A Quick History of the Cold War

A basis to understanding current developments

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News Report: News, Current Events, Politics, etc

8 min readAug 4, 2014

For roughly forty five years, the world was consumed by the international politics of two of the world’s superpowers — the Soviet Union and the United States. Allies out of mutual necessity during WWII, tensions began to build as the two victors found themselves seemingly at odds with major ideological differences between them. The debate over socialism versus capitalism as the ideal economic system, and communism versus democracy as the ideal political system played out in dramatic fashion in a period of intense military brinksmanship that spanned the terms of nine U.S. Presidents and seven Soviets leaders.

Three major academic perspectives exist to explain the cause, evolution, and conclusion of the Cold War: The Traditionalist perspective, the Revisionist perspective, and the Post-Revisionist perspective (Bluth).

The Traditionalist perspective, asserts that the Soviet Union was fundamentally expansionist, and therefore the United States was forced into a defensive position of containment (Bailey). From this point of view, the Soviets are the provocateurs.

The Revisionist perspective, claims that because communism was inimical to capitalism, and because the United States (who at the time related consumerism to freedom, and by extension, democracy) was an expansionist empire in the economic sense and wanted to spread the seeds of capitalism to the non-aligned world, the United States was responsible for pushing tensions that already existed to heightened levels. The Soviets, who at the time were sensitive about the sociopolitical alignments of its European neighbors (understandable given that the Nazi invasion into Soviet territory is what brought the Soviets into WWII in the first place), were merely reacting to what they perceived as a threat to their borders by way of their buffer zone (Williams). From this point of view, the Americans could be argued as being the provocateurs.

A third perspective, the Post-Revisionist view, is a synthesis and revision of the Traditionalist and the Revisionist perspectives, asserting that while the Soviets may in fact have had its eye on eventual expansion, it did not intend to do so immediately after WWII, and that the actions of the U.S. at the time was a reaction to real or perceived Soviet threats (Bluth). In this view, the assignment of blame is less important than the inevitability of a clash between two superpowers who had long been suspicious of the other’s motives.

Using some of the theories of Political Realism to deconstruct events, we can gain a better understanding why events unfolded the way they did; but first, a quick primer on Realism.

Realism is based on four main tenets (Donnelly 150):

Anarchy. The international system is anarchic, because there is no higher governing authority (note that a group like the U.N. would be considered a peer-based group, not a higher authority).
Egoism. Individuals and groups pursue self-interests.
Groupism. Politics is the interaction between groups.
Power Politics. Power and security are the primary currencies of any exchange between groups.

From this basis, two sub-domains have emerged (there are more, but for the sake of brevity, this article will only cover these two) — Defensive Realism and Offensive Realism. Defensive realism and offensive realism share the four core tenets, but defensive realism posits that survival is the main motive of the state, and that maximizing security is the state’s primary objective. Offensive realism, first postulated by John Mearsheimer, posits that maximizing power is the primary objective. Related, offensive realism assumes that states cannot trust one another, and that each will try to gain an advantage over the other.

I contend that security and power are both drivers, but focus shifts based on the economic health of the state and its leader’s disposition at the time, which is, to varying degrees, reflective of the zeitgeist of the governed. From a Cold War perspective then, even though both the Soviets and the United States could be argued as fundamentally expansionist, it would not have been prudent for either side to do so on the heels of WWII, because of the need to rebuild resources drained during the war. In addition, neither side had any incentive to disrupt the relationship of convenience built during WWII; for at the very least, it was still beneficial to all parties, as evidenced by the first and second of the “Big Three” summits.

In 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Tehran, Iran to work out their post-war plans (Foner 942). Relations between the three leaders were amicable, as evidenced by Churchill and Roosevelt’s approval of Stalin’s annexation of the Baltic states, completing an agreement he made with Hitler in 1939 (Immerman 174). For his part prior, Stalin had agreed to the Atlantic Charter in 1941, which detailed principles of a new world order including “self-determination, free choice of government, rejection of annexation, acceptance of non-aggression, and free trade” (Immerman 174). In February of 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Yalta, to further cement their post-war plans. The death of Roosevelt on April 12, 1945 meant that the final conference, which was held from July and August of 1945 in Postdam, would be held between Truman, Stalin, and Churchill (who would be replaced in mid-talks by Clement Attlee) (Foner 942). The timing of the shift of power from Roosevelt to Truman, and from Churchill to Attlee, created a new power dynamic that was at best unfamiliar, and at worst unfriendly in Stalin’s eyes. At the same time as the Postdam talk, the U.S. detonated its first atomic weapon, signaling to the world (and intentionally or not, to Stalin) that the U.S. was upping its military might. Whether Stalin was fundamentally an expansionist or not, the combination of the change in leadership and the demonstration of frightening military might on the part of U.S. could arguably put anyone in a defensive position.

