THE COLD WAR

THE COLD WAR Ibesanmi Boluwatife, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos State, Nigeria ABSTRACT This paper probes into the Cold war the various landmarks that characterised the era. The actors involved as well as the various policies adopted during that period. It also examine the controversy surrounding the origins of the cold war. Hence this Paper attempts to show how American policies were influenced by the threat posed by Soviet expansion. In a bid to situate this, the paper will unveil the strategy of containment as well as different modifications made by American policy makers and leaders. The paper argues that Containment strategy was the mainstay of American policy towards the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold war but as the flux of time passed it was abandoned for policies such as Détente. The paper also examine the events surrounding breaking up of Sino-Soviet relations, ping pong diplomacy and its implications on the opening up of China to the West. The approach adopted in this paper is at once historical and analytical. The paper concludes that the democratization of the Soviet political system and the destruction of the totalitarian aspect of the Soviet system were factors that made disintegration of the Soviet Union inevitable. Key words: Containment, Detente, Flexible Response, Triangulation, Glasnost, Perestroika. 1.INTRODUCTION` The Cold war was an important landmark in European history. It bipolarised the international system as well as led to the increased development of nuclear weapons. The term Cold war has become a controversial subject as many scholars, analyst have tried to define the concept. Some scholars sees it as an East-West confrontation between the United States its allies and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic and its allies. Other scholars view the cold war as an ideological competition between the US and USSR over the spread of capitalism and communism. For what its worth, the Cold war can be defined as the period of ‘no war no peace’ between the US and USSR in the international system. It is important to note that this two superpowers didn’t confront each other in a armed conflict, proxy wars were only fought between them.The origins of the Cold war are subject to debate by scholars. There are three school of thought on the cause of the cold war.This three schools of thoughts are the revisionist, Orthodox and post revisionists. The revisionist scholars argued that the United States was not an innocent bystander in the Cold war.1They pointed to the expansionist traditions that had characterised US history and argued that economic and ideological imperatives inspired American officials to assume global responsibilities.2 The Orthodox scholars disagree with the revisionist perspective. They stated that the Kremlin started the cold war pointing to the paranoid personality of Joseph Stalin and the revolutionary implications of Marxist-Leninist doctrine.3Traditional Scholars believed that given the experiences of totalitarian aggression in the 1930s and the dramatic failure of appeasement practices, US officials had no choice but to respond to the possibility of post war soviet communist expansion.4 By the mid 1980s this controversy was losing its intensity a new school of thought had emerged known as the post revisionist school. The Post revisionist scholars to which lewis Gaddis belongs to argued that the United States had become an imperial state after the Second World War but American officials were not motivated by capitalist or fears of another depression.5 The post American empire was a response to the entreaties of governments and peoples who felt threatened by opportunistic expansion of the Soviet Union.6 They argued that Stalin had no blueprint for world domination but his barbaric regime threatened his neighbours throughout Eurasia. America was forced to respond to their pleas for help and become embroiled in a host of dispute which many American Policy makers would have wanted to avoid.7 The Post revisionist could therefore blame either the United States or, as most of them did the Soviet Union and Stalin. Post revisionist generally saw the Cold War as a more interactive affair than did the other two schools. According to Bradley Lightbody, the Cold War was judged to be a product of the misjudgements of both United States and the Soviet Union during the wartime negotiations rather than an inevitable conflict. Therefore, this paper will examine the major issues at stake during the Cold war, the various milestones in the Cold war, America’s policy towards the Soviet Union. In light of this, the paper will also discuss Kennan strategy of containment, Richard Nixon, Kissinger Detente and Triangulation, Regan Gorbachev arms race and the end of the cold war. 2. COLD WAR The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki confirmed America’s status as a world power. In 1949, the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb and subsequently became a superpower and a direct rival to the United States. Prior to 1949, the soviet had installed communist government in countries of Eastern Europe. America feared the permanent domination