The Cold War

Question 1

Define

Arms Race

Answer 1

The stockpiling of nuclear weapons by both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Question 2

Explain the objective of the Bay of Pigs invasion

Answer 2

The 1961 plot by the United States to train Cuban exiles to return to Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to spreadhead a revolution to overthrow the new Communist regime started by Fidel Castro.

Since the United States was not openly supporting this plot, they could not provide air support to the Cuban exiles. As a result, the mission was a complete disaster and made the United States look poorly in the eyes of the international community.

Question 3

How did the Berlin Airlift affect the creation of the two separate countries of East and West Germany?

Answer 3

After the Berlin Airlift, the 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.

Question 4

How did U.S. President Truman and the Western powers respond to Stalin’s 1948 closure of road and rail traffic to Berlin?

Answer 4

The U.S., Britain, and France each had sections 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.

Question 5

Why did the East German government, at the direction of the Soviet Union, build the Berlin Wall in November 1961?

Answer 5

The Berlin Wall was built to prevent East Germans from escaping into West Germany where economic opportunities and political liberties existed. Kennedy responded by calling up military reserves and positioning tanks in crucial locations. Neither side called each other’s bluff and tensions relaxed.

Question 6

What was the effect of the 1989 Eastern European revolutions on the Soviet Union?

Answer 6

Several of the satellite nations that made up the Soviet Union began advocating for independence. In March 1990, Lithuania declared independence, followed by Estonia and Latvia.

By late 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved into the Commonwealth of Independent States, comprised of the 15 former Soviet Republics, and Gorbachev had resigned.

Question 7

What was the Brezhnev Doctrine?

Answer 7

The Brezhnev Doctrine held that the Soviet Union had the right to intervene in any European country that signaled a shift from communism to capitalism. The Doctrine was announced retroactively (after the fact) to justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Question 8

Define:

Cold War

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

List a few key events associated with the Cold War

Answer 9

• Berlin is divided after WWII
• Space Race
• Arms Race
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Korean War
• Vietnam War
• Satellite Nations
• Iron Curtain
• Turman Doctrine/Marshall Plan (Containment)
• Berlin Blockade

Question 10

In Eastern Europe, where did the collapse of Communism first begin?

Answer 10

Communism’s collapse began in Poland, which broke free from the control of the Soviet Union in 1989. When the U.S.S.R. did nothing, the nations of Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania followed.

In Berlin, it was not Gorbachev but Berliners who tore down the Berlin Wall.

Question 11

Explain the philosophy behind a Command Economy and some of the challenges that it creates.

Answer 11

An economic structure in which the government owns the means of producing and regulates all prices. Governments that have attempted to implement a full command economy struggle, as there are too many markets and products to observe and regulate.

Question 12

What took place in China at the end of World War II?

Answer 12

At the end of the Second World War, a civil war between the Republican forces and the Communist forces, led by Chairman Mao Zedong, resumed. In 1949, Chiang Kai-Shek was defeated and fled to Taiwan, establishing a separate government there. Communist Chinese forces took over Mainland China.

The rise of a Communist Chinese government, allied with the Soviet Union, terrified the Western powers.

Question 13

Beginning in 1948, U.S. foreign policy centered upon the doctrine of containment.

What is containment?

Answer 13

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) and to U.S. involvement in the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well as sending money over to impoverished European counties to prevent the spread of communism via the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan.

Question 14

What was the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 14

In 1962, an American Air Force U-2 discovered the Soviets preparing to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, 90 miles from the U.S. Kennedy responded by placing a blockade around Cuba and threatening war if any Soviet ship crossed the blockade line.

It was the closest the two superpowers came to nuclear war; Khrushchev backed down when Kennedy vowed not to invade Cuba.

Question 15

In 1959, Communists seized control of _____, only 90 miles from U.S. territory.

Answer 15

Cuba

Led by Fidel Castro, the Communists overthrew Fulgencio Batista, the U.S.-backed president of Cuba. Eisenhower immediately gave the Central Intelligence Agency permission to begin training Cuban dissidents, who would participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an attempt to overthrow the newly established Communist dictatorship, but it failed horribly when the U.S. refused to supply air support to the returning Cuban refugees in an attempt to seem uninvolved in the attack.

