The cold war initiated a state of geopolitical unease after the Second World War amid the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc powers. The Eastern Bloc constituted the Soviet Union and its vassal states. The Western Bloc, on the other hand, was composed of the U.S., it’s respective NATO confederates and other countries. The cold war caused the diversion of the temporary wartime confederation against Nazi Germany, thereby, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union as two major superpowers with deep-rooted political and economic disparities. 1 USSR was basically a Marxist-Leninist federation dominated by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party was being predominated by the Politburo committee and leaders who were accorded different titles through time. The Communist Party had control over the economy, the military, the press, and other institutions within its territory. The Party also administered its control in certain Eastern Bloc states and generally financed the Communist Parties globally. The antipathy was brought about by the Capitalist West, which was led by the U.S, a federative republic characterized by a two-party presidential framework. 2 The industrialized capitalist countries of the Western Bloc were substantially liberal democratic typified by independent institutions and a free press, but were politically and economically entwined with a banana republic network and other dictatorial hegemony across the third world nations; these were mostly the former colonies of the Western Bloc. The Second World War and its respective legacy played a significant role in shaping the Cold War era confrontation amid the Soviet Union and the U.S in various ways. The paper will critically analyze the role of the WWII in the development of the Cold War Era.
The nuclear age was initiated prior to the commencement of the cold war; this era was associated with various features that initiated the commencement of the Cold War. The examples of these aspects include the Soviet Union’s fear of the U.S atomic bomb, the U.S refusal to share or hand out its nuclear secrets, and the USSR’s fear of attack from the U.S. During the Second World War, three nations decided to develop the atomic bomb. These nations include the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain. Britain made a decision to lay aside its work and join the Manhattan Program as a subordinate partner in the year 1943. 3 The USSR had made minimal efforts before the month of August the year 1945. The American and British projects were impelled by the German’s atomic bomb project. However, Germany decided not to execute momentous efforts in the development of the bomb in the year 1942. In an exceptional display of industrial and scientific might, the U.S developed two bombs which were to be ready for use by the month of August in the year 1945. Harry S. Truman, the reigning U.S. President at that time, decided to initiate the use of the bomb against the country of Japan. The choice to initiate the use of the established atomic bomb had been an issue of extensive controversy. President Truman decided to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima to conclude the prevailing war between U.S and Japan. However, to date, there are prevailing controversial perspectives as to why the reigning president at that time initiated the use of the atomic bomb. Some claim that the President initiated the use of the bomb to intimidate the Soviet Union whereas others claim that the initiation of the atomic bomb use was to end the pre-existing war between the U.S and the country of Japan. Truman’s primary aim was surely to compel the capitulation of Japan. 4
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He also presumed that the bomb would enhance his relationship with Losif V. Stalin. The last-mentioned consideration was peripheral, but it reaffirmed his first decision. Stalin contemplated the utilization of the atomic bomb as an effective anti-Soviet strategy intended to divest the Soviets of its strategic achievements in the Eastern Bloc and more specifically, to accord the U.S an added advantage in regulating the settlement of the post-war. Stalin sanctioned a dictum that sought to delegate a Special Committee in reference to the atomic bomb. The committee was to function under the leadership of Lavrentii P. Beria. The Soviet Union and the United States together with a number of nations instituted negotiations under the United Nations auspices to foster an international control of atomic energy in the year 1946. 5 These negotiations were not fruitful; it was thereupon the national governments to ascertain the future of atomic energy as opposed to international organizations. The U.S. established its nuclear armory slowly but with an increased urgency due to the deterioration of its relationship with the Soviet Union. The reigning U.S president authenticated a National Security Council Paper whose policy focus was on atomic warfare. The policy established that the U.S should be ready to effectively and expeditiously use all efficient means available in the national security’s interest; this included atomic weaponry and it called for an effective planning process. The atomic air offensive was then implemented as an important feature in the U.S war strategy against the Soviet Union. The SAC (Strategic Air Command) that had been instituted in March 1946, became the U.S military power’s spearhead. The existing poor relations amid the Western sovereignty and the Soviet Union grew rapidly within five years after the conclusion of the Second World War. The nuclear weapon’s role in deteriorating their relation was subtle but significant. President Truman did not in any way issue direct nuclear threats inimical to the Soviet Union. However, the nuclear issue was prevailing despite the fact that it had not been specifically invoked. 6
