contemporary World History - Post 1945: HIS

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118

CHAPTER OUTLINE

• Worldwide Conflict

• Western Europe on the Front Line

• Regional Conflicts

• International and Regional Convergence

Conflict and Convergence: 1945–19506

1943

Sartre’s Being and Nothingness is published

The “big three” meet at Tehran conference

1945

Yalta conference is held

VE Day ends the war in Europe

Potsdam conference is held

VJ Day ends the war in the Pacific

Ho Chi Minh “decolonizes” Vietnam

Korea is divided into occupation zones

The United Nations is founded

1946

The first Indochina war begins

Bretton Woods system goes into effect

Kennan writes the “Long Telegram”

Churchill makes “Iron Curtain” speech

1947

India is decolonized

India and Pakistan are created

UN Partition Plan for Palestine is approved

Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and National Security Act go into effect in United States

The “Red Scare” takes hold in the United States

1941

United States and USSR join the Allies

C H A P T E R T I M E L I N EC H A P T E R T I M E L I N E

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Photos from left to right: Vietminh troops march into Hanoi, 1954; UN poster; The new “big 3”; Family fleeing from square block of Jewish occupied buildings in the Jewish district of Jerusalem, February, 1948.

1948

Congress of Europe meets

Gandhi is assassinated

USSR blockades Berlin, and United States flies airlift around it

The OAS is established

State of Israel is created and recognized

The first Arab- Israeli War begins

1949

Mao wins civil war in China and establishes PRC

Chinese nationalists flee to Taiwan

The German Federal Republic is created

NATO is established

1950

Sino-Soviet Treaty is signed

U.S. government issues NSC-68

1955

Moscow creates the Warsaw Pact

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Worldwide Conflict The defining structural characteristic of the latter half of the twentieth century was the conflict between the two “superpowers” that emerged at the end of World War II. After thirty years of war and its consequences in Europe, Germany’s and Italy’s military ca- pacities were almost completely destroyed and Great Britain’s and France’s had been greatly diminished. What was left of Japan’s military was being dismantled by the United States during the Occupation, and China was engaged in an intermittent civil war from April 1927 through May 1950. By 1945, only the United States and USSR were capable of fielding effective military ma- chines, and the United States was clearly

leading in terms of military technology, proven by its use of the atomic bombs in Japan. The mil- itary alliance these two countries forged to defeat fascism in World War II was not strong enough to overcome the ideological differences between them.

The Roots of the Cold War Patterns of war in the twentieth century (really throughout the history of humankind) were based on technological growth: close-range combat of the late 1800s led to long-range weapons (grenades, mortar, nerve gas) for total war in World War I, which led to airplanes and bombing in World War II. With the advent of the atomic bomb and rapidly expanding nu- clear technology, it became obvious that waging a total war would have destructive conse- quences worldwide. This led to the Cold War, which does not mean “no war”; it simply means that the primary combatants never engaged in direct military conflict against one an- other. As long as the two superpowers with the nuclear weapons did not go to war, the world could survive. Somewhat ironically, it was because of the advancements in military technol- ogy that the United States and USSR could not engage one another in traditional military warfare without potentially destroying the world.

In many ways, the goals of the two main contenders in the Cold War followed the very tradi- tional goals of combatants throughout history—each side was fighting for control of territory. The Cold War is often referred to as an ideological war, implying that the two sides were fighting over beliefs. On some level, that is certainly true—the stated goal of the USSR was to spread communism, and the stated goal of the United States was to contain the spread of communism

T he victors of the second world war were anxious to avoid the mistakes made at the end of the Great War, particularly those that contributed to the worldwide economic depression. This re- quired cooperation, which led to convergence in several key economic and political areas in the

latter half of the twentieth century. But differ- ent views on who should dominate the post- war political, economic and social cultures led to regional and international conflicts. It was in these immediate postwar years, 1945–1950, that the patterns of conflict and convergence that would structure the rest of the century, as well as shape the twenty-first century, were established.

Cold War describes the conflict between the United States and USSR between 1945–1991, when the two primary combatants never engaged in direct military conflict against one another

Occupation after the Japanese surrendered at the end of the WWII, the Allied military, led by General MacArthur, supervised the political, economic and social reconstruction of Japan from 1945–1952

120 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

W O R K I N G W I T H T H E T H E M E S

THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY The “total war” era of the first half of the twentieth century gives way to a “Cold War,” driven by the ongoing development of weapons technology.

CHANGING IDENTITIES Thirty years of war in Europe greatly impacted its citizens. Two new issues evolve that will remain dominant features for the remainder of the twentieth century: the implications of the Cold War on people throughout the world and the short- and long-term consequences of decolonization.

SHIFTING BORDERS Because the Allies cannot agree on political ideology, their division of the postwar world into occupation zones has serious worldwide ramifications. The creation of new indepen- dent countries in the late 1940s through decolonization leads to regional violence.

GLOBALIZATION Two seemingly contradictory paths emerge: international political and economic division created by the Cold War and unprecedented convergence in the creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods system, as well as the development of regional organizations.

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(which is a less aggressive way of saying, “to spread democracy”). In order to accomplish its goal, however, each side would have to control a territory, or control the government of that terri- tory at the very least.

How did the world get to this somewhat artificial divide between democracy and commu- nism, with each ideology outright vilifying the other to prove to the rest of the world that its political and economic system was the better one? Thanks to the actions of Mussolini and Hitler, fascism had essentially been discredited as an ideological form of political governance (not that it ended it in reality, of course). During World War II, the democracies and communist USSR joined together to defeat those fascist regimes. Interestingly, it is in this military alliance to de- feat fascism that the Cold War took shape.

The “Big Three” When Hitler broke his nonaggression pact with Stalin and invaded the USSR, he forced the Soviet Union into a military alliance with the Allies. The Soviets proved to be absolutely vital in the final defeat of Berlin and Germany, which created a bit of a problem after the war because the Red Army physically occupied all of Eastern Europe and one-half of Germany. Driving out the Soviets would require military action, which the United States and Britain could not even contemplate at that point. But the alliance between the USSR and the Allies was a military one only and had nothing to do with achieving political harmony. Predictably, when it came time for all the winners to sit down at the table and bring the war in Europe to its conclusion, the USSR wanted to install communist governments in Eastern Europe that would be subordinate to Moscow. And predictably, Great Britain and the United States opposed such expansion.

The first meeting of the “big three” was in Tehran, Iran, in November 1943, before the war even ended. They agreed to keep fighting to- gether and pursue unconditional surrender from Germany and Japan in an effort to avoid the diplo- matic messes created by the negotiations at the end of World War I. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to open a second front in France (leading to D-Day), and in return, Stalin promised to join the war in the Pacific after Germany was defeated. But as the Soviets moved through Eastern Europe on their way to Germany, they held onto the territory for themselves. Churchill opposed Stalin’s actions, and in October 1944 they talked and tentatively agreed on how they would divide up control of the Balkans after the war. There was a lot of tension over the countries of Eastern Europe occupied by the Soviet military—Stalin wanted them all to be communist under his control, while the United States and Great Britain still had hopes of freely elected democratic governments every- where in the world. Stalin agreed to let the citizens decide (self-determination), knowing that he would violate the agreements anyway and establish communist regimes. When it came to Germany, all three men agreed that it would be stripped of its government and military and would be divided into four occupation zones (one for each of the Allied powers, including France).

The next time the “big three” met was in February 1945, in Yalta, just before Germany fell. Roosevelt’s goal was to encourage the USSR to get involved in the war against Japan after

ANALYSIS Look carefully at the body language in this photograph. What does it tell you about each man? What does it tell you about the relationship between them?

ideological war conflict rooted in differing world views; to win, one ideology would become dominant over all others

WORLDWIDE CONFLICT 121

The “big three”: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.

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Read the Document Long Telegram on mysearchlab.com

122 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

Germany was defeated, so he and Churchill promised Stalin he could control significant regions in the Pacific after Japan was defeated. Roosevelt expressed his idea of a United Nations (UN) organization to ensure peace after the war—sort of a League of Nations, but with more muscle. Because Stalin agreed to participate, the United States made some more concessions to him, allowing the USSR to essentially control all of Eastern Europe, assuming the people were allowed to choose their own governments. Stalin was relentless in “convincing” them to “choose” communism.

The last time the Allied leaders met was in the Berlin neighborhood of Potsdam in July 1945. Germany was defeated, Roosevelt had passed away and had been replaced by Truman, and the British people had replaced the very conservative Churchill with Clement Attlee and his Labour Party. The leaders confirmed past agreements, expanded Soviet control in Eastern Europe, and carved Germany into four separate occupation zones until they could figure out a better arrangement (which did not come until 1990). Rather than creating an unsatisfactory, overarching peace treaty like the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, they left Potsdam with no treaties at all. Such agreements would come slowly in following years. When the Allied leaders left Potsdam, the world had been divided into two unfriendly camps: the West (led by the United States) and the East (led by the USSR).

Behind the Iron Curtain In a speech to the Soviet people in early 1946, Stalin made a statement implying that capitalism made future wars inevitable:

It would be wrong to think that the Second World War broke out accidentally, or as a result of blunders committed by certain statesmen, although blunders were certainly committed. As a matter of fact, the war broke out as the inevitable result of the development of world economic and political forces on the basis of present-day monopolistic capitalism. Marxists have more than once stated that the capitalist system of world economy contains the elements of a general crisis and military conflicts, that, in view of that, the develop-

ment of world capitalism in our times does not proceed smoothly and evenly, but through crises and catastrophic wars.

The U.S. Department of State asked George Kennan, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow since 1933, for his view on Stalin’s intentions. His now-famous response, The Long Telegram of February 22, 1946, warned that “in the long run, there [could] be no permanent, peaceful coexistence” with the Soviet Union. In Kennan’s mind, the conflict stemmed from Stalin’s belief in Marxism and his fear that Western capitalism would affect his people; therefore, the American way of life had to be destroyed. Probably the most important feature of this Long Telegram is Kennan’s conclu- sion regarding how best to handle the situation. Although Stalin would never negotiate or com- promise, the problem could be solved “without recourse to any general military conflict.” Ultimately, Kennan said, the Soviet system of government is weaker than the American system of government and American success “. . . depends on health and vigor of our own society. . . Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplo- matic victory over Moscow. . .” The United States should firmly guide other countries in devel- oping political, economic, and social well-being “and unless we do,” Kennan warned, “Russians certainly will.” Kennan’s words became the cornerstone of American foreign policy for most of the remainder of the twentieth century.