Question 16

What was de-Stalinization?

Answer 16

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, his successor Nikita Khrushchev began to unwind the cult of personality that had surrounded Stalin.

In addition to increasing the production of consumer goods, he also lifted some restrictions on the state by curbing the KGB and allowing some limited freedom to writers and intellectuals such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Question 17

Beginning in India in 1947, the British, French, and other European governments began the process of _____.

Answer 17

Decolonization

One of the earliest nations to achieve independence was India in 1947, and Britain rarely fought to keep her colonies. France was more reluctant to give up her colonies. A French force attempted to retake French Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam) and was defeated at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.

Question 18

Define:

Détente

Answer 18

Détente is a French term referring to the easing of a strained relationship. Détente with the Soviet Union occurred during the Nixon Administration, as the President and Henry Kissinger successfully negotiated several agreements with the U.S.S.R. to relieve tensions and avoid nuclear war.

At least in part, Nixon’s détente resulted from renewed relations between the U.S. and China (a traditional Russian rival, though both were Communist).

Question 19

Define:

Domino Theory

Answer 19

The Domino Theory held that if one nation fell to Communism, other nations in the immediate region would also fall, creating a chain reaction. The Domino Theory was used to justify American intervention in both Korea and Vietnam.

Question 20

In contrast to his predecessors’ focus on détente, President Reagan took a hard-line on the Soviet Union. What term did he apply to the U.S.S.R. in 1983?

Answer 20

Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire,” while making the case for deploying U.S. nuclear missiles to NATO countries after the U.S.S.R. had done the same in Eastern Europe. Reagan’s rhetoric and actions marked an intention to match aggressive Soviet behavior.

Question 21

In 1987, Reagan gave the most famous speech of his presidency, stating:

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Where was Reagan speaking?

Answer 21

In Berlin, where the Berlin Wall had divided the city for decades. Three years later, the Wall fell as the Warsaw Pact disintegrated.

Question 22

Identify Fidel Castro’s role in the Cuban Revolution.

Answer 22

Fidel was a lawyer who gains support in Cuba by winning over the peasant population. He led a Communist revolution in Cuba with the help of Che Guevara and established a Communist government 90 miles from Florida, which concerned the U.S.

Question 23

In 1954, the United States was a participant in the Geneva Conference regarding the fate of what nation?

Answer 23

Vietnam

The conference was called after the French were defeated by Vietnamese forces. Vietnam was divided in two, with the North under the control of Communist forces and the South under the control of American allies.

Question 24

Define

Glasnost

Answer 24

The Russian policy of “openness and transparency” implemented by Gorbachev towards the end of the Cold War.

Glasnost called for an end of censorship which had become a long-standing issue in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev encouraged citizens to speak out against the problems occurring in the Soviet Union.

Question 25

Starting in 1986, Gorbachev began to offer significant concessions to the United States on nuclear weapons levels, conventional force size, and policy in Eastern Europe. Why?

Answer 25

The Soviet military had become an unsustainable burden on the Soviet economy, which was in shambles.

Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost required him to redirect Soviet resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more profitable areas in the civilian sector.

Question 26

In response to a supposed attack in 1964 by the North Vietnamese on the USS Turner Joy and the USS Maddox, Congress passed which measure that allowed the President to conduct all necessary measures to ensure that South Vietnam survived?

Answer 26

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

The resolution allowed President Lyndon Johnson to vastly increase the scope of U.S. operations in Vietnam – from a few thousand troops in 1964 to 450,000 troops in 1967.

Question 27

What prompted the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956?

Answer 27

Believing that de-Stalinization meant greater freedom for the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe, Hungarians revolted against the Communist leadership, chanting “[t]his we swear, this we swear, that we will no longer be slaves.”

In late October, liberal communist and Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy announced that Hungary was leaving the Warsaw Pact.

Seventeen divisions of the Soviet Army attacked and conquered the country easily. Nagy and several hundred Hungarians were executed and a loyal pro-Soviet government put in place.

Question 28

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

Answer 28

An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) missile with a range of 3,400 miles designed for delivering nuclear weapons attacks. They were built and strategically positioned all throughout the Cold War.

