Chapter 27: The Cold War Flashcards
Sources of Sino-American tension
fundamental difference in the ways the great powers envisioned the post war world:
- America, FDR: world in which nations abandoned traditional beliefs in military alliances and spheres of influence and governed their relations with one another through democratic processes, with an international organization serving as the aribtor of disputes and protector of every nation’s right of self-determination (inspired by Wilson)
- Soviet Union/Great Britain: world in which great powers would control areas of strategic interest to them, in which something vaguely similar to the traditional European balance of power would reemerge
Poland issue
- Roosevelt and Churchill let Stalin annex some Polish territory into Soviet Union
- Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to keep the Polish government in tact, but Stalin wanted to implement a pro communist gov’t
- issue was left unresolved
Big Three
Churchill, FDR, Stalin
Yalta Conference
- in 1945
- last meeting of the Big Three
- Stalin agreed to free elections in Europe
- Promised elections in Poland, but never came true
- USSR would join the United Nations
- US, Britain, France and USSR would control its own zone in Germany
- Berlin divided into four zones for each nation to occupy
- basically: conference was less a settlement of postwar issues than a set of loose principles that sidestepped most difficult questions
- Soviet interpretation differed from the Anglo-American interpretation, and Stalin started violating “agreements” briefly after the conference by putting pro-communist gov’ts in Poland
- After this conference, Roosevelt has stroke and dies
Potsdam Conference
- in 1945
- Truman, FDR, and Churchill meet
- Truman reluctantly accepts adjustments of Stalin’s demands for Polish-German border
- Truman refuses to permit Russians to claim reparations from American, French, and British zones of Germany. This confirmed that Germany would remain divided with the western zones under one nation (friendly to US) and the Russian zone as another communist nation (friendly to Russia)
Chinese civil war
- US wanted help from China, strong power, to help work towards the goal of an open, peaceful world, but they faced the obstacle of the Chinese civil war
- Chiang Kai-shek was leader of nationalist China (which US supported) but his gov’t was corrupt and had feeble popular support
- Mao Zedong led communist armies that had been rivaling since 1927
- Truman continued to support Chiang by sending weapons, money, but US never fully involved selves in war
US begins to look at Japan instead as a pro-western force to help the American sphere of influence
containment
- Atlantic Charter ideals (destruction of communism) was in shambles; instead - “containment”
- rather than attempting to create a unified, open world, the US and allies would work to “contain” the threat of further Soviet expansion
George F. Kennan
- US diplomat who had warned not long after the war that the only appropriate diplomatic approach to dealing with the Soviet Union was “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”
Truman Doctrine
- drew from Kennan’s ideas
- March 1947 - Truman appears before Congress and states what would be known as Truman Doctrine
states that it must be policy of US to support free peoples who are subjugated by outside pressures
requests $400 million to help armed and economic forces of Greeks to resist communist forces that were threatening the pro-western gov’t; Congress agreed and communists were defeated in Greece - importance: basis of US policy that would survive for more than 40 years
Marshall Plan
- in 1947
- motives for plan: humanitarian concern, desire for strong Europe market for US goods, most importantly: strengthen W European governments so they don’t fall under control of communist parties
- June 1947 - Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced plan to provide economic assistance to all European nations (Soviet Union rejected it, but 16 other nations eagerly agreed)
- channeled $12 billion of US aid into Europe
- results: by end of 1950, European industrial production rose 64%, communist strength declined in those nations, and opportunities for trade had revived
Atomic Energy Comm.
- 1946 - established to become supervisory charged with overseeing all nuclear research
- began development of hydrogen bomb
- importance: continuation of containment policy, part of series of measures designed to maintain US military power at near wartime levels
Nat’l Security Act of 1947
- reshaped the nation’s major diplomatic and military institutions
- created Department of Defense:
National Security Council (NSC) oversee foreign/military policy
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) collecting info through various methods - importance: gave president expanded powers with which to pursue nation’s international goals
Berlin crisis of 1948-49
Soviet union cuts off all roads/railroads with Berlin
Truman flies in goods, food to citizens in Berlin
helps lead to the formation of NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Org. (NATO)
April 1949 - 12 nations signed agreement declaring that armed attack against one member would be an attack against all
spurred Soviet Union to create alliance of own with communist countries in Eastern Europe
importance: first peacetime alliance in US history
shocks of 1949
Soviet Union successfully exploded its first atomic weapon shocked Americans
collapse of Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist gov’t, all of China coming under communist control
led to the NSC-68 and US increased attention on Japan acting as buffer against Asian communism