A few weeks after Kennan’s telegram, Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister, spoke at a college in Fulton, Missouri. His speech was not well received at the time—many people viewed Churchill as a warmonger trying to drag the United States into another military

ANALYSIS These words were taken from Stalin’s “Two Worlds” speech of 1946. Why did the U.S. government react to these words with concern?

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sphere of influence a geographic region over which one country directly or indirectly controls political, economic, social, and/or military decision making

WORLDWIDE CONFLICT 123

conflict—but the speech coined the phrase that best described the political and ideological divide between the Soviets and the West as the Cold War began:

. . . 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 con- trol from Moscow.

Churchill was referring to the divide across Eastern Europe between free countries with Western-style democratic governments and the Eastern bloc countries with communist governments that answered directly to the USSR. Stalin, of course, perceived Churchill’s speech as a threat, particularly the opening phrases in which Churchill seemed to challenge America to act against communism: “. . . The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power . . . with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountabil- ity to the future.” Churchill may well have been trying to pro- voke the United States to stay involved in European affairs rather than return to isolationism as it did after World War I, but there was good reason for him to be concerned about the future of democracy in Europe.

As agreed upon during the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the Soviet military occupied the territory it conquered on the way to Berlin to defeat Hitler, including Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and parts of Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany. In violation of those same agreements, however, Stalin refused to allow democratic elections in those countries, and each was ruled by a communist government supported by the Red Army. With the exception of Yugoslavia, where the communist yet fiercely nationalist leader Josip Broz Tito refused to comply with Stalin’s domination, each of these communist countries fell under the Soviet sphere of influence. They became known as the satellite states because they resolutely dupli- cated Stalin’s political and economic models, although they were technically independent coun- tries. Additionally, a civil war between democratic and communist forces in Greece threatened to replace the democratic government there, and the USSR clearly hoped to add Turkey to the satellite bloc to secure the Soviet border.

The U.S. Response After thirty years of war and economic hardship, Europe was in shambles politically, economi- cally, industrially, commercially and socially. Much had been destroyed, leading many Western Europeans to wonder if communism was a way out of the hard life and injustices they suffered. President Truman believed that if the United States did not step in to help, communist move- ments underfoot in Western Europe would be successful. After studying Kennan’s Long Telegram, Truman made three key announcements:

1. The official U.S. policy of containment, eventually formalized in NSC-68 to prevent the spread of communism to noncommunist countries

EAST GERMANY

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

BULGARIA

ROMANIA

YUGOSLAVIA

HUNGARY

POLAND

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST

REPUBLICS

Bla ck

Sea

0 200 mi

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MAP 6.1 Soviet Sphere of Influence by 1948

Read the Document Iron Curtain Speech on mysearchlab.com

Read the Document National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 on mysearchlab.com

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Read the Document The Truman Doctrine on mysearchlab.com

2. The Truman Doctrine to support “free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (primarily targeted toward Greece and Turkey)

3. The Marshall Plan to provide money for the rebuilding of Europe

Under the Marshall Plan, any European state was invited to submit a request to the United States to receive funding for reconstruction programs. At first, Poland and Czechoslovakia tried to sign up, but Stalin quickly realized the political aspect of this economic program and blocked participation from countries within the Soviet sphere of influence. Taking money from the U.S. Congress would certainly place a country squarely within the U.S. sphere of influence.

In four years, the Marshall Plan provided aid to sixteen countries in the total amount of $13.2 billion. The Allies received the largest shares: Great Britain got $3.2 billion to rebuild its oil industry; France got $2.7 billion to modernize industry and transportation; and West Germany used its $1.5 billion to create a free-enterprise industrial system that worked so well it boosted German production 50 percent within four years. Overall, the Marshall Plan achieved its economic goals—the nations of Western Europe rebounded economically, enabling them to trade with the United States. And economic well-being in the Western world provided the

124 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

MAKE THE CONNECTION Using the map on the right as a guide and documents 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5, what connections can you make between the policy of containment, the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan?

StockholmStockholm

CopenhagenCopenhagen

WarsawWarsawBerlinerlin

ViennaVienna

BudapestBudapest

BucharBuchar

IstanbulIstanbul

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SofiaSofia

BelgradeBelgrade TriesteTrieste

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SWITZ.SWITZ.

BELG.BELG.

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BULGARIABULGARIA YUGO.YUGO.

UNITEDUNITED KINGDOMKINGDOM

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Bucharest

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North Sea

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B al

ti c S

e a

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Less than $400 million

$400 million to $1.2 billion

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MAP 6.2 Marshall Plan Aid to Europe, 1948–1952

Read the Document The Marshall Plan on mysearchlab.com

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“proof” that democracy generated wealth for all, leading to a high degree of political stability in the United States and Western Europe.

The mental image of the iron curtain across Europe, the language of the containment policy and the bold political and economic promises of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan solidi- fied the divisions, differences and distance between the East and the West—the Cold War had begun and both sides had made their positions clear. But was the United States prepared to fol- low through? Not quite yet.

The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of Defense and included the army, navy and air force as equals within it. The act also created the National Security Council to advise the president of foreign policy matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to collect and analyze intelligence information and conduct covert operations outside of the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would continue to handle internal af- fairs. One of the first actions of the National Security Council was to recommend increasing military spending by 400 percent. The military budget jumped from $13 billion in 1949 to more than $40 billion in one year. To prevent communist influences from surfacing within the United States, Executive Order 9835 in March 1947 revoked governmental security clearances for peo- ple who were considered politically “leftist.” The Taft-Hartley Act, which passed in June 1947 despite a presidential veto, restricted the power of labor unions. In 1949, Congress instituted a peacetime draft to make sure the military was trained and ready to go at moment’s notice. Congress also revived the House Committee on Un-American Activities and went after America’s film industry, academicians, and eventually even members of the U.S. military and top State Department officials. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy led this Red Scare and held Senate hearings that accused people of sympathizing with communists. At the least, many people lost their jobs and friends; at the worst, they faced contempt citations, criminal trials, and even prison sentences.

The First Conflict of the Cold War: the Berlin Airlift For the U.S. government, 1947 was a busy year; and Stalin decided to test the new policies—he wanted to gauge how committed the United States was to containment. In June 1948, Stalin tried to push the line between the communists (supported by the USSR) and the Western democracies (supported by the United States), which ran right down the middle of Germany. Even though the city of Berlin was located 110 miles inside of East Germany (controlled by the USSR), it too was divided into four sectors—one part to each of the victorious Allies. The French, British and American sectors combined to form West Berlin, and the USSR agreed to allow access through East German territory to and from West Berlin.

But in June 1948, the Soviets cut off all power to West Berlin and closed all transportation access, completely forming a blockade around it. Although U.S. troops were stationed nearby, using them against the Soviet troops who were upholding the blockade would most certainly re- sult in armed conflict, escalating the Cold War just as it got underway. Truman decided the better way to handle this was to bypass the blockade and show the Soviets that they could not “beat” the United States. For almost one year, basic necessities were consistently flown into West Berlin via the Berlin Airlift. At the peak of the Berlin Airlift, Western cargo planes were landing at one of Berlin’s three airports at a rate of one plane every sixty-two seconds. In May 1949, the Soviets realized that the United States was not going to simply surrender West Berlin and dis- continued the blockade, but not before 275,000 flights had carried a staggering 2.3 million tons of supplies into West Berlin. The point was made—the United States would take action to con- tain the spread of communism.

Stalin’s aggression in Berlin led to the birth of the German Federal Republic in 1949, cre- ated by a constitution written by Germans under Allied supervision. Germany was no longer one country divided into occupation zones; it became two independent states—familiarly known as West and East Germany—that formed the front line of the Cold War.

House Committee on Un-American Activities a standing committee of nine representatives who investigated suspected communists in influential positions in U.S. society

WORLDWIDE CONFLICT 125

Watch the Video President Truman and the Threat of Communism on mysearchlab.com

Watch the Video The Berlin Airlift on mysearchlab.com

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126 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

Western Europe on the Front Line For almost the entire first half of the twentieth century, Western Europe had been torn apart by war, and the results were absolutely devastating. The physical destruction was almost unimag- inable; an estimated 70 percent of Europe’s industrial infrastructure was destroyed. From the largest cities on the continent to the smallest rural villages, farmland, factories and all meth- ods of transportation were unusable and, in many cases, simply gone. People suffered through bombings, military occupations, war crimes, forced labor camps and the Holocaust. Approximately 37 million Europeans were dead, which included almost twice as many civil- ians as military. For those left to survive in what American journalist William Shirer described

KielKiel

HamburgHamburg BremerhavenBremerhaven

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ErfurtErfurt DresdenDresden

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TübingenTübingen

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FreiburgFreiburg

RHINELAND-RHINELAND- PALATINATEPALATINATE

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0 50 mi

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British Zone

French Zone

Soviet Zone

French protectorate

MAP 6.3 German Occupation Zones, 1947

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as an “utter wasteland,” famine and poor living conditions were rampant. Unemployment, food ra- tioning and a coal shortage led to civil unrest and violence. In an effort to find homes, jobs and their families, people migrated and relocated across the continent. An estimated 50 million refugees were homeless.

The emotional and psychological toll on the people of Europe cannot be underestimated and is perhaps most eloquently expressed in the writings of French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. In developing existentialism, these writers (and others) combined the scholarly work of previous philosophers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger with the experiences of war and poverty that the people of Europe lived through in the first half of the twentieth century to create philosophical essays, fictional novels and theatrical performances that expressed the raw emotions of postwar European life. The basic premise of exis- tentialism is that “existence precedes essence,” which means that humans are defined by their exis- tence and nothing more. Trying to give meaning to your existence is absurd—there is no god and no established set of ethics or morals to compare yourself to. Who you are, who you become, is all a matter of choices you make in a state of perfect freedom. Sartre’s most famous work, the one that really formulated the existentialist movement of the 1940s and 1950s, is an essay entitled “Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology,” published in 1943. His companion, de Beauvoir, blended existentialism and liberal feminism, a quickly growing movement in the late 1940s, when women were not anxious to give up the jobs and in- dependence they had gained while their husbands were gone. Her 1949 best seller, The Second Sex, argues that, throughout history, women have been defined as the “other” sex, implying they are not the “normal” sex.