Question 29

In 1954, the Central Intelligence Agency, with the knowledge of President Eisenhower, incited a coup d’état in an effort to access which country’s oil supplies?

Answer 29

Iran

With the cooperation of the British (British Petroleum “BP” owned the oil fields), the Iranian government was overthrown and more power placed in the hands of a pro-American monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Question 30

What did Winston Churchill declare an “Iron Curtain” in 1946?

Answer 30

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 Europe and those countries of Eastern Europe under Communist control.

Question 31

After the end of the Second World War, who set up a democracy in Japan?

Answer 31

General Douglas MacArthur

MacArthur set up a parliamentary democracy but retained the Japanese Emperor as a figurehead. In addition, the Japanese constitution barred Japan from participation in anything but a defensive war. Japan would by necessity rely on the United States for protection.

Question 32

In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev gave his “Secret Speech” to the 20th Communist Party Congress. Who was the speech’s target?

Answer 32

The target of the Secret Speech (officially titled “On the Cult of Personality”) was recently deceased Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Khrushchev accused Stalin of fostering a cult of personality around himself in opposition to the principles of Communism. The delivery of the speech indicated the beginnings of what became known as the “Khrushchev Thaw.”

Question 33

How did the U.S. and the Soviet Union administer the Korean Peninsula at the end of the Second World War?

Answer 33

After the War, the Korean Peninsula had been divided at the 38th Parallel, with the Soviet Union occupying the northern portion and the United States occupying the southern one.

Elections to establish a permanent government was to take place in 1948 but never happened. Instead, the North formed a Communist government under Kim Il-sung, and the South formed a democratic government, under Syngman Rhee.

Question 34

How did the Korean War begin?

Answer 34

After advising both Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao of his plans, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung crossed the 38th Parallel on June 25, 1950.

A UN Coalition led by American forces eventually rolled back the Communist advance, and the Korean Peninsula was divided between the Communist North and the Democratic South.

Question 35

Define

Market Economy

Answer 35

An economic structure in which companies are privately owned and investors put up capital for growth. Competition ensures high-quality products are produced and supply and demand dictate prices.

Question 36

What was the Marshall Plan?

Answer 36

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 the 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 of 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.

Question 37

Shortly after Reagan began his second term, a new Soviet leader came to power in the U.S.S.R.

Who was he?

Answer 37

Mikhail S. Gorbachev

In 1986, Gorbachev announced glasnost (greater political freedom) and perestroika (moderate economic freedoms). To achieve these twin goals, Gorbachev had to severely change military spending and remove Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

Question 38

Define

Mixed Economy

Answer 38

A combination of a market and command economy in which the government controls some industries and products while free markets control others.

Question 39

Define:

Mutually Assured Destruction

Answer 39

Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, marked the endpoint when the Cold War turned “hot.” As a theory, MAD predicted that both the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. would avoid nuclear confrontation because it would result in the destruction of both countries.

MAD required each nation to have enough nuclear weapons to survive the first strike in order to retaliate. In turn, this required a massive arms race.

Question 40

Explain what is meant by the nonaligned movement during the Cold War?

Answer 40

Nonaligned countries during the Cold War chose to avoid the standoff between Capitalism in the West and Communism in the East. Nonaligned countries did not support either side and were neutral. Yugoslavia and India were examples of nonaligned countries.

Question 41

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?

Answer 41

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.

Question 42

Define

Perestroika

Answer 42

Economic reforms brought to the Soviet Union by Gorbachev to stimulate industry and improve the economy. Gorbachev shifted money away from military spending and redirected it into private industry to try and improve the economic struggles of the Soviet Union.

Question 43

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 _____ _____.

Answer 43

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.

Question 44

Define

Satellite Countries

Answer 44

The smaller neighboring nations that border the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. These nations were occupied by the Soviet Union, who established obedient communist governments in each, established the iron curtain.

Question 45

What was Solidarity?

Answer 45

Solidarity was a Polish trade union. Beginning in the early 1980s, Solidarity emerged as an anti-bureaucratic rival base of power to Poland’s Communist Party. Headed by Lech Walesa, Solidarity fielded candidates in a free election in 1989. In 1990, Walesa was elected president.

Question 46

In 1949, the Soviets escalated the Cold War by detonating their first atomic bomb. How did President Truman respond?

