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Lesson 5: The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence
Lesson Objective: Comprehend the origins and events of the Cold War in the 1940s and 1950s and US strategy during this period.
Desired Learning Outcomes:
DLO 1:
Americans tended to see security in institutional terms: conditioned by their own atypical historical experience, they assumed that if representative governments could be established as widely as possible, together with a collective security organization capable of resolving differences between them, peace would be assured (pg5).
The Russians tended to think of security in terms of space (pg5). This security concept appeared to be a conditioned response due to the numerous invasion of Russians territory. The Russian geography proved to be an obstacle for would be conquerors of Russia such as experienced by both Napoleon and Hitler a like. This vast land and therefore separation from potential enemies created a natural buffer for Russia. Hitler’s defeat brought no alteration in his [Stalin] to control as much territory along the periphery of the Soviet Union as possible (pg5).
In the postwar security environment neither the United States nor its British ally had been prepared to abandon spheres of influence as a means of achieving their own postwar security. Unlike American and British influence into Western Europe and the Mediterranean, the Soviet Union’s gains took place without the approval of most of the governments and most of the people in the areas involved (pg6).
In the postwar world Russians and Americans might have achieved something close to absolute security in an insecure world. [Both countries emerged from World War II as victorious allies and mighty military powers.] Their failure to do so may be attributed, ultimately, to irreconcilable differences in four critical areas: perceptions of history, ideology, technology, and personality (pg5).
History had taught Russia that one of its greatest assets was its geography including its vast land and cruel winters. These environmental obstacles historically proved to be natural defenses in providing Russian security. Stalin’s wartime strategy, inclusive of the survival of Russia, was to
provide as much territorial buffer along the Soviet periphery as possible. Stalin found himself able to implement his vision of security only by appearing to violate that of the west.
Ideological differences constituted a second source of antagonism. The European communist movement remained very much the instrument of Soviet policy. The Russians used it to facilitate their projection of influence into Eastern Europe. [Pg. 6]
Technological differences created a third source of tension. While the United States emerged from World War II a much greater industrial power than it had entered the war, Russia had suffered with the lost of most of its industry and millions of its citizens. This result of the war created feelings of inferiority and vulnerability amongst the Russians. Postwar reconstruction and the atomic bomb exacerbated these feelings. President Truman bypassed the opportunity to grant reconstruction loans to the Soviets for pure economic benefit. He instead withheld the loans in hopes of the Soviets yielding political concessions for loans. Another "fruit" of Western technology that impressed the Russians was the atomic bomb. Although Soviet leaders carefully avoided signs of concern about the new weapon, they did secretly accelerate their own bomb development. [Pg. 6-7]
Accidents of personality made it more difficult than it might otherwise have been to achieve a mutually agreeable settlement. The Russians perceived in the transition from Roosevelt to Truman an abrupt shift from an attitude of cooperation to one of confrontation. Tough talk was an instrument of Truman’s policy with the Russians. The American policy with the Russians had not changed between Roosevelt and Truman but had differences in style. Truman’s tough rhetoric, together with Hiroshima’s example, may well have reinforced Stalin’s conviction that if he showed any signs of weakness, all would be lost.
The situated that existed in 1945, with two great powers separated only by a power vacuum, seemed almost predestined to produce hostility, whether either side willed it or not.
3. What was the strategy of containment designed to accomplish?
George F. Kennan head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff is credited as being the architect of the American containment strategy for the Soviet Union.
The strategy of containment called for an opposition to Soviet expansion by way of American influence and resources, primarily economic and military, in those parts of the world upon whose defense American security depended.
Kennan’s original thoughts on containment can be stated, "our best answer is to strengthen in every way local forces of resistance, and peruse others to bear a greater par of the burden of opposing communism" (Pg. 11). Containment, then, involved no indiscriminate projection of commitments around the world: it was, instead, a policy precise in its identification of American interests, frugal in its assessment of threats to those interests, frugal in its calculation of means required to ward off those threats, vague only in its public presentation (Pg. 13).
By 1949, containment had largely achieved its primary objective-restoration of a balance of power in Europe. His [Kennan] concept of containment, as worked out in the Policy Planning Staff during 1947 and 1948, had two additional goals, to be sought once the original objective of geography restricting Soviet expansion had been achieved:
Due to the Soviets development of an atomic weapon, Washington and its NATO allies would need to try and counterbalance Soviet conventional force levels in Europe. Containment, in the course of three years evolved from the application of limited economic power in a few keys areas to the conviction that equilibrium depended upon willingness to wield military force wherever Western interest were threatened (Pg. 17).