of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the possibility of Soviet influenced communist parties coming to power in Western Europe.8 it is against this backdrop that America had to put up stringent measures inorder to curtail the soviet union. The Soviet union were determined to hold on to Eastern Europe inorder to safeguard it from any renewed threat from Germany as well as spread their communist ideals.9 The provision of aid to countries in Western Europe by the United States under the guise of the Marshall plan brought those countries under American influence. Hence Europe was thus divided into two blocs the capitalist bloc headed by the United States and the Communist bloc headed by the Soviet Union. To solidify this division, the United States formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which consists of capitalist countries. The Soviet Union responded with the Warsaw pact which was made up of communist countries. The development of weapons of mass destruction such as the intercontinental ballistic missile was another crucial phase of the cold war. These ICBM had the capacity to destroy the world ten times over. The acquisition of this ICBMs by the two superpowers made European statesmen to be apprehensive of a Third World war. Hence there was need to reduce these arms in order to avert a world war, this gave rise to the nuclear test ban treaty and programs like the strategic arms limitation talks and Strategic arms reduction talks. In the course of the 1960s the international system that was once bipolarised was altered completely. This was because of the split between the Soviet Union and China in 1960 shattering the unity of the communist bloc. China thus became a major power. Aside this fact, most western countries and Japan had achieved economic growth in the 60s reducing their dependency on the US. Less powerful countries had ample opportunities to assert their independence and often showed themselves resistant to superpower coercion.10 The Cold war began to breakdown in the 1980s during the regime of the soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The totalitarian aspect of the soviet system was dismantled during his reign. He began effort to democratize the soviet political system. The rise to power of democratic government in Eastern Europe was met with soviet approval. It was just a matter of time before the Soviet Union disintegrated. 3. AMERICA’S POLICY TOWARDS THE SOVIET UNION DURING THE COLD WAR Truman, Kennan and the Strategy of Containment America’s policy towards the Soviet Union at the beginning of the cold war was containment. This policy was formulated by George F Kennan a Foreign Service officer as the basic U.S. strategy for fighting the cold war with the Soviet Union. Kennan ideas later became the main stay of Harry Truman Foreign Policy. The term containment became widely known when Kennan published his famous ‘X-Article’. In his article, Kennan outlined the main element of US policy towards the Soviet Union. He argued that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.15 To that end, he called for countering Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world’’ through the ‘adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet policy.11 Kennan X-Article was criticised by Columnist Walter Lippmann for failing to differentiate between vital and peripheral interests. The United States, Kennan’s article implied, should face down the Soviet Union and its communist allies whenever and wherever they posed a risk of gaining influence.12 Kennan advocated for the defence of major industrial power against Soviet expansion, Western Europe, Japan and the United States. John Foster Dulles declared during the 1952 election campaign that the U.S. policy should not be containment, but the ‘rollback’ of Soviet power and the eventual ‘liberation of eastern Europe.13 Containment remained the basic strategy of the United States throughout the Cold War. It is important to note that the United States did not return to isolation and did not roll back Soviet power as advocated by foster Dulles. It could be said that each administration after Truman adopted a variant of Kennan’s containment policy and made it their own. 4. MILESTONES IN THE COLD WAR There are various historical landmarks that defined the cold war. They are the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, Vietnam War etcetera. Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most important milestones in cold war history. This was a period were the US and Soviet Union were on the brink of a nuclear war. The Soviet Union in collaboration with the Cuban government of Fidel Castro were building nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba which was 90 miles off American territory of Florida. The United States were alarmed as these missiles could hit Florida if launched from Cuba. There were calls for the withdrawal of soviet missiles from Cuba. America’s President John F Kennedy after considering the alternatives of an immediate U.S invasion of Cuba decided to place a naval blockade on Cuba to prevent further shipment of soviet missiles.14 Kennedy announced the quarantine and warns that the U.S would cease offensive weapons that