Governments knew they had to respond to the people’s needs, but they were trapped in po- litical conflict. In Great Britain, the Labour Party, under Attlee, took over government just at the end of the war in 1945. In an attempt to alleviate the problems associated with thirty years of war and poverty, Attlee established a welfare state with the passage of the National Insurance Act, the National Assistance Act and the National Health Service Act on July 5, 1948. This comprehensive program provided “cradle to grave” services for all citizens, a sort of compromise between democracy and communism. In France, the Fourth Republic (the postoc- cupation government) was controlled by a powerful parliament filled with communists and so- cialists who refused to allow a strong president. This led to instability—there were twenty-four

WESTERN EUROPE ON THE FRONT LINE 127

welfare state a system in which the government provides certain public services (health care, education, unemployment insurance, social security, etc.) as a right of citizenship, regardless of personal wealth

liberal feminism a philosophy and activist movement that seeks political, legal and social reform on the premise that men and women are equal

existentialism a philosophical movement of postwar Europe that emphasizes individual decision making as the sole source of one’s identity

Rebuilding England.

MAKE THE CONNECTION

Sartre was drafted into the French army in 1939, captured by Germans in 1940 and spent nine months in a prisoner of war camp. After negotiating his release, he returned to Paris and began work- ing for the French Resistance. Sartre’s experiences during World War II reflect the conundrum most Europeans faced during those years—do I collaborate with the Nazis, join the Resistance or focus solely on self-preservation? Solving this question for himself led Sartre to one of the fundamental tenets of existential philosophy—freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. Why did this philosophy gain popular appeal in Europe following World War II?

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128 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

governments in just twelve years. In West Germany, the government was initially ruled by the Allied High Commission, comprised of four commissioners from the United States, three from the United Kingdom and one from France. Germans regained control of their government in September 1949. In Italy, a threat of impending civil war led to a referendum in June 1946 to decide whether to maintain the monarchy or move to a re- public form of government. With only 54 percent of the vote in favor of republicanism, in a hotly contested election with charges of corruption, Italy officially became a republic on January 1, 1948.

The Denazification of West Germany Although the war was officially over, through- out Europe Germans were still popularly re- garded as the enemy. The hatred and distrust extended to all German people, although the official Allied policy toward Germany was focused on the denazification and demilitariza- tion of the state. Across Europe and the United States, there was a sense of the need for retri- bution for the death and destruction that Germany had initiated, particularly because Hitler was unavailable to publicly suffer for the misery he created. On August 8, 1945, The London Charter of the International Military

Tribunal was published, providing the legal basis for conducting trials for individuals accused of committing war crimes, crimes against peace, and/or crimes against humanity during the war, and it spelled out the procedures that would be followed in doing so. From November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT), comprised of judges from the four Allied countries, tried twenty-four of the highest-ranking Nazi officials who were captured at the end of the war. The United States also held its own tribunal for war criminals, including specific ones for doctors and judges. Collectively, these tribunals were known as the Nuremberg Trials because they were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, the site of some of the largest Nazi ral- lies before and during World War II. Of the twenty-four high-ranking Nazi officials tried by the IMT, twelve received the death sentence (by hanging), seven received prison time ranging from ten years to life, three were acquitted, one had his charges dropped to lesser crimes and was sent to a U.S. tribunal, and one committed suicide before his trial began. The Nuremberg Trials became the foundation for the ongoing development of international criminal law through UN conventions and the creation of international courts.

Between the U.S. military presence throughout Europe and the money coming in through the Marshall Plan, American citizens, corporations and culture spread throughout Europe. Unlike the end of World War I, when the American troops went home and the country became isolationist, the United States established military bases in West Germany to keep a close eye on the encroaching communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The European countries were simply too weak militarily to handle the occupation of Germany and protect themselves from the Soviet Red Army without the help of the United States. Similarly, they were too financially drained to rebuild their own economies and had to rely on aid from the United States to do so. This was a

crimes against humanity murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds

crimes against peace planning, initiating or participating in a war of aggression

war crimes violations of the laws of war, including murder, slave labor, abuse of prisoners of war, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages

German War Crimes Tribunals, 1945.

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REGIONAL CONFLICTS 129

tough spot for the European governments, who were on the one hand thankful the United States was willing to stay involved and participate in establishing economic, political and military sta- bility; but at the same time painfully aware of the Americanization of Europe.

Regional Conflicts While the beginning of the Cold War was certainly the most divisive conflict of this era, it was by no means the only one. Some of the most dramatic conflicts in the latter half of the twentieth century also began in these postwar years as a result of issues associated with migration and de- colonization. Because of the bipolar structure of the world during this time, many of these re- gional conflicts became key battles in the Cold War (and are discussed in future chapters). Indeed, many of them remain heated regional conflicts in the twenty-first century.

India and Pakistan After years of working toward self-rule, India gained its independence from Great Britain in August 1947. Unfortunately, the people of India disagreed (often violently) on religion and government. Muslims believed that religion should be an integral part of the governance sys- tem, while Hindus wanted to establish a democratic republic with a separation of church and state. Because they could not agree, they could not create a single government for the newly

New Delhi Delhi

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1989)

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Americanization U.S. influence on the culture of another country, generally spread through consumerism and/or militarization

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130 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

decolonized state, and India was partitioned into two separate nations: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. This partition led to violence as approximately 14.5 million people rushed the border—the Muslims in India heading for Pakistan and the Hindus in Pakistan heading for India. They met in the Punjab region, where an estimated 500,000 were killed in rioting.

Mohandas Gandhi, by then the most powerful figure in the Indian National Congress, opposed the partition, but his closest advisors convinced him that it was the only way to avoid civil war, so he reluctantly agreed. After the partition, he became focused on Hindu–Muslim unity, engaging in a fast-unto-death unless financial aid from India that had been promised to Pakistan was delivered. The money transfer was made; but despite Gandhi’s efforts, in October 1947 the first of what would be four wars broke out between the newly created India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir. In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a radical Hindu who was angered by Gandhi’s ef- forts at Hindu–Muslim unity.

Israel versus Arab Nationalism Jewish immigration to Palestine from Germany and the rest of Europe increased dramatically throughout the 1930s as a result of Hitler’s actions, further angering the Arabs living in Palestine and igniting violence. The Arabs demanded an end to immigration, warning Great Britain that “no room can be made in Palestine for a second nation except by dislodging or exterminating the first.” In other words, give us our independence, but the Arabs must rule it. The Jews, however, also claimed the right to rule an independent Palestine.

In March 1945, six Arab countries formed a regional intergovernmental organization (IGO) called the Arab League in order to “draw closer the relations between member States and co- ordinate their political activities with the aim of realizing a close collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries.” The goal was to create an Arab homeland that would respect the sovereign authority of its member states but support one another politically and economically in world affairs. The primary focus was to remove the Jews from Palestine and restore it as an Arab territory.

After Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, President Truman openly supported Jewish immigra- tion to Palestine, which made the Arab League angry at the United States. As the Holocaust camps were liberated, Great Britain made the very controversial decision to refuse the survivors admittance to Palestine, instead setting up refugee camps for them in Cyprus. This decision an- gered President Truman, strengthening his resolve to support Zionist efforts at establishing a homeland in Palestine. Both the Jews and Arabs in Palestine resorted to terrorism to get rid of the British and each other, and the British soon came to realize that the 1 million Arabs and the 400,000 Jews sharing the British-controlled territory of Palestine were never going to get along peacefully. Great Britain decided to let the newly created United Nations step in and take over.

In November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to approve the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, which would create a separate Jewish state and a separate Arab state, leaving a small territory containing Jerusalem and Bethlehem under UN administration. According to the plan, the Arab state would receive about 43 percent of its original territory and the Jewish state would receive approximately 56 percent (although much of it was desert) to accommodate the expected rise in immigration once a Jewish state was created. The problem was not the land itself, how- ever; it was the population living within those borders. In the process of trying to include most of the Jews in the Jewish state, a lot of Arabs were included as well. As a result, the Jewish state ended up with only a 61 percent majority of Jews, meaning that 39 percent of the people living in the Jewish state were Arab, most of them Muslims.

The response of the Jewish leadership was mixed, but they accepted the partition plan. The Palestinian leadership disagreed with it for a variety of reasons, arguing first and foremost that partition only represented the will of one-third of the overall Palestinian population (the Jewish people). Leaders in the surrounding Arab countries, concerned about the large numbers of Arabs

recognized to be a legitimate state in the international system, you must have a well- defined territory with a permanent population and a single government to engage in relations with other states

Arab Nationalism a self-rule movement based on the assertion that all Arabs are united by a common cultural, historical, linguistic heritage

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who would be living as a minority group inside what was historically their own land, got involved as well. Arab nationalism, which first appeared in force after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, grew into an organized anticolonial movement after the Treaty of Versailles turned the territory of the Middle East into British and French mandates. Now that the Western powers were once again de- termining state boundaries and who could dominate them, Arab nationalists were eager to help Palestinian Arabs maintain control of their territory. In December 1947, Syria es- tablished the Arab Liberation Army with 6,000 volunteers, Arabs primarily from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan and Egypt. But the Jews also had their own army and para- military organizations, with many World War II veterans, and violent conflicts and terrorist attacks occurred daily.

The British wanted nothing to do with Palestine once the violence began and an- nounced that they would leave Palestine on May 15, 1948, refusing to participate in the implementation of the plan. On May 14, 1948, the leader of the provisional govern- ment of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, announced the establishment of the state of Israel, basi- cally enacting the UN Partition Plan. Arabs throughout the Middle East denied his ability to do so, arguing that Israel was stealing land that belonged to Palestine. President Truman immediately recognized Ben-Gurion’s gov- ernment as the leadership of the new state of Israel. As the now-declassified documents show, Truman knew in advance of Ben- Gurion’s plan, and Ben-Gurion knew that he had U.S. support. The UN was angry that Truman did not discuss his plans with the Security Council before publicly announcing his support for Israel, but it too followed suit in recognizing Israel as a legitimate state.

The very next day, May 15, 1948, state militaries from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq joined with the Arab Liberation Army and invaded Palestine. This was the first Arab–Israeli War, and it lasted until January 1949. The Jewish people successfully held onto the territory they were originally allotted under the Partition Plan, gained almost half of the land designated for Palestine, and also captured part of Jerusalem. At the end of this war, Israel controlled approximately 78 percent of the original state of Palestine. Egypt gained the territory known as the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank went to Transjordan. One of the most se- vere effects of the war was the incredible refugee crisis throughout the Middle East. Palestinian refugees fleeing Israeli control were estimated at anywhere from 360,000 to 711,000, and most

REGIONAL CONFLICTS 131

UN Partition Plan for Palestine, 1947.