Truman too, was put in a difficult position. Having unexpectedly assumed the role of Presidency, the information he received immediately after is important context for the basis of his decisions. Only briefed about the atomic bomb after FDR’s death (Foner 940), having received the famous “Long Telegram” from George Kennan warning him about Stalin and the dangers of communist expansion (Foner 953), and having been asked by Britain to assist with the financial crisis in Greece and Turkey (because Britain could no longer afford to offer assistance as its own resources were drained from the war) (Foner 953), Truman reacted in sum with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, to rally Americans behind the idea of capitalism as a means to freedom and democracy.

These acts during the Truman administration may have inadvertently set in motion a “security dilemma”, whereby the actions of each state to build up its military arsenal (regardless of intention to use it) causes other states to arm itself in prepared retaliation, and because both the U.S. and the Soviet Union enjoyed economic prosperity post WWII (Immerman 53), they had the economic means to increase military and technological spending. The logical end point then, is the development of the Cold War.

In 1949, the Soviets successfully carried out its first nuclear test, but at that time, it did not have long range missile capability to strike the U.S. (Arvat). In 1952, the U.S. detonates a hydrogen bomb, leading to the Soviet detonation of a hydrogen bomb in 1953 (Foner 988). With the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953, Khrushshchev became head of the Soviet Union. In the same year, Eisenhower was elected into office. Eisenhower was hopeful that a peaceful resolution could be found between the two nations. On December 8, 1953, Eisenhower gave his “Atoms for Peace” speech, in an attempt to stop the escalation. In 1956, Khrushshchev also gave a speech that suggested peace was possible (Foner 1010). The trajectory toward peace though, was disrupted when on October 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik. Some argue that this was merely a friendly demonstration by the Soviets in their attempt to reach space first. It was to some, however, a signal that the Soviets now had long range missile capability to hit the U.S. with nuclear weapons. The U.S. then responded by placing missiles in Puglia, Italy (Arvat). A stalemate developed, but the world was now teetering on the edge of a nuclear war.

In 1958, the two sides decided to halt the testing of nuclear weapons, and between 1958 and 1960, a temporary easing of tensions formed, which led to an exchange of exhibits between the U.S. and the Soviets, where each country was to learn about the other. The Soviet Exhibition of 1959, the site of the famous “kitchen debate” between then V.P. Nixon and Khrushchev, captured perfectly the prevailing sentiment of each side — Nixon exalting the merits of capitalism, mingling consumerist virtues with the notion of freedom, and Khrushshchev quipping, “Don’t you have a machine that puts food in the mouth and pushes it down?” (Foner 991).

Under Eisenhower’s administration, the Cold War did not escalate based on any overt offensive action on the part of the United States, but Eisenhower was forced to respond to events such as the downing of a U.S. spy plane in 1960, which again led to mistrust between the two nations.

In 1961, as Kennedy was slated to take office, Eisenhower warned in his Farewell Address against a “military-industrial complex” (Foner 1929). Kennedy, who started office as a “Cold Warrior” (Foner 1028), initially took an offensive stance on communism by launching the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. By 1963 however, after the embarrassment of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and alarmed by the casual way his military advisors spoke of “winning” the nuclear war, despite the certainly of millions of civilian casualties, Kennedy became an advocate of reducing Cold War tensions, and the two countries again agreed to ban nuclear testing (Foner 1042).

Nixon, although also a Cold Warrior (Foner 1042), is credited with ushering in a period of “détente”, with the signing of SALT and the The Anti–Ballistic Missile Treaty (Foner 1089). This period of cooperation between the two nations would extend into Ford’s presidency, where in 1975, they agreed to the Helsinki Accords (Foner 1097).

In 1979, due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter made a series of missteps in addressing the crisis, and in doing so, temporarily reinvigorated the Cold War (Foner 1100-1101), though the high water mark of escalations would never be as high as during Truman’s or Kennedy’s terms.

A year after Reagan took the Presidency, Brehznev died, and was succeeded by Andropov, followed by Chernenko, followed by Gromyko, in relatively quick succession. When Gorbachev came into power in 1988, the previously powerful Soviet Union was already on its final leg, crumbling under its own weight, and reeling from a steep financial slump that had started in the 70s. Without the financial means to compete in a global posturing of power, the end of the Cold War was imminent, and was marked by the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, which stood, for many, as a symbol of communism.

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