Soviet vessel might attempt to deliver to Cuba. Amidst the tension between the two countries, messages were exchanged between Soviet leader Khrushchev and American leader Kennedy.15 Khrushchev in a letter sent to Kennedy agreed to return the missiles in Cuba back to the Soviet Union. In return, Kennedy promised to remove the naval blockade of soviet ships as well as never to invade Cuba. In addition, Kennedy secretly promised to withdraw US arms missile stationed in Turkey.16 The Cuban Missile crisis was an antagonistic period in U.S Soviet relations. It was generally believed that the humiliation of the Soviet in Cuba played a major role in Khrushchev fall from power and the determination of the Soviet to achieve nuclear parity with the United States.17 5. RICHARD NIXON KISSENGER DETENTE AND TRIAGULATION Richard Nixon and his foreign policy advisor Henry Kissenger adopted the policy of Detente. Detente is a French word which means relaxing. As it applies to the cold war it was a period where the cold war tensions between the United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republic was relaxed. Nixon also believed that communist operating in small nations throughout the world took direction from Moscow and that the Soviet Union could shape their actions. This perspective shaped Nixon’s commitment to detente. He believed that better relations between the United States and the Soviet Union would help with crisis management around the globe and would enable the United States to reduce military commitments in Asia.18 Nixon assumed Soviet willingness and capability to shape the actions of the North Vietnamese such a policy became known as ‘linkage,’’ whereby the United States would make diplomatic concessions in areas such as arms reduction and trade agreements if the Soviets maintained control of their Communist ‘Puppets.’ Detente and arms reduction would help the American economy and European nations as Nixon assumed.19 Soviet leaders as well had their own reasons for seeking detente. The developing Communist power in mainland China had replaced the United States as the Soviet Union primary threat. Nixon leveraged the weakening of the once-unified communist front by developing a ‘triangulation policy’ to deal with both China and the Soviet Union, suggesting that the United States would support China should the Soviets attack, while at the same time negotiating grain sales, disarmament treaties Such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.20 Triangulation worked less because of Nixon, however and more because China feared closer ties with the United States and the Soviets feared a Similar Chinese rapprochement.21 6 PING PONG DIPLOMACY AND THE OPENING UP OF CHINA . The Ping pong diplomacy during the administration of Nixon encompassed the pivotal series of diplomatic events that successfully prompted a change in Sino- American relations. The historic opening of the relations between the United States and China carried enormously powerful overtones for the futures of both countries.22 This segment would be incomplete without understanding decades of hostility between the U.S and China. After the shocking 1949 communist revolution in China, the U.S refused to recognise the Communist Peoples Republic and instead deemed the nationalist Republic of China as the sole legitimate government. In 1950, the US withdrew all personnel from China, no US official would return to China on a permanent basis until 1972.23 Tensions between the US and China began to grow as a consequence of China’s direct involvement in the Korean War. The US imposed a complete trade embargo with the People’s Republic of China and banned travel by Americans to China.24 In 1964, President Johnson proclaimed, ‘So long as the Communist China pursue conflict and preach violence, there can be and will be no easing of relationships...’25 It is also important to put the Sino-Soviet relations into perspective inorder to understand the significance of China’s diplomacy with the United States. Sino-Soviet tensions culminated in 1968 with the Brezhenev Doctrine, which proclaimed that Moscow held the right to bring any backsliding Communist states to heel by Military force.26 China thus became suspicious of Soviet intensions as well as prepare to defend herself against Soviet aggression.As Nixon had written in the 1967 bulletin on Foreign affairs, ‘Taking the long view we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations.’Premier Zhou Enlai had declared at the Bandung Conference, ‘The Chinese people are friendly towards the American people. The Chinese people want no war with the United States.The Chinese government is willing to sit down for talks on the problems concerning the relaxation of tensions in the Far East, particularly in the Taiwan area. As early as 1971, the Chinese foreign ministry was deliberating on questions related to the re-opening of Sino-U.S. relations, such as whom to invite first and when and through what channels. The opportunity came during the 31st World Table Tennis Championships held in Nagoya when the American tennis team were invited to China to participate in the tennis championship.27This event is usually referred to as the ping pong diplomacy because it marked the beginning of improved relations between the United States and China. Henry Kissenger visited China and held talks in Beijing with Zhou Enlai in 1971. A year later President Richard Nixon visited China met with Chairman Mao and signed the Shanghai Communique which stipulated that the United States and China would both oppose efforts by the USSR or any other major power to dominate Asia. The United States did not challenge the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China. The U.S acknowledged the presence of one unified China, but did not specify which governing body it recognised. 