The Soviet Union’s ideology of communism and its attempts to expand west into the Eastern part of Europe further steered the commencement of the Cold War era. The communist ideology had been weakened by the Second World War warfare. The British federation informed the United States’ government of their incapacity to offer financial aid to the Turkish and Greek governments in the month of February the year 1947. Turkey needed aid in their attempts to modernize its society. Greece, on the other hand, was in the course of a civil war. Being bothered by the fact that both nations could fall under the Soviet Union’s influential domain, Dean Acheson, the U.S. undersecretary, presented a proposal in a Congress meeting, which was later defined as the dominion theory 7 . His conceptualization was that one country falls into communism, its neighboring states ate usually weakened and this subsequently leads to its fall. The U.S concerned increased when the Soviet Union pressured Turkey to agree to the Dardanelles Strait concessions which would allow the West’s accessibility through the Caspian Sea. The American Truman Doctrine expressed its acceptance to support Turkey and Greece. The doctrine further stipulated the U.S position in reference to the augmentation of communism globally for the first time ever. Following Stalin’s settlement to besiege West Berlin as a strategy to attain the city’s control, the Britain federation and the U.S responded with their Berlin Airlift strategy which seeks to provide supplies and food to the citizens of West Berlin. During the commencement stages of the Second World War, the Soviets established the Eastern Bloc foundation by conquering and annexing a number of nations such as the Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union by signing an agreement with the Nazi Party of Germany. These nations included Latvia, Lithuania, Eastern Romania, Poland, and a section of Eastern Finland. 8
Eastern and Central territories of Europe which had been ransomed from the Nazis and subjugated by the armed forces of the Soviet Union were included in the Eastern Bloc through their conversion into satellite states. The Soviet-approach regimes that emerged in the Eastern confederation not only fostered the command economies instituted by the Soviets, but promoted the adoption of the brutal procedures assumed by Joseph Stalin and the secret police of the Soviets to subdue any potential and actual opposition. 9 In the Asian territory, the Red Army had invaded Manchuria within the previous month of warfare and proceeded with their subjugation strategies that facilitated their inhabitation of the territory of Korea. As a way of reinforcing Stalin’s Eastern Bloc domination, NKVD, under the reign of Lavrentiy Beriya presided over the development of the secret police framework whose aim was to suppress the anti-communist opposition. Whenever any independence awakening strategies emerged within the Bloc, the responsible leaders were withdrawn from their respective power positions, placed on trial, incarcerated, and on certain occasions, executed. Winston Churchill, the reigning Prime Minister of Britain at that time, become concerned about the existing threat posed by the Soviet towards Western Europe following the deployment of an extensive magnitude of the Soviet Union’s forces in Europe and the prevailing perception of the unreliable nature of the Soviet’s leader. The U.S leaders guided the officials of Western Europe in developing their secret security force after the Second World War; this was a strategy to prevent the subversion of the Soviets into the Western Bloc. 10
Bibliography
Barney, Timothy. Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America’s International Power . Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Friedman, Andrea. Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent . Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014.
Zhu, Liqun, and Vojtech Mastny. The Legacy of the Cold War: Perspectives on Security, Cooperation, and Conflict. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014.
1 Barney, Timothy. Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America’s International Power (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 34.
2 Friedman, Andrea. Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 45.
3 Friedman, Andrea. Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent . (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 24.
4 Friedman, Andrea. Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent . (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 25.
5 Zhu, Liqun, and Vojtech Mastny. The Legacy of the Cold War: Perspectives on Security, Cooperation, and Conflict. (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014), 33.
6 Barney, Timothy. Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America’s International Power (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 37.
7 Zhu, Liqun, and Vojtech Mastny. The Legacy of the Cold War: Perspectives on Security, Cooperation, and Conflict. (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014), 45.
8 Ibid., 46
9 Friedman, Andrea. Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent . (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 56.
10 Ibid., 57
