Lecture 9 The Origins and Causes of the Cold War: from Containment to Korea

Question 1

New global architecture after WWII?

Answer 1

• United Nations (security council↔hierarchy of
power) [diplomacy]
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) [Financial
Stability] + dollar-centric system
• World Bank [Economic Aid & Reconstruction]
• Gatt [Trade]
• Common denominator: lesson of the 1920s/1930s

Question 2

FDR’s (failed) assumptions about the post war world

Answer 2

• Post-1945 Cooperation with URSS
• UK’s ability to act as regional 
hegemon/counterbalance v. USSR
• Domestic/international consensus on 
liberal/laissez faire order

Question 3

What is a Cold War

Answer 3

• Unique condition: “peace impossible/war
unlikely”
• Spurious/asymmetrical bipolarism

Question 4

US economic/strategic superiority over USSR

Answer 4

• 1945: 2/3 of world gold reserves, 75% of
military expenditure
• 1943 Arms production US : USSR = 3 : 1
• 1945 GNP US : USSR = 3 : 1

Question 5

Paul Kennedy, 1988 USSR quote

Answer 5

USSR in 1945 as “the largest defence

establishment in the world”

Question 6

Pre-cold war commonalities

Answer 6

• Punishment of Germany
• Bipolar equilibrium in Europe
• Recognition of Soviet sphere of influence

Question 7

Soviet responsibilities for the Cold War

Answer 7

- Brutality of occupation (Eastern   
Germany/Europe)
- Opportunism and attempt to exploit 
weaknesses of Western Europe
- Stalin’s fears of «encirclement»
- Diffidence towards US and capitalism (no 
interest in being “co-opted”)

Question 8

US responsibilities for the Cold War

Answer 8

• Disengagement = no financial aid to USSR
• Harsher attitude of Truman
• Return of anti-Communism (domestic factors)
• Abandonment of punitive policies vs.
  Germany → tensions with USSR
• From globalism to US sphere of influence (empire?)

Question 9

Anti-Communism in the US during Cold War (domestic factors)

Answer 9

- Conservative politicians (bipartisan «red-
baiting»)
- Anti-union businessmen
- Religious fundamentalists
- Southern Segregationists
- White ethnics

Question 10

Structural Factors for Cold War

Answer 10

• Bipolarism itself: no third way, zero-sum game
• Ideological competition: alternative, universalitic views; competition based on what recipe for modernity and progress would prevail elsewhere
• Security dilemma (Power Vacuum in Europe + fears/misperceptions)

Question 11

What kind of empire was the US after WWII?

Answer 11

• “Consensual Hegemony” (C. Maier)
• “Empire by Invitation” (G. Lundestad)
• “Irresistible Empire” (V. De Grazia)

Question 12

“Consensual Hegemony” (C. Maier)

Answer 12

Collaboration of influential local elites who shared American values

Question 13

Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech

Answer 13

03/1946

Question 14

Deterioration of USSR-US (and Western)

Relations

Answer 14

• Reaction to USSR rhetoric and policies
• Churchill’s Speech (iron curtain, 03.1946)
• George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and X article
  (Containment)
• Truman’s doctrine (two worlds, 02.1947)

Question 15

Containment definition Kennan

Answer 15

“adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points,
corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet
policy.”

Question 16

Truman Doctrine

Answer 16

02/1947 “It must be the policy of the United States to
support free people who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures“

Question 17

Truman Doctrine and US ideology

Answer 17

♣ Emphasis on external threat ↔ domestic support
- («to scare hell out of the country», Sen. Vandenberg)
♣ Local crisis ($400 mln aid to Greece, Turkey) → global projection of US power
♣ From FDR globalist outlook to Cold war Western/Atlantic outlook
♣ «Freedom v. Totalitarianism» ↔ US exeptionalist tradition (Evocation of historical tradition of US)

Question 18

German Dillemma after WWII

Answer 18

Punishment:
- Could stimulate German revanschism and
nationalism
- Germany (resources and industrial know how)
needed for European reconstruction
- Risk of a German/Soviet rapprochement
- Already punished (bombing + brutality occupation)

Inaction:

• Fear of social unrest/pro Communist consensus
• Lack of US credibility as hegemon

Question 19

Creation of Bizone

Answer 19

The combination of the American and the British occupation zones in 1947 during the occupation of Germany after World War II. With the addition of the French occupation zone on the first of 06/1948. the entity became the Trizone. Later, on 05/1949, the Trizone became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany.

Question 20

Berlin blocade

Answer 20

02/1948 - reaction to Bizone and Trizone

Question 21

Marshal Plan

Answer 21

European Recovery Programme 02/1948 - 06/1952 $13 bln

Question 22

ERP and American Empire

Answer 22

• «Politics of productivity» reproduced/adapted
• European recovery/integration v. Soviet
  influence
• US as consensual hegemon

Question 23

The cold war goes global: 1949/50

Answer 23

• Chinese revolution: the «loss» of China (GOP
  v. Truman)
• USSR atomic bomb: end of US monopoly
• Korean war, 1950-53

Question 24

Why US intervention in non-strategic

area like Korea?

Answer 24

• Monolitic view of world Communism v. local
  conditions
• No appeasement (Munich analogy, Stalin as
  Hitler)
• US credibility vis à vis USSR, allies
• Stabilization (stalemate on 38’ parallel) v.
  escalation in China

Question 25

George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet conduct” (X article), July 1947

Answer 25

Kennan is arguing that the Soviets can only maintain their position internally and externally though using the organs of oppression and that it is an inherently weak from of controlling the population. If the US would be able to show the Soviet population that there is a better life in the western world the regime would be destroyed from within. That can only happen when the US will contain Soviet expansion. How? Through containment.

Question 26

Walter Lippman on “X article” by Kennan, July 1947

Answer 26

Soviet foreign policy should be seen as aiming at rebuilding at the territorial empire lost in 1917 and not and ideological crusade to spread communism around the world. Lippman says that whilst the US will spread democracy it may force the creation of friendly authoritarian regimes – “he may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch”. Lippan criticises containment because it will lead to cold war and maybe a hot war. De-escalation would only be left with the threat of a hot war, which will always be there, whatever the case.

Question 27

Anders Stephanson, Fourteen Notes on the Very Concept of the Cold War (1997)

Answer 27

The Cold War with the Soviets is similar to the US position to Nazi Germany – a threat, no matter how far away, is still a threat.
♣ The CW was an US project
♣ FDR, Atlantic Charter and Four Freedoms –> not secure at home until other gov. recognize –> unconditional surrender.

Question 28

Asymmetrical bipolarism

Answer 28

♣ US economic, military superiority
♣ US capacity of global ideological projection
♣ US capacity of leadership/consensus-building

Question 29

Dimensions of the antagonism

Answer 29

♣ Geopolitical (centrality of Europe: Germany)
♣ Ideological: competitive modernities/teleologies/narratives of progress
♣ Military (USSR conventional prepondernce vs. US nuclear monopoly)

Question 30

Why the cold war?

Answer 30

♣ Soviet reponsibilities
♣ US responsibilities
♣ Structural factors

Question 31

Melvin Leffler, The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952 in Westad and Leffler (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War. I: Origins (2010), pp.66-89

Answer 31

“The strategy of the Truman administration was never limited to deterrence and containment. The strategy was to wage a cold war and win in it.” (p.88)
♣ The CW was a US project
♣ FDR laid out the foundations in 1939-41 with the notion of unconditional surrender –> Four Freedoms in Atlantic Charter –> the US would remain insecure as long as other gov. failed to recognize such freedoms.