Transcript The Cold War

1949 China Turns Communist
1962 Cuba Turns Communist
1962
Cuban Missile Crisis
The end of the world as we know it?
1950-1953
Korean War
1955-1975
Vietnam War
1989 COLD WAR ENDS
DISSOLUTION (or breaking apart)
of the Soviet Union
The Cold War [1945-1991]:
An Ideological Struggle
USSR & Eastern
Bloc Nations
GOAL  spread worldwide Communism
U.S. & other
Western
Democracies
GOAL  “Containment”
of Communism and
spread of Capitalism
worldwide
How the war was fought:
1. Espionage [KGB vs. CIA]
2. Arms Race [nuclear escalation]
3. Ideological Competition for the minds and hearts
of Third World peoples
4. Proxy Wars
Who started the Cold War?
Fragile Alliance During WWII
• U.S. upset Stalin had
signed the nonaggression
pact with Germany in 1939.
• Stalin blamed the Allies for
not invading Nazi occupied
Europe earlier than 1944.
Yalta Conference (Feb 1945):
The Beginning of the Cold War?
•
•
Leaders of U.S., Britain and Soviet Union met in
Yalta to discuss post WWII plans.
They agreed
– to divide Germany into occupation zones
controlled by Allied military forces.
– to make Germany pay the Soviet Union for
the loss of life and property.
– the Soviet Union would join the war against
Japan.
– Eastern European countries would have free
elections. (U.S. is skeptical of Stalin’s
promise)
Soviets Build a Buffer, 1945
• Soviet Union wanted to shield itself from
another invasion from the West (Poles 17th
c, Swedes 18c, French 19c, Germans 20c)
• Stalin ignored the agreement made during
the Yalta Conference and installed
communist governments in Albania,
Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Romania, Poland and Yugoslavia.
• Europe was divided between the Democratic
Capitalist West and the Totalitarian
Communist East.
“Iron Curtain Speech” - 1946
Prime Minister of Great Britain
Winston Churchill
“From Stettin in the
Baltic, to Trieste in the
Adriatic,
an iron curtain has
descended across the
continent.”
-Winston Churchill, 1946
In his speech, Churchill stated that
Europe was divided into two hostile
camps. Stalin viewed Churchill’s
speech as “a call to war with the
Soviet Union.”
Truman Doctrine, 1947
•The U.S. would give
money and aid to
countries threatened
by communist
expansion.
•Led to a U.S. policy of
containment, trying to
keep communism within
its existing borders.
•U.S. gave $400,000,000
of aid to Greece and
Turkey.
The Marshall Plan, 1947
•To help Europe recover from WWII, the U.S. Secretary of State, George
Marshall, came up with a plan to provide economic aid to countries who needed
it.
•The hope was that giving food, machinery, and other materials to countries
would prevent the spread of communism.
•The Soviets saw this as a trick on the part of the United States to BUY support,
and declined aid.
Germany is Divided
• After WWII Germany (and
the city of Berlin) were
divided into four sections
• Each of the Allies
controlled a section
– Eventually West Germany
unified as one country
– East Germany remained
under the control of the
USSR
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
• The Soviets protested the
unification of France, Great Britain,
and the U.S.’s occupied areas.
They set up a blockade of West
Berlin.
– Not allowing any trucks, ships or
trains in to bring supplies to the 2
million residents.
• The Western powers decided to
start the Berlin Airlift – for 10
months supplies and food were
flown by U.S. & British planes from
West Germany into West Berlin.
• USSR eventually lifted blockade.
Military Alliances
-Both the U.S. and
U.S.S.R. wanted
security so they
created new alliances.
-U.S. and western
European countries
joined together to
form the North
Atlantic Treaty
Organization or
(NATO).
-U.S.S.R joined with
eastern European
countries in an alliance
called The Warsaw
Pact.
NATO, 1949
Warsaw, 1955
Who started the Cold War?