Read the Document Israel’s

Proclamation of Independence, 1948 on mysearchlab.com

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132 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

surrounding Arab countries were not financially, politically or geographically equipped to ac- commodate them. Another 758,000 to 900,000 Jewish refugees fled from Arab nations, most of them to Israel. The war also made the Arabs determined to seek revenge, not just against the Jews, but also against the West, which had clearly provided Israel with political support, financ- ing and military technology.

Once Israel was established, the population grew rapidly due to immigration, doubling in just three years. Unfortunately, the economic situation was bleak due to the boycott by all surrounding Arab states and high taxes to keep the military running for much-needed defense. Some help ar- rived when Israel became a member of the UN in May 1949; but to survive, Israel relied heavily on direct financial and military aid from the West, particularly from the United States.

Two Communisms In China, the Guomindang (Nationalist Party) government and Communist Party had temporarily united to help defend the country from Japan’s attacks. But Japan’s defeat in World War II meant its conquered territory was returned to its rightful owners, and China was geographically restored, so the struggle for political power between the Guomindang and Communist Party resurfaced in the form of a civil war. Chiang Kai-Shek, the leader of the Guomindang and a member of the Allied Powers in WWII, officially ruled the Republic of China, according to its constitution, but Mao Zedong and his communist forces made substantial territorial gains in the immediate postwar era. Despite almost $2 billion in aid from the United States, the Guomindang was no match for the pop- ular Communist Party. By the fall of 1949, Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalists fled, reestablishing

Gaza

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the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan with the full support of the United States. Mao took over mainland China and, on October 1, 1949, renamed it the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to reflect its communist ideology. He called his government the “People’s Democratic Dictatorship.”

Stalin was cautious about the establishment of a commu- nist state that was not under his direct control. Mao quickly made it very clear that he would not be considered a satellite state of the USSR—Mao had his own brand of communism, rooted deeply in the unique cultural and historical experi- ences of China. After a few months of difficult negotiations, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance was signed in February 1950. The treaty included a mutual defense pact, an agreement to consult on interna- tional affairs that involved both countries, moderate eco- nomic assistance (roughly $300 million) from the USSR to the PRC and a promise of nonintervention in the domestic af- fairs of the other. Nationalism, it seemed, was stronger than communism.

Vietnam When Germany controlled France during World War II, Japan began supervising France’s Asian colonies, including Vietnam. Though guerilla resistance failed against the power- ful Japanese military, the independence movement in Vietnam grew even stronger. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the Vietnamese people tried to negotiate for their independence, but the French refused. Led by Ho Chi Minh, the people decided to fight.

Born in Vietnam under French colonialism, Ho Chi Minh spent his early adult years in London and Paris (he even attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference), where he helped establish the French Communist Party. He attended East Moscow University in the USSR and, as a mem- ber of the Comintern, traveled through China and Indochina establishing regional communist polit- ical parties. In 1941, he brought nationalists and communists together as the Vietminh, an organi- zation devoted to Vietnamese independence. Ho was certainly a communist, but he was first and foremost a nationalist.

On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh an- nounced the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ironically using lan- guage from both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French revolutionaries of the late 1700s to proclaim the Vietnamese people free from outside domination. The French responded, and the First Indochina War began in December 1946. For eight years, Vietnam was a battleground as France strug- gled to fight off a nationalist movement led by the Vietminh.

But as much as the Allies believed in decolo- nization, the Cold War mentality had taken hold, Ho Chi Minh at the Versailles Peace Conference, 1919.

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (MAO)

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134 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

and Ho Chi Minh was a known communist. With good reason, the Allies did not trust that he would establish a democratic state in Vietnam. By 1950, the U.S. policy of containment had kicked in full force, and the United States began providing military and financial aid to the French with the expectation that they would stop the communist takeover. At about the same time, Mao took over China and began providing military support to Ho Chi Minh. The French suffered a ma- jor military defeat and lost control of Vietnam in 1954. They were forced to negotiate with the Vietnamese communists, and the resulting “independence” agreement created far more problems than it solved.

International and Regional Convergence Although this immediate postwar period served as a sort of incubator for the major conflicts of the latter half of the twentieth century, it was also a period of cooperation in many respects. After thirty years of total war, it was apparent that the nation-states of the world were not isolated. The linkages between them—economic, ideological and political—were great and growing. The powerful countries in 1945 recognized that, if they could harness those linkages to create convergence in several key areas, most notably trade, they could control the international system without the expense of colonization.

International Agreements It was no mystery why the League of Nations failed to prevent World War II. Without the par- ticipation of the United States, the League was virtually ineffective outside of Western Europe (and barely credible there). Before the United States was even officially involved in World War II, President Roosevelt was determined that the United States should take its rightful

Flag Day Ceremonies at the White House.

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INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL CONVERGENCE 135

THE PURPOSES OF THE UNITED NATIONS ARE

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

place in a new international organization dedicated to many of Wilson’s original goals for the League of Nations. When creating the Atlantic Charter in 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill used the phrase “united nations” to describe their alliance. Roosevelt liked the term and suggested to Churchill that it should be the name of the postwar organization they would create to estab- lish stability and peace. At the first meeting of the “big three” in Tehran in 1943, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United Nations with five core members: the United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR, France, and China (at the time still under one-party rule by the Guomindang). Representatives from those countries spent the fall of 1944 working out the general parameters for the international organization, and in the spring of 1945 the UN Conference on International Organizations brought together the governments of fifty nations and several nongovernmental organizations to create the UN Charter. Once this charter was ratified by the five original members, who retained permanent positions on the Security Council, and by a majority of the other forty-six nations involved, the United Nations was of- ficially established on June 26, 1945.

There was no doubt why the UN was created—the first line of the preamble reads: “We the Peoples of the United Nations Determined . . . to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind . . .” The stated goal was to prevent World War III. The United Nations was established to do what the League of Nations was supposed to do but could never accomplish; much of Wilson’s language even appears throughout the text. The primary differences lie in the structure and membership, giving the UN far more power to carry out its goals than the League of Nations ever possessed.

One of the major reasons World War II started was economic depression and the fear that poor people would turn to communism as an answer. To provide an alternative other than fas- cism or Nazism to prevent this, representatives from all forty-four Allied nations met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference (more com- monly referred to as the Bretton Woods Conference) in July 1944 to figure out how to stabilize the world financial system and prevent a repeat of the economic disaster that occurred post- World War I. The goals of the representatives were to create rules and institutions that would regulate the international monetary system to prevent another worldwide depression and to help the poorest countries of the world get stronger to prevent a communist takeover. They estab- lished a liberal economic system to provide “economic security,” which would be maintained through two newly created institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established to oversee currency exchange rates, promote economic growth and employment and provide emergency loans to countries in severe debt. Working as an agency under the UN, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IRBD), more commonly referred to as the World Bank, began with $10 billion to loan to governments of countries most in need of postwar reconstruction.

liberal economic system a set of international agreements and rules designed to promote free trade, open markets and monetary stability

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The Bretton Woods system was officially established in 1946 after ratification by a major- ity of the Allied nations at the conference. An international trade organization was originally proposed, but the idea never made it past the U.S. Senate, so it never went on for consideration by the other Bretton Woods members. Instead, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) was put in place to regulate trade issues. Although a Soviet representative attended the initial conference, the USSR refused to join the IMF or sign the GATT because the goals of a liberal economic system ran exactly counter to the goals of a communist economy.

Regional Agreements Western European governments were reliant on Marshall Plan aid to rebuild their shattered economies. And as the UN demand for decolonization grew, they were also faced with the prospect of completely revamping their economies, which had been built on mercantilism. Without colonies, they would have to pay for natural resources and labor and sell their goods at a fair price. In 1948, a Congress of Europe was held to look at the options for opening up cooperative trade opportunities between the six participants: France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. Over the next few years, they established the Organization of European Economic Cooperation, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community, all of which eventually merged into the European Community in 1967. Instead of competing over limited resources and colonies, Europe would work together to support one another’s economies. In part, this was an economic necessity, but many realized that it was a political necessity as well in the face of clearly increasing U.S. dominance over Europe. Tying the success and failures of these six major European economies together also linked them politically, and the European Parliament was established in 1957 as part of the European Economic Community. Eventually, other Western European powers joined, creating the basic structure for European unity that continued to converge throughout the century.

As the Cold War began, the countries of Latin America realized that the United States would once again seek them out for political and economic support. In part because of the heavy U.S. financial investment and in part because of geostrategic positioning, the United States would never allow a communist foothold to develop in Latin America. Given the high poverty rates and U.S. intervention in their leading industries over the years, left-wing political regimes were relatively popular with the people of South America. The U.S. government real- ized that these regimes were vulnerable to accepting financial and military support from the USSR in exchange for a jump just a little further left on the political spectrum. Eager to prevent this, the United States once again approached the countries of Latin America, offering support. The 1947 Rio Pact placed the twenty-one countries of Latin America in a security alliance sup- ported by the United States. In April 1948, this alliance was formalized as the Organization of American States (OAS), a collective security arrangement “to achieve an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sover- eignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence.” One of the stated goals was to “pro- mote and consolidate representative democracy,” so the United States channeled money, direct military assistance and covert CIA aid to help prevent left-wing regimes from gaining power in Latin America.

After the experience of the Berlin blockade, it was apparent to the United States and Western Europe that the USSR was serious about spreading communism and would perhaps even resort to violence to do so. To prepare for this possibility, they established a collective self- defense organization in April 1949 under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. They called it the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and it essentially told the world that an attack on one member was equivalent to an attack on all members. In response, the Eastern European states, controlled by Moscow, created COMECON (Council of Mutual Assistance), supposedly to integrate their economies (sort of a Marshall Plan for the eastern bloc), but also very much as

136 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

Bretton Woods system the institutions created and controlled by the wealthy democratic countries to encourage worldwide prosperity and counter political extremism

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an informal military alliance. The Soviets formalized this when they established the Warsaw Pact, an Eastern European defense organization, on May 14, 1955.

In an effort to prevent the further spread of communism in Southeast Asia, the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand (where the headquarters were located) and Pakistan created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954. Its membership included only two Southeast Asian countries— the rest were not terribly concerned that communism presented a threat to their internal sta- bility. The United States viewed SEATO as an essential tool in containment; France and Great Britain were financially invested in the region; New Zealand and Australia joined be- cause of their close proximity; and Pakistan was trying to build international support and marginalize India. Given its membership and lack of military forces, SEATO’s ability to take action was restricted only to meet U.S. interests (particularly during U.S. involvement in Vietnam).