"The only way we can sell the public on our new policy," one official had written at the time of the Truman Doctrine speech, "is by emphasizing the necessity of holding the line: communism vs. democracy should be the major theme." Unfortunately, the administration made few attempts to explain the distinction between Soviet expansionism and international communism to the American people. [Pg. 15]
The result of [the administration] not differentiating between the Soviet threat and the communist threat caused the institutionalizing of American thinking ascribing Soviet policy with communism. This occurred even though Kennan had written of the Soviet insecurities as the reason for expansion and of the split in the communist community between the Soviet Union and others in the communist world. This thinking, the tendency to picture "all Communist moves, with whatever party or state they originate, as manifestations of …Soviet strategy" was called "casual ascription". [Pg. 15]
DLO 2
5. How did the Korean War affect the US strategy of containment?
The original containment strategy called for US influence in areas of interest vital to American security. This was mainly through economic means with a buildup of military forces in 1949 to counterbalance the Soviet threat in Europe as a result of their nuclear capabilities. NSC-68, a comprehensive review of American policy toward the Soviet Union, spoke of Kennan’s view on Soviet expansion as internal insecurities, Soviet capabilities and had sensitized the administration to the dangers of "piecemeal aggression". The document also argued that, "In the …present polarization of power a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere". This latter statement was a proposition to be tested sooner than anyone expected-in the mountains and rice paddies of Korea. (Pg. 17)
Even though Kennan’s original list of areas vital to American security that we should apply the containment strategy to did not include Korea, the broad association with Soviet threat and communist threat expanded the area of American interest once considered peripheral could become vital if attacked. [Pg. 11, 17]
The American strategy of containment had evolved from growth of American influence in specific areas of US security interest by economic means later progressing to military buildup and progressing to military intervention in peripheral areas of interest.
Three coercive strategies, according to Pape, contributed to the Chinese settlement of cease-fire terms favorable to the US. Collectively that can be looked at as progressive strategies that influenced the enemy’s strategy and objectives and his willingness to concede based on the changing situation of the war.
The Communist’ most important goals in the Korean War concerned territory: at the maximum, they hoped to unify Korea under communist rule and at minimum to restore the status quo anti at the Thirty-eight Parallel (Pg. 85).
The bombing and air interdiction achieved significant military results but was not credited with causing the Communist to concede to their most important issue, which were territorial concessions. The punishment strategy failed because: first, because the damage inflicted in the bombing campaign appears to have been light, second, China and North Korea were willing to countenance great civilian costs and risks to achieve their goals and third, with Chinese entry into the war North Korea was not in imminent danger of losing the war. [Pg. 83]
Nuclear coercion is credited to account for the 1953 concessions on repatriation of POWs. The US nuclear threats were communicated to China, via several channels simultaneously, near the end of May, and the Communist negotiators accepted UN terms on 4 June (Pg. 78).
Theories focusing on the final armistice of 1953 are three with the dominant view that the decisive factor was fear of future punishment from atomic bombing. The other two were the US Air Forces conventional bombing and its effects and the third being Soviet pressure on the Chinese and North Koreans to concede.
On 31 July 1950 through 27 October 1950, the US Far East Air Forces and Strategic Air Command began a strategic bombing campaign in major cities by B-29s using incendiary area bombing to weaken North Korean morale. A second air campaign was executed by strategic bombing in 1951-1952 by Operation Strangle and air interdiction operations aimed to interrupt enemy logistics in a sixty-mile belt north of the line of contact.
The Soviets created the 64th Air Defense Corps and based it in Manchuria. The initial mission of the Corp was to provide cover over the most important industrial and administrative centers in Manchuria from anticipated American bomber attacks. The Soviets were also tasked with training both Chinese and North Korean pilots. Soviet pilots flew in planes carrying North Korean or Chinese markings.
The limited ability of Chinese and Korean air forces placed the major responsibility for combat upon the Soviet pilots. In the period from November 1950 to September 15, 1951, Soviet documents suggest that units of the 64th Corps flew 8828 combat missions and were involved in 320 days of military activity.
DLO 3:
Other factors that were at work kept the Cold War cold.
10. What were US geo-strategic advantages and disadvantages during the Cold War, and how did they compare to those of the Soviet Union?
Advantages - US
Disadvantage – US
Advantage – Soviet Union
Disadvantage – Soviet Union