Answer 46

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 with full intensity until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Question 47

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded what Central Asian nation?

Answer 47

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Soviet Invasion was in response to a revolution that sought to remove Afghanistan’s pro-Soviet regime.

In response, the United States provided significant military aid to the anti-Soviet mujahideen forces. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has been called “Russia’s Vietnam.”

Question 48

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?

Answer 48

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.

Question 49

During the early 1970s, U.S. President Richard Nixon negotiated two arms control treaties with the Soviet Union. What were they?

Answer 49

The two treaties were:

1. Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT): SALT froze the number of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).
2. Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty: ABMs were capable of destroying inbound missiles, and their use would have started a new arms race. Both sides agreed not to further develop them.

Question 50

Which country was the first to place an artificial satellite in space?

Answer 50

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the artificial satellite, Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik triggered the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, as each nation worked to send increasingly sophisticated systems into outer space.

In response to the Soviet launch, Congress established the National Air and Space Agency (NASA), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Defense and Education Act, which included massive funding for scientific research at the university level.

Question 51

In 1983, President Reagan announced support for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which experts dubbed “Star Wars.”

What was the SDI?

Answer 51

SDI called for using ground- and space-based systems to protect the United States from nuclear attack. Underlying the concept was a break from the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction since the policy proposed to ensure that the United States could survive a nuclear attack.

It also put pressure on the Soviet Union to match the U.S. effort, which the Soviet Union could ill afford.

Question 52

How did Britain, France, and Israel react to Egypt’s seizure of the Suez Canal in 1956?

Answer 52

The combined British, French, and Israeli forces launched an attack and seized the Canal. U.S. President Eisenhower, who hadn’t been advised of the attack, was livid, refused to support the operation militarily or morally, and led the United Nations in condemning the action. Eventually, under American pressure, the combined forces withdrew.

The Suez Crisis signaled the decline of the Western European nations’ ability to act independently without either the participation or approval of the United States.

Question 53

What was the Tết Offensive (1968)?

Answer 53

During a Vietnamese holiday (the Lunar New Year) in January 1968, the Việt Cộng and North Vietnamese launched a massive attack capturing Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital.

Although U.S. forces were able to drive their adversaries back and deliver a victory, Walter Cronkite, the most trusted news reporter in America, declared that the war was lost which had a profound effect public support for the war back home.

Question 54

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.

Answer 54

Greece

Truman announced the aid with the statement that “the 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.

Question 55

What was the American reaction to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik I and Sputnik II, the first two space satellites, in 1957?

Answer 55

The American reaction can only be described as shocked; American technical supremacy over the U.S.S.R. had always been presumed.

Question 56

In 1961, President Kennedy met with Premier Khrushchev of the U.S.S.R. in Vienna. What was the primary point of discussion at the Vienna Summit?

Answer 56

Once again, the Soviets demanded that the United States abandon West Berlin, which Kennedy refused to do. Kennedy, who had injected a drug cocktail for back pain before the summit, admitted that Khrushchev had “beat the hell out of me.”

Khrushchev would continue to challenge Kennedy, who he perceived as weak, by erecting the Berlin Wall and placing missiles in Cuba.

Question 57

Which Southeast Asian colony did the French attempt to keep during the 1950s?

Answer 57

In the 1950s, France attempted to retain control of Vietnam but was defeated by Vietnamese communists under Ho Chi Minh.

Following the French defeat, the country was divided and the United States intervened on South Vietnam’s behalf in a long-running conflict that lasted until the 1970s. The country fell to the communists in 1975.

Question 58

What was “Vietnamization”?

Answer 58

Vietnamization was Richard Nixon’s strategy to achieve victory in Vietnam. The policy called for replacing American ground troops by training South Vietnamese forces supported by American money, air power, and war materials. By 1973, only 30,000 forces were left in Vietnam.

After Nixon’s resignation, the North Vietnamese invaded the South, conquering the country in 1975.

Question 59

What role did Ho Chi Minh play in the Vietnam War?

Answer 59

Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Vietnamese independence movement who fought for the end of foreign rule in Vietnam. Nicknamed “Uncle Ho,” he was widely popular and used guerilla tactics to defeat both French and American occupational forces.