Conclusions In the first fifty years of the twentieth century, the combination of technology and economic growth built advanced militaries, while nationalism, Social Darwinism and consumerism tore apart existing empires, leading to roughly thirty years of total war and global economic depres- sion. In the aftermath, during the years 1945–1950, the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries were determined to prevent what seemed to be a downward spiral for humanity. They sought new ways to cope with the results of their actions, seeking a convergence of political ideals and military control wherever possible to prevent large-scale warfare and extensive coop- eration in economic matters to prevent another worldwide depression. The people of the world also chose new responses to what they perceived as the same problems they had been facing since the century began. They had been promised self-determination before and were frustrated when the political leaders they trusted to deliver it had failed to do so. This time they would fight for independence and create their own identities through civil war, political revolutions, and mi- gration. With ongoing nationalistic-driven, postcolonial, and identity-related violence marking almost every region of the world and a “cold war” prevailing on a global level, the structure for the latter half of the twentieth century was established.

CONCLUSIONS 137

W O R K I N G W I T H T H E T H E M E S

THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY What were the ramifications of the United States utiliz- ing its atomic bombs against Japan? How did the use of the bombs lead to a “cold war”?

CHANGING IDENTITIES How did WWII affect European civilians? What were the implications of the East/West divide into “spheres of influence”? What were the immedi- ate effects of decolonization for people in the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia?

SHIFTING BORDERS How did the victorious Allies settle land disputes at the end of WWII? What were the short-term effects of occupation zones? What were the geographic consequences of decolonization from 1945–1950?

GLOBALIZATION Why was the United Nations created after the failure of the League of Nations? How did the Great Depression of the 1930s lead to the Bretton Woods system? Why was there an increase in regional organizations in the postwar era? What were the ramifications of the linkage between cold-war politics and economics?

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138 CHAPTER 6 • CONFLICT AND CONVERGENCE: 1945–1950

Further Reading

TO FIND OUT MORE

Library of Congress: For European Recovery: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Marshall Plan. Available online at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/marshall/

PBS American Experience: The Berlin Airlift. Available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/airlift

MATRIX, the Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online: Seventeen Moments in Soviet History—1947. Available online at http://www.soviethistory.org

Imperial War Museum: Through My Eyes—Stories of Conflict, Belonging and Identity (Indian Partition). Available online at http://www.throughmyeyes.org.uk/

James L. Gelvin: The Israel–Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War (2007) NATO: NATO Declassified 1949–1959. Available online at

http://www.nato.int/ebookshop/video/declassified/#/en/home/

GO TO THE SOURCE

Yale Law School/The Avalon Project: The Nuremberg Trials Collection. Available online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/imt.asp

Yale Law School/The Avalon Project: The Bretton Woods Agreements. Available online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decad047.asp

Library of Congress: Revelations from the Russian Archives. Available online at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intro.html

Harry S. Truman Library & Museum: Ideological Foundations of the Cold War. Available online at http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/index.php? action=docs

Connections

6.1 George F. Kennan, Long Telegram. In 1946, the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union was falling apart. U.S. Foreign Service officer George F. Kennan argued that the systems of the United States and the Soviet Union were incom- patible and that Soviet security depended on destroying the American way of life.

6.2 Winston Churchill, Iron Curtain Speech. After World War II, Churchill toured the United States alongside President Harry S. Truman. In a speech at Westminster College in Missouri, he coined the phrase “Iron Curtain” to describe the lack of clarity in the west for what was going on in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.

6.3 National Security Council Memorandum Number 68. The emerging Cold War led some U.S. officials to view the world as dividing into two hostile spheres. A major issue con- cerned nuclear weapons in the Soviet-dominated sphere and the need to maintain the American lead in the arms race.

6.4 Harry S. Truman, The Truman Doctrine. World War II left Europe economically devas- tated and politically unstable. Early in 1947, it appeared that Turkey and Greece would fall under Soviet influence. In this speech, Truman outlines his support for a policy of aggressive containment of the Soviet Union not only in Turkey and Greece, but all over the world.

Read the Document on mysearchlab.com

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6.5 George Marshall, The Marshall Plan. In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State Marshall articu- lated a plan for American aid to Europe. The plan was designed to fill the power vac- uum in Europe and to help Europe reconstruct itself after the devastation of war.

6.6 Israel’s Proclamation of Independence, 1948. One day before the termination of the British mandate for Palestine, the Provisional State Council (a forerunner of the Israeli Parliament) declared the independence of Israel on May 14, 1948.

6.1 President Truman and the Threat of Communism 6.2 The Berlin Airlift

Watch the Video on mysearchlab.com

CONCLUSIONS 139

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C H A P T E R T I M E L I N E

140

C H A P T E R T I M E L I N E

CHAPTER OUTLINE

• U.S. Occupation of Japan

• The “Other” Communism: Mao’s People’s Republic of China

• Conflict in Korea

• The Arms Race

• Battle by Proxy

The Cold War Begins7

C H A P T E R T I M E L I N E

1945

United States uses atomic bombs

VJ Day–U.S. occupation of Japan begins

Korea is divided into communist north and democratic south

1947

Japan approves democratic Constitution

1949

Mao wins Chinese Civil War and establishes PRC

United States recognizes Taiwan

Sino-Soviet Treaty is signed

USSR detonates atomic bombs

1950

Korean War begins

1953

Stalin dies

The transistor radio is invented

USSR and United States invent hydrogen bombs

1964

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong is published

The PRC becomes a nuclear power

1965

Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution begins

G A R R E T T , M E G A N 1 3 2 4 T S

1954

Vietnam wins independence from France

Geneva Accords divide Vietnam

1957

USSR and United States invent ICBMs

USSR launches Sputnik

1958

Khrushchev becomes premier of the USSR

Mao launches the Great Leap Forward

1960

The Sino-Soviet Split changes the Cold War

1961

USSR and United States develop ABMs

Photos from left to right: Political cartoon depicting the arms race; Korean War; Diagram of a fallout shelter; Mao and Khruschev, 1958.

141

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142 CHAPTER 7 • THE COLD WAR BEGINS

U.S. Occupation of Japan Japan was an active, aggressive player in world affairs from the late nineteenth century until it was defeated in August 1945. Because of the terms of surrender, Japan was unable to play a dominant role during the Cold War, but it certainly served several important functions in helping the United States maintain its interests in the East.

The Occupation For seven years immediately following WWII, Japan was occupied by Allied forces (primarily U.S. troops) led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP). To MacArthur and the U.S. government, a thorough military occupation was required for three reasons: (1) to prevent future aggression, which was so deeply ingrained in Japanese Meiji culture, (2) to make sure that the desired changes actually occurred (unlike what happened in Germany after WWI), and (3) to provide a democratic safe haven in a region of growing communist dominance. During the occupation, Japan was thoroughly demilitarized and politically, socially and economically restructured through SCAP directives that the Japanese leaders and people had no choice but to accept.

MacArthur had spent a lot of time in the Pacific and studied Japanese culture, which was very focused on obedience to a hierarchical chain of authority. He knew that the occupation would meet significantly less internal resistance if the emperor (at the top of the chain) sup- ported U.S. policies, so he made sure during the surrender negotiations that Emperor Hirohito kept his position as a figurehead, though not as a divine leader. To pave the way for democ- racy, MacArthur had to remove the authoritarian military government, which he did through war crimes tribunals. Almost 6,000 Japanese military and government officials were put on trial in Tokyo for war crimes associated with Japan’s treatment of civilians and POWs, includ- ing mass killings, the use of biological and chemical weapons, torture, cannibalism and sexual slavery. The Tokyo Tribunal began in May 1946, and the verdicts were announced in November 1948: 984 were sentenced to death (920 of whom were actually executed), 3,419

W hile the roots of the Cold War were certainly planted in the agreements made between the Allies toward the end of World War II and the immediate decisions made by both Stalin and Truman, the Cold War itself really took shape in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s as

the United States and the USSR scrambled to secure ideological supporters without risking World War III. Rather than building traditional militaries, the two superpowers financed espi- onage (the CIA and KGB), funded civil wars and political coups around the world, and hoped that the existence of ever-increasing stockpiles of technologically advanced nuclear weapons would be enough to demonstrate power without having to actually detonate them. To a great extent, the Cold War was dri- ven by the personalities and goals of the many political leaders who participated over the years. In the first phase of the conflict, Stalin was still firmly in control of the USSR, and the United States was led by Truman, who knew all too well the difficult decision-making processes of the nuclear era. Truman was fol- lowed by WWII General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Their decisions established the foundation of the Cold War.

W O R K I N G W I T H T H E T H E M E S

THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY The escalating arms race and related space race make WWIII potentially devastating for all participants, so the superpowers use battle by proxy in an attempt to keep warfare conventional.

CHANGING IDENTITIES The Sino-Soviet split creates a schism in the communist world. The Japanese Meiji constitution is replaced with democracy under U.S. occupation.

SHIFTING BORDERS Korea is divided into occupation zones, and the superpowers fight a battle by proxy to establish control. Korea becomes two separate countries.

GLOBALIZATION The arms and space races expand the potential theater of WWIII to the entire globe. Through proxy battles, the world becomes increasingly divided into spheres of influence.

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popular sovereignty the concept that government is created by and subject to the will of the people

U.S. OCCUPATION OF JAPAN 143

were sentenced to prison (475 for life), and 1,018 were acquitted. Another 5,500 Japanese of- ficials and soldiers were tried in other countries: 4,400 were convicted, 1,000 of whom were executed. And although the structure of the new government under SCAP was democratic, the focus on authority and hierarchy remained to remind the Japanese people that they were in- deed living under a military occupation. For example, SCAP practiced strict censorship to pre- vent antidemocratic rhetoric that opposed the U.S. occupation and tried to keep communist ideas from infiltrating Japan.

The 1947 Constitution To democratize Japan, the Meiji Constitution from 1889 obviously had to be changed. After Japanese officials submitted a draft that was essentially a rewording of the existing Meiji Constitution, MacArthur realized that the Japanese would not understand or agree with demo- cratic principles that did not exist in the Meiji culture. As a result, he and a committee of U.S. military officials wrote a new constitution for Japan in just six days in February 1946. The constitution was presented to Japanese government officials in March, and although the offi- cials tried to negotiate, they achieved only minor revisions. It helped MacArthur that Emperor Hirohito endorsed the constitution and even personally took it to the Diet (Japanese Parliament). The constitution was voted into law by the new Diet in fall 1946 and went into effect in May 1947.

