soviet Union’s motive was to weaken the alliance, ultimately rejected this proposal.
The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on May 9, 1955 was described as “a decisive turning point in the history of our continent” by Halvard Lange, Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. A major reason for Germany’s entry into the alliance was that without German manpower, it would have been impossible to field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet invasion. One of its immediate results was the creation of the Warsaw Pact, signed on May 14, 1955 by the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and East Germany as a formal response to this event. The Warsaw Pact ensured the delineation of the two opposing sides of the Cold War.
Foreign Policy
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the role of propaganda for the United States and the Soviet Union.
- Evaluate the United States' goals in establishing partnerships around the world.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Marshall Plan: an American initiative to aid Western Europe in which the United States gave more than $12 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II
National Security Act of 1947: a bill that brought about a major restructuring of the United States government’s military and intelligence agencies following World War; a bill that established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination for national security policy in the executive branch, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S.’s first peacetime intelligence agency
North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO): an intergovernmental military alliance signed on April 4, 1949 and including the five Treaty of Brussels states (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom) plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland
Truman Doctrine: an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical spread during the Cold War, announced by Harry S. Truman to Congress in 1947
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government-funded broadcasting organization that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East “where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed.” During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe (RFE) was broadcast to Soviet satellite countries and Radio Liberty (RL) targeted the Soviet Union. RFE was founded as an anti-communist propaganda source in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe. During RFE’s earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff. RL was founded two years later. The two organizations merged in 1976.
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anti-communist CIA front organization formed by Allen Dulles in New York City in 1949. The United States funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a war of ideas. The implementation of surrogate radio stations was a key part of the greater psychological war effort.
RFE played a critical role in Cold War-era Eastern Europe. Unlike government-censored programs, RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist movements. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło. Its Hungarian service’s coverage of Poland’s Poznań riots in 1956 arguably served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution.
During the Revolution of 1956 RFE broadcasts encouraged rebels to fight and suggested that Western support was imminent. These RFE broadcasts violated Eisenhower’s policy which determined that the United States would not provide military support for the Revolution. In the wake of this scandal a number of changes were implemented at RFE, including the establishment of the Broadcast Analysis Division to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the autonomy of journalists.
Communist governments frequently sent agents to infiltrate RFE’s headquarters. Radio transmissions into the Soviet Union were regularly jammed by the KGB. RFE/RL received funds from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until 1972.
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to contain Soviet geopolitical spread during the Cold War; President Harry S. Truman first announced to Congress on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948, when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Soviet communism. It became the foundation of American foreign policy, and led to the formation of NATO in 1949. Historians often use Truman’s speech to date the start of the Cold War.
Truman reasoned that because the totalitarian regimes coerced free peoples, they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States. Truman told Congress that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” This plea was made amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War (1946 – 49), and he argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they urgently needed they would inevitably fall to communism with grave consequences throughout the region. Because Turkey and Greece were historic rivals, it was necessary to help both equally even though the threat to Greece was more immediate. The policy won the support of Republicans who controlled Congress and involved sending $400 million in American money but no military forces to the region. The effect was to end the communist threat, and in 1952, both Greece and Turkey joined NATO, a military alliance, to guarantee their protection.
For years, Britain had supported Greece, but was now near bankruptcy and was forced to radically reduce its involvement. In February 1947, Britain formally requested for the United States to take over its role in supporting the Greeks and their government.
The Truman Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world. It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from détente (a relaxation of tension) to a policy of containment of Soviet expansion as advocated by diplomat George Kennan. It was distinguished from rollback by implicitly tolerating the previous Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe.
Historian Eric Foner argues the Truman Doctrine “set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union.”
Background for Greek Crisis
The Greek Civil War was fought in Greece from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek government army (backed by the United Kingdom and the United States), and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE, the military branch of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), backed by Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. The fighting resulted in the defeat of the Communist insurgents by the government forces.
In the second stage of the Greek Civil War in December 1944, the British helped prevent the seizure of Athens by the Greek Communist Party (KKE). In the third phase (1946 – 49), guerrilla forces controlled by the KKE fought against the internationally recognized Greek government,t which was formed after 1946 elections boycotted by the KKE. At this point, the British realized that the Greek leftists were being directly funded by Josip Broz Tito in neighboring Yugoslavia; the Greek communists received little help directly from the Soviet Union, while Yugoslavia provided support and sanctuary. By late 1946, Britain informed the United States that due to its own weakening economy, it could no longer continue to provide military and economic support to Greece.
