C 36 continued:The Bipolar

World

Origins of the Cold War

• US, USSR, Great Britain unnatural allies during World War II– Tensions submerged until close of war

• Yalta Conference (Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt) 1945• Potsdam Conference (Stalin, Truman) (1945)

– Decided on USSR declaration of war vs. Japan, setting up of International Military Tribunal

– Free elections for Eastern Europe (The Atlantic Charter)

• Stalin arranges pro-communist governments in Eastern European countries (By 1948: Satellite Countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania).

• In wake of two revolutions (Russia, China), collapse of five empires within last 35 years (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian, Japanese), decline of two great imperial powers (British, French) =TWO global superpowers (US and Soviet Union) with diametrically opposed political agendas

• 1946: “Iron Curtain” descends

Soviet threat is different than all prior forms of imperialism: they seek to impose their absolute authority over the rest of theentire world.

Occupied Germany:1945-1949

Truman Doctrine 1947: CONTAINMENT

Marshall Plan 1947-1951

Berlin Crisis/ Berlin Airlift 1948-1949

The Cold War 1949-1962

Bipolar Alliances:

Whose Side??Some Independence:

France (Charles DeGaulle)

Yugoslavia (Marshall Tito)

Soviet Allies:Eastern EuropeanSatellite Nations

ChinaNorth Korea

Cuba North Vietnam

1956 Khrushchev =Peaceful Coexistence

1949 Truman announced that the Soviets have successfully tested anuclear device1950 US developed Hydrogen Bomb1953 Soviets developed Hydrogen Bomb

Sputnik:October 4, 1957

1958

1956 Khrushchev =Peaceful Coexistence?

Peaceful Coexistence??? What Did It Look Like??

Senator Joseph McCarthy and The Red Scare

PROXY WARS:

Korean War 1950-1953

Vietnam War (1954)-1975

Caribbean 1980s

1954 Eisenhower’s “Domino Theory”:Used to justify US response to real or Imagined communist threats in Central and South America, Africa and Asia

The Cold War: The Caribbean 1980s

August 1961 Berlin Wall fortified

1949-19613.5 million East GermansFled to the West

Fall of the BerlinWall:

November 9, 1989

Peaceful Coexistence???Hungary 1956Prague Spring 1968 =

Brezhnev Doctrine

STANDOFF:Bay of Pigs: April 1961

Cuban Missile Crisis: October 1962

Soviets agree to remove missile sites and return missiles to USSR in exchange for US promise not to

invade Cuba, and to remove US missiles in Turkey (private)

Ho Chi MinhNgo Dinh Diem

Vietnam War 1946-1975Unification 1976

Kent State May 4, 1970

Johnson’s “Credibility Gap”Johnson does not run for re-

election in 1968

Nixon’s Vietnamization: gradual withdrawal

Negative effect for Cambodia: Pol Pot

The Pentagon Papers 1971

Fall of Saigon April 30, 1975

DÉTENTE 1960s

Soviets and the US agree to reduction in hostility ??????Nuclear Arms race was too costlyNew spirit of cooperation : SALT Treaties 1972, 1979Continued in spite of Vietnam War, Soviets in Africaand Soviet human rights violations

Demise of Détente:

1. 1972 Nixon became first US President to visit Communist China2. 1979 US established full diplomatic

relations with China3. 1981 US announced sale of weapons

to Chinese military4. 1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan5. However, SUPERPOWERS are on

the wane: US lose in Vietnam,Soviets lose in Afghanistan

1983 Strategic Defense Initiative: “Star Wars”Soviets are forced to spend heavily to meet this technological match

November 9, 1989

The End of the Cold War

Mikhail Gorbachev 1985-1991

1989 Restructuring of the Soviet Union

Perestroika=“restructuring the economy

Glasnost =“openness to public criticism”

Boris Yeltsin demanded independencefor Russian Republic

Collapse of the SovietUnion = December 1991Germany reunited 1990

Yeltsin dismantled Communist partyCommunism exists now only in Cuba and North Korea

Ethnic and Religious Conflicts

Iranian Revolution 1979Iran-Iraq War 1988

Democracy in China

Deng Xiaoping 1981Cultural, economic

reformPolitical

Authoritarian: 1989

Tiananmen Square

Decolonization of Africa1960s

South Africa: Abolition of Apartheid

President Nelson Mandela 1994