The 1947 Constitution was grounded in the principles of British and American democracy, de- voted to popular sovereignty and a parliamentary system of government. The emperor, stripped of his former powers, became a constitutional monarch, and MacArthur himself handpicked the first prime minister with the emperor’s “consent.” The Diet was turned into a bicameral legislature, with a weak upper chamber to represent the entire country and a powerful lower chamber to represent the people. Most importantly, members of the Diet were elected by popular vote. Almost one-third

MacArthur signs Japanese Surrender.

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144 CHAPTER 7 • THE COLD WAR BEGINS

of the articles of the Constitution were devoted to ensuring civil liberties and individual rights for Japanese citizens. These “basic human liberties,” as MacArthur called them, included the funda- mental freedoms expressed in the U.S. Bill of Rights, but go even further, adding universal adult suffrage, workers’ rights, a right to property and education, and specific marriage and property rights for women. The requirements of the 1947 Constitution forced a complete restructuring of Japanese education and business systems, as well as altered social norms.

The most unique element of the constitution, and the one that earned it the nickname “MacArthur Peace Constitution,” was Article 9, which stated: “aspiring sincerely to an interna- tional peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” This article was essentially the prohibition of war, which no other nation before or since has agreed to as a component of its constitutional structure. Article 9 also forbade Japan from maintaining land, sea or air forces, but federal laws passed a few years later allowed them to create the National Police Reserve, a small paramilitary force to defend the Japanese islands. The amend- ment process defined in the constitution was rigorous. As a result, although there is often debate, no amendments have ever been made. The constitution of Japan stands today as it was written by SCAP during the occupation in 1946.

Consequences of Article 9 Article 9, also called “the peace clause,” met a few important needs of the United States. First and foremost, it prevented Japan from rearming itself and becoming a threat to world peace again. The article also created a situation that essentially required Japan to allow U.S. military bases to remain intact even after the occupation ended—a strong U.S. presence might be the only thing that prevented surrounding aggressive nations from invading Japan. And although this was marginally important to the United States when the constitution was written in 1946, it very quickly became vital for several reasons: Stalin grew openly hostile toward the United States, Mao seized control of China and established the PRC (1949), communist North Korea invaded South Korea (1950), and Ho Chi Minh earned Vietnam’s independence from France (1954). For the United States, it was imperative that its military remain stationed in Japan to protect against communist threats, as well as to maintain a U.S. military presence in the region.

With the new constitution in place, Japan and the United States began negotiating the end of the occupation in 1951. The United States agreed to a peace treaty that would fully restore Japan’s sov- ereignty, and Japan agreed to a Mutual Security Treaty that allowed U.S. forces to be stationed in Japan for the defense of the region and also to intervene in Japanese domestic affairs if the govern- ment requested assistance. Both agreements went into effect simultaneously in April 1952, with the support of both governments and most of the Japanese citizens; although a vocal minority in Japan as well as the Soviet government protested the Mutual Security Treaty. The occupation officially ended in April 1952, but the United States maintains military bases in Japan to this day.

The democratic structure that MacArthur created in Japan allowed the nation to excel polit- ically and financially. When the occupation ended, there were some political clashes between the left- and right-wing political parties, but the economy superseded everything. Because the infrastructure of the country was destroyed during the war, the government and private enter- prise formed a mutually beneficial partnership to rebuild the country’s industrial capacity and

put people to work. During the occupation, the Japanese government was aided fi- nancially by the United States, and when the Korean War started, Japan was able to produce just about everything needed by the UN troops. Because Japan fell under U.S. military protection and the constitution prevented Japan from building an offen- sive military machine, Japan invested all of its income in technological research and development and established trade relationships around the world. The connection between government and industry made for a very lucrative and well-coordinated economic plan for the country, and the economy took off. By the end of the 1960s, Japan had the second largest economy in the world (behind the United States).

Read the Document The Constitution of Japan on mysearchlab.com

MAKE THE CONNECTION Why did the United States want military bases in Japan? What are the long-term costs or conse- quences for both Japan and the United States of having military bases there?

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U.S. OCCUPATION OF JAPAN 145

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MAP 7.1 East and South Asia in 1945

The decisions MacArthur made during the occupation were vital in establishing Japan as a solid democratic and capitalist nation in an increasingly communist-dominated region of the world. Because of its economic dominance, its democratic political regime, and the presence

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146 CHAPTER 7 • THE COLD WAR BEGINS

of U.S. military bases, Japan held a very important geostrategic position for the United States throughout the Cold War.

The “Other” Communism: Mao’s People’s Republic of China When Mao seized control of China in October 1949, Chinese citizens were exhausted and poor after decades of warfare with European imperialists, competing warlords, the Japanese invasions during WWII and the internal civil war for control of the government. China had been under at- tack for one hundred years, and the Chinese citizens were looking to Mao and the Communist Party to provide political stability, economic well-being and peace.

“Democracy” in China To provide stability for the citizens, Mao established what he called a “democratic dictatorship,” in which all four social classes were represented in decision making by elected officials in local assemblies (the democracy part), but the central government maintained strict control over those local assemblies and all citizens to prevent a counterrevolution (the dictatorship part). To solid- ify the power of his government, which Mao claimed ruled by the “Mandate of Heaven,” he es- tablished prisons to reeducate political opponents and forced labor camps to punish those who were deemed beyond help. He also executed an estimated 5.5 million “enemies of the people” in the first five years of his regime.

The central government consisted of one body that held all political power in the PRC: the Central People’s Government Council, led by Chairman Mao. Though there were several com- mittees and councils under this central council, there was no question about who was in charge of decision making at the national level. The first local assemblies were established in 1954, and everyone over the age of eighteen (except counterrevolutionaries and landlords) could vote for their representatives. The primary job of the local assemblies was to elect members to serve in

provincial assemblies, and the provincial assemblies elected representatives to the National People’s Congress (which pretty much did whatever Mao said). The PRC’s constitution included rights of all citizens, except those who were deemed to be counterrevolu- tionaries. In other words, you could vote, say and do anything you wanted in Communist China, as long as you did not disagree with the government. National social organizations were created specifically to edu- cate everyone—youth, laborers, women—about their specific roles in Chinese society. Ultimately, each cit- izen was reponsible for the well-being of the PRC overall and carried a duty to put the interests of the state above the individual. Mao firmly believed that the strength of the PRC lay in the masses—peasants and workers who were committed to faithfully following his ideology.

Following Stalin’s Economic Model The biggest problem Mao faced was the largely

agrarian economy, which was all but destroyed after years of war. Communist economic policy assumed tight control of currency, inflation and wages in an effort to stabilize prices. To deal with the daunting economic problems, Mao largely followed the economic policies that Stalin implemented in the USSR, including the 1950 Agrarian Reform

Mao Propaganda Poster.

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commune structure for pooling labor and income to coordinate all activities of a village with joint responsibility for all projects

collective farm a group of farms organized and managed as one, worked cooperatively by a group of laborers under state supervision

THE “OTHER” COMMUNISM: MAO’S PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA 147

Law that ended all private land ownership in the PRC. The peasants suffered by the unequal distribution of land that resulted from the law, and when they complained about it, they were executed. In 1953, the government established collective farms, which were turned into communes with almost 1,000 people living on each by the end of the 1950s. Mao also used Five Year Plans to rebuild the industrial capacity of the PRC, focusing on factories and infra- structure. The first one doubled industrial output in just two years, although at the expense of the rural peasantry.

In 1958, the government launched the Great Leap Forward in an effort to catch up with the rest of the world. The educational system was reformed to focus on science and engineering, and everyone in the country was required to participate in expanding the production of steel, electric- ity and coal. People were literally building steel furnaces in their backyards, so the quantity of steel produced increased, but the quality of what they produced rendered it basically unusable. The focus on industrial output meant less time and fewer resources for agriculture, which made it nearly impossible to feed the 660 million people living in the PRC in 1960. The Great Leap Forward helped precipiate the Great Famine, and between the two, an estimated 20 to 43 million Chinese citizens died. Economically, the Great Leap Forward was a disaster that threatened to turn back all the progress the PRC had made in the previous decade.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution The failure of the Great Leap Forward led to divisions within the ruling elite of the Communist Party. A splinter group led by Deng Xiaoping actually questioned Mao’s decision making, ar- guing that collectivization and industrialization had been pursued too quickly. They also ques- tioned his ability to lead—Mao was 71 years old and suffering from Parkinson’s disease. In 1965, to regain his authority, Mao initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to rid the government and the PRC of counterrevolutionaries. To do so, he relied on the faithful masses, requiring every citizen to report to local committees anyone, even family members, who they believed might hold counterrevolutionary ideas. The entire process was carried out in the provinces by the newly created Red Guards, a paramilitary force of students responsible for purging counterrevolutionaries. These students took their jobs very seriously, and anyone who challenged their authority was immediately arrested, so they enjoyed absolute power. What started as a student-led revolution grew into a proletarian movement as the Red Guards spread out across the countryside and pulled peasants, laborers and military into the revolution, target- ing educated citizens, teachers and high-ranking Communist Party officials. They were guided in an almost cult-like fashion by Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, a collection of Mao’s quotations published in 1964 that was required reading for every citizen of the PRC. The only group capable of stopping the Red Guards was the military (People’s Liberation Army), so the

ANALYSIS The Little Red Book, as it is known in the West, contains 427 quotations on thirty-three different topics that define Mao’s ideology. What do these quotes tell you about Mao’s leadership style?

� If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs.

� People of the world, be courageous, and dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed.

� Ideological education is the key link to be grasped in uniting the whole Party for great political struggles. � The principle of diligence and frugality should be observed in everything. � One requirement of Party discipline is that the minority should submit to the majority. If the view of the minority has been

rejected, it must support the decision passed by the majority. � Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion,

causes apathy and creates dissension.

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only way Mao could end the revolution he started was to call in the troops against it, initiating violent clashes across the country. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution certainly reaffirmed Mao’s au- thority in the PRC, but it also weakened the unity of the Chinese Communist Party and slowed industrial progress. And on the international front, the revolu- tion escalated the growing tension between the PRC and the USSR.

