Origins and Containment (1945-1953) Flashcards
In July and August of 1945, representatives from the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain divided Germany into zones of occupation at the _____ _____.
Potsdam Conference
The British, French, Americans, and Soviets each agreed to occupy roughly a quarter of Germany. In addition, the parties divided Berlin (which lay within the Soviet Zone) into four quarters, each assigned to one of the four powers.
In an agreement with the United States, Stalin and the Soviet Union were to allow free elections in the Eastern European countries they occupied at the end of World War II. What were the results of these elections?
The countries of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia all backed Soviet candidates, although the elections were not open and honest. The Soviets’ failure to allow open and honest elections strained relations with the United States.
What did Winston Churchill declare an “Iron Curtain” in 1946?
Churchill was referring to the Soviet Union’s domination of the countries of Eastern Europe.
The term Iron Curtain came to represent the ideological and economic divide between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe.
In early 1947, U.S. President Harry Truman announced that the United States would provide aid to _____, where pro-Western forces were involved in a civil war with Communist troops.
Greece
Truman announced the aid with the statement that “[t]he policy of the United States is to support free people who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outright pressure.” Truman’s support for non-Communist nations resisting Communist forces became known as the Truman Doctrine.
Beginning in 1948, U.S. foreign policy centered upon the doctrine of containment. What is containment?
Suggested by George Kennan in 1946, the U.S. foreign policy of containment centered on containing Communism to those countries where it existed and halting its further spread.
Containment led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
What was the Marshall Plan?
Beginning in 1948, the U.S. provided $13 billion in economic aid to rebuild Europe after the devastation of World War II. Aid was available to all European countries, but was rejected by the Soviet Union and the Communist states of Eastern Europe. The Marshall Plan didn’t only repair damage, but also aimed to modernize European industrial and business facilities. As part of the policy of containment, the Marshall Plan allowed the pro-democracy governments of France and Italy to provide an alternative to Communism.
The Marshall Plan was a resounding success. By 1951, those European countries involved in the Plan saw their economies grow at a rate 35% higher than in 1938. The Marshall Plan also proved advantageous to both the United States and Canada. As the only Western economies not destroyed by war, most Marshall Plan purchases came from these two countries.
How did U.S. President Truman and the Western powers respond to Stalin’s 1948 closure of road and rail traffic to their enclaves in Berlin?
The U.S., Britain, and France each had enclaves under their control in Berlin, which had at most a month’s worth of food and coal and required 5,000 tons of food per day to supply.
With the assistance of the British and French air forces, Truman launched an airlift into Berlin to keep the city supplied. The Berlin Airlift was a success, and Stalin reopened access to the city in May 1949.
How did the Berlin Airlift affect the creation of the two separate countries of East and West Germany?
After the Berlin Airlift, the de facto division between the Soviet-controlled and Western-controlled areas of Germany became official.
The Soviet sector became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the western portion became the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Armed checkpoints prevented people from leaving East Germany.
Berlin became divided between the two sectors; in 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected to divide East Berlin from West Berlin.
In 1949, in partial response to the Berlin Airlift, the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, and several other European nations created a mutual defense organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). How did the Soviets respond?
The Soviets created their own alliance with the Eastern European Communist states: the Warsaw Pact. The formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact formalized the Cold War, which would last until 1991.
Several former Warsaw Pact countries are now members of NATO.
Cold War
The Cold War, often dated from 1945 to 1991, was a longstanding state of political and military tension between the Soviet Union and its allies and the West, primarily the United States and the NATO nations. Neither side’s allies were limited to the Western world, as both sides had defense arrangements with countries in Africa and Asia as well.
In 1949, the Soviets escalated the Cold War by detonating their first atomic bomb. How did President Truman respond?
Truman countered the Soviet threat by giving approval for the development of the hydrogen bomb, which was 450 times more powerful than the bomb dropped at Nagasaki.
Competition between the U.S.S.R. and the United States had escalated into an arms race, which would continue virtually unabated until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Domino Theory
The Domino Theory held that if one nation fell to Communism, nations in the immediate region would also fall, creating a chain reaction.
Long Telegram
In february 1946, the US State Department asked George Kennan, ambassador for USSR why they opposed the creation of the World Bank and Monetary Fund. Kennan responded with an 8,000 word telegram, an analysis of Russian policy.
Kennan emphasized that the Soviet Union did not see the long term possibility for longterm peaceful co- existence with the capitalist world and that the best strategy was to contain communist expansion around the globe
Short Telegram
The short telegram was Nikolai Novikov, ambassador to the USA’s response to the long telegram. In the telegram Novikov reported that the USA was preparing for a war and that they hated communism. USA had the finances for war whereas Soviet economy was weak.
It resulted in ideas such as that the USA wanted to dominate the world, did not want to peacefully coexist and that Stalin was dubbed the new Hitler.
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was the USA’s response to the expansionist nature of the USSR Keenan highlighted in his long telegram in 1946.
It’s aim was to stop the expansionism of the USSR and spread of communism. USA hoped the Truman Doctrine would prevent the domino theory from taking place in the world. UK’s inability to pay for troops in Greece to aid their civil war was also another factor.
USA would send troops and money to fight against communism. In order to receive help countries would have to reject communism. This presented the world to pick between communist tyranny and democratic freedom.