In 1946 – 47, the United States and the Soviet Union moved from wartime allies to Cold War adversaries. Soviet imperialism in Eastern Europe, its delayed withdrawal from Iran, and the breakdown of Allied cooperation in Germany provided a backdrop of escalating tensions for the Truman Doctrine. To Harry S. Truman, the growing unrest in Greece began to look like a pincer movement against the oil-rich areas of the Middle East and the warm-water ports of the Mediterranean.
In February 1946, George Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, sent his famed “Long Telegram,” which predicted the Soviets would only respond to force and that the best way to handle them was through a long-term strategy of containment by stopping their geographical expansion. After the British warned that they could no longer help Greece and Prime Minister Konstantinos Tsaldaris’s visit to Washington in December 1946 to ask for American assistance, the U.S. State Department formulated a plan. Aid would be given to both Greece and Turkey to help cool the long-standing rivalry between them.
American policymakers recognized the instability of the region, fearing that if Greece was lost to communism, Turkey would not last long. If Turkey yielded to Soviet demands, the position of Greece would be endangered. Fear of this regional domino effect threat guided the American decision. Greece and Turkey were strategic allies for geographical reasons as well, as the fall of Greece would put the Soviets on a dangerous flank for the Turks and strengthen the Soviet Union’s ability to cut off allied supply lines in the event of war.
Long-Term Policy and Metaphor
The Truman Doctrine underpinned American Cold War policy in Europe and around the world. In the words of historian James T. Patterson, “The Truman Doctrine was a highly publicized commitment of a sort the administration had not previously undertaken. Its sweeping rhetoric, promising that the United States should aid all ‘free people’ being subjugated, set the stage for innumerable later ventures that led to globalistic commitments. It was in these ways a major step.”
The doctrine endured, historian Dennis Merill argues, because it addressed a broader cultural insecurity about modern life in a globalized world. It dealt with Washington’s concern over communism’s domino effect, it enabled a media-sensitive presentation of the doctrine that won bipartisan support, and it mobilized American economic power to modernize and stabilize unstable regions without direct military intervention. It brought nation-building activities and modernization programs to the forefront of foreign policy.
The Truman Doctrine became a metaphor for emergency aid to keep a nation from communist influence. Truman used disease imagery not only to communicate a sense of impending disaster in the spread of communism but also to create a “rhetorical vision” of containing it by extending a protective shield around non-communist countries throughout the world. It echoed the “quarantine the aggressor” policy Truman’s predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, sought to impose to contain German and Japanese expansion in 1937. The medical metaphor extended beyond the immediate aims of the Truman Doctrine in that the imagery combined with fire and flood phrases evocative of disaster provided the United States with an easy transition to direct military confrontation in later years with communist forces in Korea and Vietnam. By ideological differences in life or death terms, Truman was able to garner support for this communism-containing policy.
The Marshall Plan and Molotov Plan
In June 1947, in accordance with the Truman Doctrine, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan. This was a pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union, who refused and created their own Moltov Plan for the Eastern Bloc.
Overview
In early 1947, Britain, France, and the United States unsuccessfully attempted to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods, and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets. In June 1947, in accordance with the Truman Doctrine, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan, a pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union.
The plan’s aim was to rebuild the democratic and economic systems of Europe and counter perceived threats to Europe’s balance of power, such as communist parties seizing control through revolutions or elections. The plan also stated that European prosperity was contingent upon German economic recovery. One month later, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, creating a unified Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council (NSC). These would become the main bureaucracies for U.S. policy in the Cold War.
Stalin believed that economic integration with the West would allow Eastern Bloc countries to escape Soviet control, and that the U.S. was trying to buy a pro-U.S. realignment of Europe. Stalin therefore prevented Eastern Bloc nations from receiving Marshall Plan aid. The Soviet Union’s alternative to the Marshall Plan, purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with central and eastern Europe, became known as the Molotov Plan (later institutionalized in January 1949 as the COMECON). Stalin was also fearful of a reconstituted Germany; his vision of a post-war Germany did not include the ability to rearm or pose any kind of threat to the Soviet Union.
In early 1948, following reports of strengthening “reactionary elements”, Soviet operatives executed a coup d’état in Czechoslovakia, the only Eastern Bloc state that the Soviets had permitted to retain democratic structures. The public brutality of the coup shocked Western powers and set in a motion a brief scare that swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress.
The twin policies of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan led to billions in economic and military aid for Western Europe, Greece, and Turkey. With U.S. assistance, the Greek military won its civil war. Under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi the Italian Christian Democrats defeated the powerful Communist-Socialist alliance in the elections of 1948. At the same time, there was increased intelligence and espionage activity, Eastern Bloc defections, and diplomatic expulsions.