The Sino-Soviet Split As far back as the 1930s, Stalin had served more as an advisor to Mao than a provider. Mao lis- tened, but he mostly ignored the advice, particu- larly when Stalin suggested that Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek acquiesce to U.S. attempts to force a compromise between them to govern China after WWII. But once Mao seized control and estab- lished the PRC in 1949, he needed financial and military support. Although he feared a loss of

independence, he sought the Sino-Soviet Treaty and followed most of Stalin’s economic advice. Stalin was driven into the alliance with Mao by his need to keep the United States away from the growing power. Particularly once the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949, Stalin wanted to secure his alliances in the Pacific to control the region. So the relationship between the USSR and the PRC was not really about communist ideology, nor was it grounded in mutual trust; rather, it was very clearly about what Mao and Stalin each perceived to be best for his national security interests. Still, Mao respected Stalin’s authority as the leader of one of the world’s superpowers, and Stalin did stand up for

Mao at the UN, boycotting the Security Council when the seat for China went to Chiang Kai-Shek instead of Mao.

By 1960, a lot had changed. Stalin died in 1953, and Mao did not respect Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev harshly criticized Stalin’s leadership and Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and in 1959 he traveled to the United States to meet with Eisenhower about improving communication between the two countries. In Mao’s mind, the only thing that would bring these two enemies

together was their mutual desire to reduce his power in Asia. Mao’s fears were confirmed when Khrushchev returned from the United States and publicly warned Mao to stop provoking U.S. military action with his ongoing attacks against the nationalist regime in Taiwan.

Khrushchev and Mao verbally attacked one another repeatedly, and the struggle for pre- eminence in the communist world was clearly out in the open. In 1960, the USSR stopped providing financial aid to the PRC, and in 1962 the USSR did not hold up its promise of mili- tary support in the PRC’s border dispute with India. In 1964, the PRC became a nuclear power, and Mao decided he did not really need the USSR anymore anyway. Both countries began heavily building up their military presence on either side of the Sino-Soviet border in the PRC’s northwestern Xinjiang province, territory that Russia had seized from China in the nineteenth century. In 1969, military clashes broke out, although both countries agreed not to resort to their nuclear arsenals.

The border disputes continued intermittently throughout the Cold War, forcing the Western democracies to reevaluate their perceived sharp ideological divide between democracy and com- munism. Communism itself was clearly divided in two, and both the USSR and the PRC cer- tainly presented credible military threats to the United States. The PRC was a populous country with a big military, and in 1964, when it became the third country in the world to acquire nuclear

ANALYSIS From a “containment” perspective, why is a communist China dangerous to the United States? Is it dangerous to the USSR?

A propaganda poster for the Red Guard.

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CONFLICT IN KOREA 149

MAP 7.2 The Cold War in the Pacific

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weapons, it also became a superpower. Even so, the Americans’ fear of communism was largely driven by the brutality of the communist governments. Although it is hard to know exactly, ex- perts estimate that Stalin’s purges and famines killed 30 to 40 million Russians and that Mao’s regime can be held accountable for 40 to 80 million Chinese deaths. What was most staggering to citizens in the West was that these governments killed so many of their own citizens.

Conflict in Korea Japan’s defeat in World War II “freed” its colonies, which did not necessarily bring them inde- pendence, as evidenced by what happened to Korea. In August 1945, the USSR declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria, liberating the northern half of Korea from Japanese control to the 38th parallel, where Soviet troops met up with U.S. troops moving in from the Pacific islands. But just as it had in Eastern Europe, the Soviet military held onto the territory it conquered as part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Because the United States was still focused on defeating Japan and thought it may still need Stalin’s help to do so, the two Allied powers divided the Korean peninsula into occupation zones and sent the matter to the newly created United Nations to handle. In early 1948, the UN established a temporary commission to oversee elections to re- unite the country in May. But the Soviet military refused to allow UN workers into the north, making it clear that Korea would not be reunited under a democratic regime. The Korean people were not consulted, and they absolutely hated the idea of dividing their country, particularly

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MAP 7.3 Korea Divided along the 38th Parallel

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because this was their first taste of independence since the Japanese colonized them in 1910, but there was little they could do to prevent the division.

In keeping with the Cold War, a communist government was established in North Korea under Kim Il-Sung, who enjoyed full political, military and financial support from the USSR and used the support to build a powerful military state. Satisfied that Kim Il-Sung was in full control, Soviet troops withdrew from North Korea in December 1948. In South Korea, elections were held to establish a democratic govern-

ment. But because this was the Cold War, the United States supported the most avid anticommu- nists they could find to take over the government rather than the left-wing candidates who were more popular with the Korean people. When the U.S.-educated, anticommunist Syngman Rhee won the election, most South Koreans viewed the election as fraudulent and protested violently against both the “puppet” government they were saddled with and the U.S. military supporting it. In June 1949, just as Mao’s Communist Party was gaining the upper hand in the Chinese civil war, the U.S. troops left. Korea was now in the hands of Kim Il-Sung and Syngman Rhee, each of whom was determined to reunite Korea under his leadership.

Kim Il-Sung acted first, requesting military help from the USSR. Initially, Stalin rejected the idea of invading South Korea for fear that it would undermine his bargaining position with the United States, but the potential gains in terms of Korea’s natural resources and geostrategic positioning in the region, particularly once the communists seized China in October 1949, were too great to pass up. Stalin agreed to secretly help Kim Il-Sung reunite the country, and on June 25, 1950, the North Korean army rolled south in a surprise assault.

For President Truman, North Korea’s military action against South Korea was a clear threat to the U.S. containment policy. Although South Korea itself was not particularly important to U.S. security interests, a failure to enforce containment policy in this case could set a dangerous precedent that would lead to conflicts around the globe and the expansion of communism. The United States immediately went to the UN and called a meeting of the Security Council to decide an appropriate response to North Korea’s aggression. Because the Soviet Union was boycotting the UN in a show of solidarity with Mao, Stalin was unable to exercise his veto

MAKE THE CONNECTION What is the relationship between the U.S. foreign policies of containment and decolonization?

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conventional war warfare conducted by states without the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons

CONFLICT IN KOREA 151

power to prevent a UN military response, which is exactly what Truman wanted.

There were reasons to be concerned about military conflict just five years after WWII ended with the detonation of atomic weapons. Now that these weapons existed, was it possible to have a conventional war, or would Truman have to again resort to nuclear weapons? Could this war be geographically limited to Korea, or would the USSR and/or the PRC get involved, leading to WWIII? With these questions loom- ing, the Security Council authorized a UN force that included soldiers from sixteen nations, with the largest contingent coming from the United States, all under the command of General MacArthur. Chiang Kai-Shek’s offer to commit Chinese troops (from Taiwan) was rejected for fear that they would invade North Korea just to get to the PRC, instigating WWIII.

Initially, UN troops were able to provide limited help to the South Korean military from its tiny toehold position in Pusan in summer 1950. MacArthur engineered a daring attack behind North Korean lines at the port of Inchon in September that cut off the North Korean supply lines and forced their troops to retreat. UN forces drove the North Koreans out of the South and reached the 38th parallel in just two weeks. Truman thought MacArthur should stop at the 38th parallel to begin peace negotiations rather than risk in- citing the PRC or the USSR, but he agreed to give the very successful general leeway to do what he thought was best so long as it did not lead to WWIII. MacArthur did not believe that the PRC or the USSR would send in troops, and he viewed stopping at the 38th parallel as a failed military opportunity to do some harm to the PRC’s industrial base in Manchuria, so he sent two American armies into North Korea. He miscalculated—Mao was concerned about the presence of UN troops on his border, and he was also angry because neither Kim Il-Sung nor Stalin had bothered to tell him that North Korea was going to initiate the war. Mao did not trust any of them, and rather than risk the end of communism in Korea and having UN forces within attack range, Mao prepared the People’s Volunteer Army, ill equipped but battle ready from years of civil war, to enter North Korea.

In November 1950, after repeated warnings through diplomatic channels, the PRC attacked, sending the surprised UN forces reeling southward. By January 1951, the UN troops were able to reestablish a front line just south of the 38th parallel that stopped the advance by North Korean and Chinese forces, and the war developed into a long and difficult stalemate. MacArthur was frustrated that Truman would not bring in Taiwanese troops for support and go after the PRC, and he made several statements to that effect to the media. In March 1951, General MacArthur wrote a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives, hoping to receive sup- port for his plans. In the letter, MacArthur warned, “if we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom.” Truman considered MacArthur’s actions insubordination, and the Pentagon was an- gered by the media war MacArthur was waging against his own government. Truman fired MacArthur, ending his military career and his leadership of the Japanese occupation. Stalin agreed to support Mao but would not commit Soviet troops. In summer 1951 armistice talks be- gan, but it was not until July 1953, after years of fighting and the death of Stalin, that a cease-fire was finally negotiated. The armistice permanently divided the Korean peninsula into two coun- tries separated by a UN-controlled demilitarized zone that remains in place today.

UN forces crossing the 38th parallel.

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MAP 7.4 The Korean War

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Inchon

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Armistice Line July 27, 1953

Communist Chinese troops invade,

November, 1950

Farthest U.N. advance,

November, 1950

Farthest advance of North Koreans

July–September, 1950

Communist North Koreans invade June 25, 1950

United Nations counter attack by landing at Inchon

September 15, 1950

38th Parallel boundary set by military decision

August, 1945

Ya lu

R .

JAPAN

NORTH KOREA

SOUTH KOREA

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

U.S.S.R.

MANCHURIA Chinese TroopsChinese

Troops

Supply

0 100 mi

0 100 km

Communist forces

United Nations forces

The Korean conflict was the first major military battle of the Cold War between democracy and communism, and it did not result in WWIII or nuclear annihilation. But neither did it result in a clear victory for either side.

The Arms Race Truman’s desire to fight a limited, conventional war in Korea was driven by his fear that the ide- ological conflict between the United States and USSR would turn into a military conflict. And although the United States had demonstrated its technological and military superiority at the end of WWII by detonating the atomic bomb, the USSR was close behind, and Truman could not be sure just how close. The Soviet bomb project began shortly after the United States initiated the Manhattan Project, but the Soviet project had far fewer scientists and resources devoted to it. Stalin increased support for the project after he returned home from the Potsdam conference, where Truman had hinted at U.S. weapons superiority; and Stalin made the project a top priority

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ICBM a long-range missile designed to carry nuclear warheads

space race developing technology to conquer outer space to demonstrate scientific superiority and military strength

arms race the buildup of military weapons (particularly nuclear) by the United States and the USSR

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after the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Stalin did not want the United States in a dominant position in postwar negotiations for territory.

On August 29, 1949, the USSR detonated its first atomic bomb, demonstrating technologi- cal parity with the United States. From there, both countries began research on the next level— the thermonuclear bomb. In 1952, the United States exploded an H-bomb, smaller than the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima but 2,500 times more powerful. The Soviets exploded their first H-bomb in 1953, and the arms race was on. While improving the technology of nuclear weapons was a high priority, creating delivery systems to get them where you want them without risking pilots’ lives was equally important and led to the space race.

