The Cold War [1945-1991]: An Ideological Struggle

Soviet & Eastern Bloc

Nations[“Iron

Curtain”]

US & the Western

Democracies

GOAL spread world-wide Communism

GOAL “Containment” of Communism & the eventual collapse of the Communist world.[George Kennan]

METHODOLOGIES:1. Espionage [KGB vs. CIA]

2. Arms Race [nuclear escalation]

3. Ideological Competition for the minds and hearts of Third World peoples [Communist govt. & command economy vs. democratic govt. & capitalist economy] “proxy wars”

4. Bi-Polarization of Europe [NATO vs. Warsaw Pact]

The Division of Berlin

The Bipolarization of Europe

George Kennan’s Foreign Policy of “Containment”

• Strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States in the late 1940s and the early 1950s in order to check the expansionist policy of the Soviet Union.

• In an anonymous article (‘Long Telegram’) in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, George F. Kennan, diplomat and U.S. State Department adviser on Soviet affairs, suggested a “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” in the hope that the regime would mellow or collapse.

George Kennan [“X Article”]: CONTAINMENT

Goals Means Actual Application1.Restoration

of the balance of power

2.Reduction of Soviet ability to project outside power.

Encouragement of self-confidence in nations threatened by Soviet expansion.

Exploitation of tensions in international communism.

Long-term program of U.S. economic assistance [Marshall Plan]

Cooperation with communist regimes; [supporting Titoism in Yugoslavia]

3.Modification of the Soviet concept of international relations.

Negotiating settlement of outstanding differences.

Using “carrots & sticks’; containing Germany with an embrace and Russia at arms length.

George Kennan [“X Article”]: CONTAINMENT

Goals Means Actual Application

National Defense Budget [1940-1964]

Korean War

[1950-1953]

Korean War[1950-1953]

Syngman Rhee

Kim Il-Sung

“Domino Theory”

The Shifting Map of Korea[1950-1953]