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On April 16, 1947, Bernard Baruch, the financier and adviser to presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman, coined the term “Cold War” to describe the increasingly chilly relations between two World War II Allies: the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, both sides fought each other indirectly.
Proxy War : A proxy war is a conflict instigated by opposing powers who do not fight against each other directly. Instead, they uses third parties to do the fighting for them. They rather conduct proxy wars in developing countries in order to avoid loss and achieve some certain interests at the same time.
Germany was divided into four zones, the zones were governed by the Allied Control Council, also called the ACC, consisting of the four supreme commanders of the Allied Forces. Within the four zones, each power had their own plans for how to control their assigned part of Germany. The French, vetoed the establishment of a central German administration, a decision that furthered the country's eventual division. The Soviet occupiers sought to recover as much as possible from Germany as compensation for the losses their country had sustained during the war. In their own zone, the Soviet authorities quickly moved toward establishing a socialist society like their own. The United States had the greatest interest in denazification and in the establishment of a liberal democratic system. Britain had the least ambitious plans for its zone. To facilitate German economic self-sufficiency, United States and British occupation policies soon merged, and by the beginning of 1947 their zones had been joined into one economic area called the Bizone.
By the late 1940s, the United States acted to formalize the split and establish Western Germany as an independent republic. By May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was formally announced. In 1954, West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the mutual defense alliance between the United States and several European nations. All that remained was for the Americans, British, and French to end their nearly 10-year occupation. This was accomplished on May 5, 1955, when those nations issued a proclamation declaring an end to the military occupation of West Germany. East Germany, controlled by the Soviet Union, remained separate until 1990.
In the closing months of World War II and the later half of the 1940s, the Soviet Union oversaw the establishment of Communist regimes throughout central and Eastern Europe. Over the next four decades, those regimes constituted what was informally known as the Eastern bloc. The United States used its power to try to protect existing democratic governments around the world. The Soviet Union, using the influence it had gained through the war, established and enforced communist rule and created an alliance of countries on its eastern borders that stood as a buffer between the Western world and itself, a formation that became known as the "Eastern Bloc." With the fall of the Soviet Union came the fall of the "Iron Curtain" that spread throughout Eastern Europe.
1945-1989
In April of 1928, Mao Zedong presented the Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention, a document instructing the Red Army on tactics, method and behaviour. That initiated a spark that lead to the Chinese Communist Revolution from 1946-1949.
On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China. The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, which broke out immediately following World War II. Also had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920’s. The “fall” of mainland China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades. For more than twenty years after the Chinese revolution of 1949, there were few contacts, limited trade and no diplomatic ties between the two countries. Until the 1970s, the United States continued to recognize the Republic of China, located on Taiwan, as China’s true government and supported that government in holding the Chinese seat in the United Nations.
The Marshall Plan, which was also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted on April 3, 1948. This plan provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. It was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbours. As well as foster commerce between those countries and the United States. The Marshall Plan is also considered a key catalyst for the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance between North American and European countries established in 1949. The Marshall Plan was replaced by the Mutual Security Plan at the end of 1951.
Berlin blockade and airlift, was an international crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948–49, to force the Western Allied powers to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin. In March, 1948, the Allied powers decided to unite their different occupation zones of Germany into a single economic unit. In protest, the Soviet representative withdrew from the Allied Control Council. The Soviet occupation forces in eastern Germany began a blockade of all rail, road, and water communications between Berlin and the West. This meant that those living in Western Berlin had no access to food supplies and faced starvation. On June 26, the United States and Britain began to supply the city with food and other vital supplies by air. They also organized a similar “airlift” in the opposite direction of West Berlin’s greatly reduced industrial exports. In May of 1949, Russia ended the blockade of Berlin. Tension remained high, but war did not break out.
The Korean war began when North Korea invaded South Korea. World War II divided Korea into a Communist, northern half and an American-occupied southern half, divided at the 38th parallel. The Korean War began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid. The Korean war ended on July 27, 1953. North Korea remained affiliated with Russia while South Korea was affiliated with the USA.