The Soviets tested the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in May 1957. The United States had developed the B52 bomber, which could deliver a nuclear payload 6,000 miles away, but the United States did not have an equivalent to the ICBM until December 1957. On October 4, 1957, the Soviets surprised the world by launching Sputnik, the first satellite. Sputnik was a shock to U.S. government officials, who feared it provided the USSR a delivery system for its missiles. The United States built the DEW line around the Arctic and kept working on its own satellite technology. In January 1958, the U.S. Explorer satellite was fired into space on top of a military Redstone missile.

The arms race put both the United States and the USSR in a state of constant vigilance. Both sides assumed that WWIII would be a nuclear war. America still remembered the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor and did not want to be surprised again—U.S. intelligence estimated that, if the Soviets attacked with their full nuclear capability, it would result in 20 million dead and 22 million injured American civilians. In 1958, the U.S. government created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide federal funding to compete in the ongoing arms and space races. The United States focused on producing high-quality missiles with rapidly expanding technology, while the USSR produced a higher quantity of low-tech missiles overall. By 1960, the United States and the USSR combined had enough nuclear missiles to destroy the world.

MAD versus NUTS The arms race itself was not so different from the military buildup that happened in the early 1900s when Great Britain and Germany engaged in the escalating naval race that led to the Great War. And expanding weapons technology in the 1930s created Blitzkrieg and gave Hitler the mil- itary confidence to begin WWII. The lesson from the first half of the twentieth century is that, when powerful countries build militaries with a technological edge over others and form alliances to extend their power base, the result is worldwide war. So in the 1950s, the United States and the USSR were clearly headed for WWIII and, due to the advancements in weapons technology, it would be nuclear and everyone would die.

When President Eisenhower, a WWII general, became president of the United States in 1953, the nuclear arms race was just getting underway. He and a team of advisors shaped what would stand as U.S. foreign policy for the remainder of the Cold War: contain Soviet expansion without military engagement, apply political pressure to encourage countries to choose democ- racy, and rely on nuclear deterrence to win the Cold War. Eisenhower knew this would require a lot of time and money, but it was better than the alternative. His assessment: “The only way to win WWIII is to prevent it.”

In the United States, nuclear deterrence took the form of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) theory. Essentially, so long as both the United States and the USSR maintained equilibrium in the nuclear arms race, neither side could actually use the weapons it created without destroying itself as well. Each side had the capacity to destroy the other, and each side had a radar system in place to detect incoming missiles; so when one side fired, the other would know it and launch a nuclear response, thus ensuring that everyone was destroyed. Of course, the nuclear fallout from a large- scale war would destroy the rest of the world as well. For the United States, there was a strange comfort to MAD. All it had to do was keep building more and better nuclear weapons, and the U.S. government was pretty confident that it had the money and scientific ability to at least keep

DEW line (Defense and Early Warning system) a system of radar stations around the arctic to detect incoming Soviet bombers and missiles

Watch the Video Duck and Cover: School Bomb Drill on mysearchlab.com

nuclear deterrence the theory that an enemy will choose not to use nuclear weapons if it believes that doing so will result in its own destruction as well; requires a credible threat of second-strike capability

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Washington

Moscow

NORAD

Berlin

CANADA

DEW Line

U.S.

CUBA

RUSSIA (U.S.S.R.)

CHINA

INDIA

JAPAN SOUTH KOREA

SOUTH VIETNAM

A F R I C A

WESTERN EUROPE

PACIFIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

0 1,000 mi

0 1,000 km

The U.S. and its Allies

Communist Nations

Non-aligned Nations

MAP 7.5 The DEW Line

up with the USSR, if not surpass it. Indeed, in the last half of the twentieth century (1945–1996), the United States spent an estimated $5.8 trillion on nuclear weapons (research, developing war- heads, delivery systems technology, defense and intelligence). The United States built more than 70,000 nuclear bombs and warheads in sixty-five different configurations and developed 116 dif- ferent kinds of delivery systems. Much of this was driven by a lack of precise knowledge about Soviet capabilities, as well as a belief that the promise of MAD would prevent WWIII.

The Soviets did not fully buy the MAD theory—they were preparing to fight and win a nu- clear war. In the United States, that approach was called NUTS (Nuclear Utilization Targeting Strategy), which contends that it is possible to engage in a limited nuclear war that does not result in worldwide destruction. The Soviets focused their weapons research on the tools they would

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nuclear proliferation the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities to more countries

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need to win a limited nuclear war, creating defensive weapons called antiballistic missiles (ABMs) that could intercept and destroy U.S. missiles in flight. The introduction of ABMs destabilized the concept of MAD because it took away second-strike capability. The USSR could launch a nuclear attack against the United States but prevent a successful U.S. retaliatory attack with ABMs. U.S. scientists came up with a countermeasure: Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs). One single missile carried ten warheads, each capable of destroying a separate city. NUTS led to the creation of entirely new kinds of offensive and defensive nuclear weapons.

Both the technology and sheer number of nuclear weapons expanded quickly in the early years of the Cold War. Great Britain, which collaborated with the United States on the Manhattan Project, successfully tested its first nuclear weapon in 1952 in an effort to demonstrate that it was an independent power player in the Cold War. France quickly began a nuclear weapons program to maintain relevancy, joining the “nuclear club” in 1960. When the PRC developed a nuclear weapons program in 1964, the fear of nuclear proliferation became a reality. The ability to destroy the world lay in the hands of a few men, and none of them trusted the others. Each was operating under a different worldview, and each was relying on theories and espionage to prevent WWIII. The world would become an increasingly unstable place as this power spread.

Battle By Proxy In retrospect, we know that both the United States and the USSR wanted to avoid initiating WWIII. In the years immediately following WWII, neither superpower had the financial or human resources to commit to winning a war of that magnitude. The most viable option to win WWIII would be using nuclear weapons, but the arms race had progressed so quickly that resorting to nuclear war would certainly mean the destruction of the entire world, and no one would win in that scenario. The biggest problem was a lack of communication—neither side was sure who was win- ning the arms race, nor could they be sure of the true intentions of the other. In an atmosphere of distrust, a willingness to negotiate would surely be seen as weakness—the other side might assume it had the upper hand, ideologically or militarily. And that rhetoric, combined with a lack of infor- mation, is what made the Cold War so potentially dangerous.

Because the Cold War could not be fought in a traditional way between the primary com- batants, it was impossible to measure progress toward their goals (spreading ideology) in a traditional way. Instead, successes and failures in the Cold War were measured by the extent of ideological, political and financial influence each side exerted over the other countries of the world. To “win” a territory, both sides engaged in similar tactics: they provided financial incentives to political leaders who agreed to adopt their ideology; they maintained military bases in geostrategic locations; and they created formal alliance blocs that divided the world into East versus West. But they absolutely could not go to war directly against one another for fear of WWIII.

This competition between the United States and the USSR for control of governments was not at all “cold.” Some of the nastiest little wars of the twentieth century were the proxy battles of the Cold War (as opposed to the total wars of the first half of the century). Korea was the first example of a battle by proxy, and although the Korean War ended in a draw, both superpowers realized that they could fight for con- trol of a territory as long as they did so carefully. A battle by proxy looked like a civil war, where competing interests within a country or sometimes between neighboring countries were fighting one another for control of the government. One group wanted to establish a communist regime, and the other a democratic one. But because each side was financially and militarily supported by one of the two superpowers, they were

Cold War Tally Sheet

Each country that fell within the U.S. or Soviet sphere of influence represented another “win” for one side or the other.

U.S. U.S.S.R.

The Cold War “Tally Sheet.”

proxy a substitute with the authority to act on behalf of another person; in the Cold War, a battle by proxy refers to a war in which the country that instigated the war is not a direct participant

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essentially proxies for the larger battle between the United States and the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, money and weapons flowed freely from the two superpowers all around the globe in support of these proxy battles. As we will see, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, this practice in- cited civil wars where existing political discontent could be exacerbated by large sums of money and free weapons. Local entities gained political power, and the superpowers gained hash marks on the tally sheet, spreading democracy and communism to other countries. Where the stakes were high (usually because of geostrategic position and/or access to natural resources), the United States or the USSR might also send in troops. This is where proxy battles became potentially dan- gerous—only one side could have troops on the ground or the world risked having Soviet soldiers and U.S. soldiers firing on one another, which would most certainly have led to WWIII.

Conclusions Stalin, Truman, and Eisenhower established the parameters for the Cold War in the 1950s—the Cold War was an ideological conflict in which each side used its growing military technology and alliance systems to stop the spread of the opposing ideology, thereby spreading its own ideology around the globe. Because no one wanted a nuclear holocaust, the superpowers relied on others (proxies) to engage in battles for them. The first battle by proxy, the Korean War, ended in a draw, demonstrating that the Cold War would be long and expensive for both the United States and the USSR. The Korean War also sent a clear message to the citizens in countries where proxy battles would be fought that the ultimate goal was not to help them achieve their political desires but rather to meet the strategic interests of the superpowers. Most notably, the Korean War demonstrated to both the United States and the USSR that Mao Zedong and his version of communism had to be taken seriously.

The Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s changed the Cold War. For the USSR, the PRC became a practical problem with a large military and nuclear weapons on its border. For the United States, the split was a serious blow to the idea that the Cold War was an ideological war. If alliances weren’t based on ideology and decisions were instead being made out of pure national interests, then this was actually a traditional war with a traditional enemy (the USSR) that could be fought in a traditional way. But that might lead to WWIII.

W O R K I N G W I T H T H E T H E M E S

THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY Should the United States and the USSR have invested so much money in expanding nuclear technology that they could not use without world- wide devastation? Which theory is more viable to you—MAD or NUTS? Why are the arms and space races interconnected?

CHANGING IDENTITIES Did the United States have the right to create Japan’s 1947 constitution? What are the domestic and international long-term effects of the 1947 constitution? What were the differences between Stalin’s version of communism and Mao’s? How did the Sino-Soviet split affect U.S. decision making?

SHIFTING BORDERS Why wasn’t Korea granted full independence immediately following WWII? Should UN troops have stopped at the 38th parallel or tried to reunite Korea? Should Korea be allowed to reunite now?

GLOBALIZATION Was battle by proxy a reasonable way to prevent WWIII? How did the arms race affect national security concerns in Europe and Asia?

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