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The Cold War
END of WWII
• as WWII ended, Allied armies liberated Axis controlled countries in Europe
• Western Allies (US, Britain, Canada, etc) turned over control of these nations to democratic governments
• countries liberated by the USSR were forced to have Communist governments
• Germany was divided down the middle, as was the capital city of Berlin
• a huge dividing line had been drawn across Europe between countries liberated by Western Allies and those by the USSR
• Winston Churchill called this division “the Iron Curtain”
• this “curtain” was symbolized by the building of Berlin Wall: – erected between East and West Berlin by USSR in
1961– erected to keep East Berliners from “defecting” (going
over to the other side)– was 96 miles long– guarded at all times– attempting to breach the wall could result in
imprisonment or even death
COLD WAR • term for describing the global struggle after
WWII • conflict was between Allied non-communist
states led by the U.S. and communist states led by the Soviet Union(U.S.S.R)
• the US and USSR became “superpowers”• the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. built up huge nuclear
forces capable of destroying each other many times over
• their conflicts were fought through "proxy wars" mostly erupting in former colonial regions in Asia and Africa and neither side ever faced the other directly in battle
HOW THE “WAR” WAS CONDUCTED
• both superpowers spent billions of $ on espionage and weapons research, trying to gain the upper hand
• billions of $ spent on “foreign aid” to Third World countries to gain their support
• every major event on the world stage was seen, in some way, to be connected to the struggle between the US and the USSR
CONCERN #1: “Hot Spots”
• Cold War boiled over in several countries, usually through proxies, to which one superpower or the other gave their support
• these conflicts were seen as vital battlegrounds for each side to gain more influence on the world stage
• the US feared the “domino effect”, that if one country became communist then those around it would also fall to communism
HOT SPOT #1: CHINA
• post WWII, Chinese communists, under their leader Mao, defeated the Chinese Nationalists
• Mao declared the new country to be the People’s Republic of China
• defeated Chinese Nationalists fled to Taiwan and established their own democratic nation
• US supported Taiwan as the legitimate government of China
• USSR supported Mao & People’s Republic of China.
HOT SPOT #2: KOREA
• in 1950, Communist controlled North Korea attempted to seize and control South Korea and unite it under one gov’t
• the UN, backed mainly by the US, fought to repel the NK attack
• after 3 years, the war ended and Korea remained a divided nation
• Canada contributed ships and troops to the war, suffering 1300 casualties
• to this day, SK/NK border remains one of the most heavily defended in the world
HOT SPOT #3: VIETNAM
• Communist rebels in Vietnam fought to overthrow their French colonial gov’t • the US, fearing the spread of communism, fought to keep the government in place
– sent hundreds of thousands of troops – many thousands were killed
• in the end, the US pulled out and the local gov’t fell to the Communists• Canada did not participate in the Vietnam war
CONCERN #2: ARMS RACE
• US developed the A-bomb at the end of WWII
• USSR detonated their first test A-bomb in 1949
• the race was on to build better and more destructive weapons
• by 1953, both sides had developed the extremely destructive Hydrogen bomb (H-bomb)
• the superpowers to stockpile huge numbers of H-bombs and other weapons
• at first the bombs would be dropped by planes, but soon powerful ballistic missiles were invented to deliver the H-bomb warheads– these missiles could cross the world in a matter of
minutes/hours– each missile had a MIRV (Multiple Independently targetable
Reentry Vehicle) that could deliver several warheads at once
• meant that at any moment, the world was only minutes away from a possible nuclear holocaust
• the # number of warheads on both sides meant that the world could be destroyed several times over if they were all launched
• M.A.D.(Mutually Assured Destruction) was the name given to the state of affairs in which both sides had the power to completely obliterate the other.
• some believed this actually helped maintain peace(the “cold” part of “cold war”) as neither side wanted that to happen and thus avoided conflict
PARANOIA over the “Red Threat”
“Everywhere are evidences of the continuous underground, cancerous movements of Communism ... Only eternal vigilance can protect us against Communism and its infiltration into our way of life." 1955 CanadAir Ad
the Gouzenko affair convinced many Canadians that they should fear a communist infiltration of Canadathe RCMP sought to rout out any “Reds” and often resorted to illegal and devious methodsmany lost their jobs due simply to suspicion or merely membership in the wrong organization
•arms race created a wave of panic that caused people to build bomb shelters and to live in constant fear of nuclear war