7. REAGAN GORBACHEV AND UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - SOVIET ARMS RACE Ronald Reagan was a long time critic of arms control and detente with the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, Reagan had argued that the United States were falling behind the Soviets in the nuclear competition and that U.S long range ballistic missile were increasingly vulnerable to Soviet attack.28Ronald Regan as the President of the United States accelerated strategic nuclear modernization plans and lauched modern efforts to build a national missile defense system through his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), raising tensions with the Soviet Union. Reagan massive defence buildup, which raised defense spending from 134 billion in 1980 to 253 billion dollars in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP, dramatically increasing the federal deficit. During the administration of Ronald Reagan, U.S- Soviet arms control talks collapsed. The Strategic Defense initiative (SDI), called Star Wars which Reagan created never led to the deployment of an actual missile shield, it drew the soviet into a costly effort to respond. It is important to note that the arms race drained the Soviet finances and contributed to the economic strain the Soviet faced. The Soviet economy could no longer sustain itself there was need to make some changes. Mikhail Gorbachev soviet leader withdrew the Soviet forces from Afghanistan.29 Gorbachev knew the Soviet could no longer compete with the United States in terms of arms. The Strategic Arms Reduction Talks was opened with the United States. Gorbachev signed the intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987. With the Soviet economy bankrupt, Gorbachev introduced internal reforms in attempt to resuscitate the economy. He introduced the policy of Glasnost Perestroika. Glasnost was a policy introduced by the Gorbachev administration that call for increased openness and transparency in the activities of the government of the Soviet Union. While Perestroika Gorbachev restructuring concept started with an overhaul of top members of the Communist Party. He also replaced the centralised government planning which was the bed rock on which the Soviet system was built with greater reliance on market forces. Glasnost allowed the media and religious groups greater freedom. Gorbachev democratize the soviet political system hence destroying the totalitarian nature of the Soviet system.30 Gorbachev ideals had far reaching consequences on the communist states of Eastern Europe. Before Gorbachev, Soviet leaders had viewed the maintainers of the Soviet control of Communist nations of Eastern Europe as essential to their national security. Gorbachev reforms loosened the Soviets grip on these States. Communist regimes fell in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. The Berlin war was dismantled and Germany was to be reunified in October 1990. Gorbachev was almost ousted but the efforts of Boris Yeltsin saved him. The Soviet Union dissolved into 15 individual republics and on 25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned from the leadership of a state that was no more. BIBLIOGRAPHY Gwinn, I. (2009) ‘Towards a Critical Historiography Of Orthodox –Revisionist Debates on the Origins of the Cold war: Between Power and U.S National Identity’ M.Phil thesis, University of Birmingham Odd Westad, (2013) ‘Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory’ London:Routledge, ,65. Bradley Lightbody,(2005) The Cold War: Questions and Analysis in History London: Routledge, 7, 8. M, Leffler, and D Painter (1998.) (ed.), Origins of The Cold War: An International History, London: Rout ledge, 15. S,Ball (1998). 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John Holdridge, Crossing the Divide( Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing,1997), 1-22 Henry Kissenger,( 1999) Years of Renewal, New York: Simon and Schuster, 139. Alistair Horne, (2009) Kissenger: 1973, The Crucial Year( New York: Simon and Schuster, , 68, 69,70,71,72 AUTHORS PROFILE Boluwatife Ibesanmi is a Masters student at the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos State Nigeria. He just recently completed his Masters Studies in International Relations at the Department of History and Strategic Studies. His research interests include International Relations, History, Political Science, Economics and Diplomacy. Boluwatife Ibesanmi is aged 23 and completed his Masters Degree in International Relations sub field of History and Strategic Studies Department of History and Strategic Studies in 2015. 6