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt led by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement. It was against the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. In the final days of 1958, ragged rebels began the process of driving out forces loyal to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. By New Year’s Day 1959, facing a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees the island nation. Batista was finally removed from office on January 1, 1959. He was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro. This government later changed along communist lines, and became the current Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965. The nation was finally theirs. Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara, Raúl Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and their companions rode triumphantly into Havana and history. The revolution began long before, however, and the eventual rebel triumph was the result of many years of hardship, guerrilla warfare, and propaganda battles.
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its ally, the United States. The Vietnam War was the longest war in U.S. history until the Afghanistan War from 2002-2014. The war was extremely divisive in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and other places. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. Because the U.S. failed to achieve a military victory and the Republic of South Vietnam was ultimately taken over by North Vietnam, the Vietnam experience became known as “the only war America ever lost.” It remains a very controversial topic that continues to affect political and military decisions today.
An international diplomatic crisis happened in May of 1960, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the USSR, shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Confronted with the evidence of his nation’s espionage, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to admit to the Soviets that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, known as the CIA, had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. The Soviets convicted Powers on espionage charges and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. However, after serving less than two years, he was released in exchange for a captured Soviet agent in the first-ever U.S.-USSR “spy swap.”
A force of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, aided by the US government, attempted to invade Cuba and overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. The attempt failed. On April 17, the Cuban-exile invasion force, known as Brigade 2506, landed at beaches along the Bay of Pigs. They immediately came under heavy fire. Cuban planes strafed the invaders, sank two escort ships, and destroyed half of the exile's air support. Bad weather delayed the ground force, which had to work with soggy equipment and insufficient ammunition. Some exiles escaped to the sea, while the rest were killed or rounded up and imprisoned by Castro's forces. Almost 1,200 members of Brigade 2506 surrendered, and more than 100 were killed.
In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany began building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. The Berlin wall divided families who found themselves unable to visit each other. Many East Berliners were cut off from their jobs. In the early morning hours of August 13, 1961, temporary barriers were put up at the border separating the Soviet sector from West Berlin, and the asphalt and cobblestones on the connecting roads were ripped up. Over the next few days and weeks, the coils of barbed wire strung along the border to West Berlin were replaced by a wall of concrete slabs and hollow blocks.
A US spy plane reported sighting the construction of a Soviet nuclear missile base in Cuba. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. President Kennedy set up a naval blockade and demanded the removal of the missiles. War was averted when the Russians agreed on the 28th October to remove the weapons. The United States agreed not to invade Cuba.
The Prague Spring of 1968 is the term used for the brief period of time when the government of Czechoslovakia led by Alexander Dubček seemingly wanted to democratize the nation and lessen the stranglehold Moscow had on the nation’s affairs. The Prague Spring ended with a Soviet invasion, the removal of Alexander Dubček as party leader and an end to reform within Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring had proved that the Soviet Union was not willing to even contemplate any member of the Warsaw Pact leaving it. The tanks that rolled through the streets of Prague reaffirmed to the West that the people of Eastern Europe were oppressed and denied the democracy that existed in Western Europe.
The USSR entered neighboring Afghanistan in 1979, attempting to shore up the newly-established pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. In short order, nearly 100,000 Soviet soldiers took control of major cities and highways. Foreign support propped up the diverse group of rebels, pouring in from Iran, Pakistan, China, and the United States. In the brutal nine-year conflict, an estimated one million civilians were killed, 18,000 Afghan troops, and 14,500 Soviet soldiers. Millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. By the mid-1980s, the Soviet contingent was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased, but the military and diplomatic cost of the war to the USSR was high. By mid-1987 the Soviet Union, now under reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, announced it would start withdrawing its forces after meetings with the Afghan government. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989
Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States. In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive. On June 4, 1989, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. It was estimated that at least 300, and even possibly thousands, of the protesters had been killed and as many as 10,000 were arrested. The savagery of the Chinese government’s attack shocked both its allies and Cold War enemies.
On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced a change in his city’s relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, citizens of the German Democratic Republic were free to cross the country’s borders. East and West Berliners flocked to the wall, drinking beer and champagne. At midnight, they flooded through the checkpoints. More than 2 million people from East Berlin visited West Berlin that weekend to participate in a celebration. People used hammers and picks to knock away chunks of the wall, while cranes and bulldozers pulled down section after section. Soon the wall was gone and Berlin was united for the first time since 1945.
In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom. A triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its enemy was brought to its knees, ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. The breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world's political situation, leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic and military alliances all over the globe.
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