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $12 billion (approximately $120 billion in value as of June 2016) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning April 8, 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous again, and prevent the spread of communism. The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, saw a decrease in regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, labor union membership, and the adoption of modern business procedures.
The Marshall Plan aid was divided among the participant states on a per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total), followed by France (18%) and West Germany (11%). Some 18 European countries received Plan benefits. Although offered participation, the Soviet Union refused Plan benefits and blocked benefits to Eastern Bloc countries such as East Germany and Poland.
The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels. The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth during which standards of living increased dramatically. There is some debate among historians over how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery but did not initiate it. Many argue that the structural adjustments that it forced were of great importance.
The political effects of the Marshall Plan may have been just as important as the economic ones. Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. The communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan.
MAD
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate the role of atomic weapons on the Cold War.
- Analyze the policies of Mutually Assured Destruction on the Cold War policies.
The Atomic Race
Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, initiated a “New Look” for the Cold War containment strategy, calling for a greater reliance on nuclear weapons against U.S. enemies in wartime, and promoted the doctrine of “massive retalitation,” threatening a severe response to any Soviet aggression.
Background: Political Changes in the U.S. and USSR
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn in as U.S. President in 1953, the Democrats lost their two-decades-long control of the U.S. presidency. Under Eisenhower, however, the nation’s Cold War policy remained essentially unchanged. While a thorough rethinking of foreign policy was launched (known as “Operation Solarium”), the majority of emerging ideas (such as a “rollback of Communism” and the liberation of Eastern Europe) were quickly regarded as unworkable. An underlying focus on the containment of Soviet communism remained to inform the broad approach of U.S. foreign policy.
While the transition from the Truman to the Eisenhower presidencies was conservative-moderate in character, the change in the Soviet Union was immense. With the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, his former right-hand man Nikita Khrushchev was named First Secretary of the Communist Party.
During a subsequent period of collective leadership, Khrushchev gradually consolidated his power. During a February 25, 1956 speech, to the closed session of the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev shocked his listeners by denouncing Stalin’s personality cult and the many crimes that occurred under Stalin’s leadership. Although the contents of the speech were secret, it was leaked to outsiders, shocking both Soviet allies and Western observers. Khrushchev was later named premier of the Soviet Union in 1958.
The impact on Soviet politics was immense. The speech stripped Khrushchev’s remaining Stalinist rivals of their legitimacy in a single stroke, dramatically boosting the First Party Secretary’s power domestically. Khrushchev was then able to ease restrictions, freeing some dissidents and initiating economic policies that emphasized commercial goods rather than just coal and steel production.
American Nuclear Strategy
Along with these major political changes in the U.S. and USSR, the central strategic components of competition between East and West shifted as well. When Eisenhower entered office in 1953, he was committed to two possibly contradictory goals: maintaining, or even heightening, the national commitment to counter the spread of Soviet influence and satisfying demands to balance the budget, lower taxes, and curb inflation. The most prominent of the doctrines to emerge from this goal was “massive retaliation,” which Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced early in 1954.
Eschewing the costly, conventional ground forces of the Truman administration and wielding the vast superiority of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and covert intelligence, Dulles defined his approach as “brinksmanship” in a January 16, 1956 interview with Life: pushing the Soviet Union to the brink of war in order to exact concessions. The aim of massive retaliation is to deter another state from initially attacking. In the event of an attack from an aggressor, a state would massively retaliate with force disproportionate to the size of the attack, which would likely involve the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale.
This new national security policy approach, reflecting Eisenhower’s concern for balancing the Cold War military commitments of the United States with the nation’s financial resources, was called the “New Look.” The policy emphasized reliance on strategic nuclear weapons to deter potential threats, both conventional and nuclear, from the Eastern Bloc of nations headed by the Soviet Union. This approach led the administration to increase the number of nuclear warheads from 1,000 in 1953 to 18,000 by early 1961. Despite overwhelming U.S. superiority, one additional nuclear weapon was produced each day. The administration also exploited new technology. In 1955 the eight-engine B-52 Stratofortress bomber, the first true jet bomber designed to carry nuclear weapons, was developed.
Attributions
Source image provided by Wikimedia Commons: Truman Signing the North Atlantic Treaty
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-records/73-3194
Chapters adapted from:
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/the-beginning-of-the-cold-war/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/life-in-the-ussr/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/containment/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/competition-between-east-and-west/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/crisis-points-of-the-cold-war/