Origins of the Cold WarOrigins of the Cold WarUS Studies

Review: End of World War 2

• USA was stronger after the war:• GNP grew from $866 million to $135 billion

by 1945 (production doubled)• US had A-bomb monopoly• United Nations HQ in New York City

• European powers decimated (UK & France bankrupt; Germany divided)

• USSR lost 20 million; but it dominated Eastern Europe and was a world power

What is a “Cold What is a “Cold War”?War”?

The Root: Conflicting Goals

• USA: We fought to end Fascism and totalitarianism. Let’s bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world.

• USSR: We’ve been invaded by the West many times. We need security! Also, we’d like to overthrow Capitalism and spread Communism.

• The bottom line: these ideas conflicted

Beginnings: Yalta Conference

• US, USSR, & USSR: Allies during war

• Differences ignored• Common enemy• Post-war conferences—

differences• Actually, USSR

distrusted West (latein creating 2nd front)

Agreements at Yalta (Feb. 1945)

•Germany divided into four zones

•USSR would enter the war against Japan

•United Nations•Security Council of UN

Not Agreed on at Yalta

• USSR wanted $10 billion in reparations

• Free and democratic Poland• Stalin promised to let the Poles

choose their form of government, but…

• Poland occupied by USSR; it was a corridor for invasion of Russia

Divisions Eventually Became Permanent

This video explains the divisions, plus the Berlin Wall

Europe at the Start of the Cold War

The Reality

• USSR lost 20 million people in the war• USSR occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia,

Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Eastern Germany (satellite nations)

• They set up Communist systems here• The USSR took “reparations” from

Eastern Germany (entire factories, people, etc.)

Potsdam Conference

• 2nd Wartime conference• Truman president; A-Bomb tested• Europe: nothing

agreed on• Japan: must

surrenderunconditionallynow

Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

US Response to This

•Containment policy

•Truman Doctrine (Greece and Turkey)

Marshall Plan

• America: Not physically damaged in World War II

• Europe: Very damaged from World War II

• USA gave aid to Europe to rebuild and to stop the spread of Communism

• Offered to BOTH West and East Europe

• Eventually: $13,000,000,000

USSR—We Will Not Accept The Aid

Another Problem: Berlin

NATO Formed (1949)

• Collective security

• Nuclear attack• 1st Peacetime

Alliance joined by the USA

• Formed 1949

Warsaw Pact (1955)

• Satellite Nations signed (except Yugoslavia)

• Also a collective security agreement

• Bipolar world

NATO and Warsaw Pact Nations (1949)