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FROM Cold War to A War on Terrorism. Prosperity at Home, Cold War Abroad. The U.S. had tremendous prosperity in the 1950s – with an increase in national income each year.
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Prosperity at Home, Cold War Abroad • The U.S. had tremendous prosperity in the 1950s – with an increase in national income each year. • But to counter the spread of Soviet influence, the U.S. also maintained a peacetime draft (Universal Military Training), and a large peacetime army, navy, and air force. • Military expenditure was large part of the American economy. • The U.S. also kept a well- funded Central Intelligence Agency, (CIA, created from the wartime OSS) to conduct “secret wars” against Soviet power.
European Economics In 1957, several western European nations formed a “common market” by allowing free trade across their borders. While this aided economic growth, Britain’s refusal to join prevented Europe from fully competing with American trade for another decade.
Balance of Terror Russia detonates an atomic bomb in August 1949. U.S. responds by developing the H-bomb, NATO, giving atomic secrets to Britain Russia tests hydrogen bombs in August 1953. U.S. concludes spies have stolen atomic secrets --- as indeed they had, for both the A-bomb and H-bomb. The US will increase security checks and use the FBI to search for “Reds.”
War in Korea In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. Because the U.S. feared an all-out war would mean use of atomic bombs, it met the crisis by using a United Nations force to fight a 3-year “police action,” until North Korea accepted a cease fire. South Korea was more dictatorship than a democracy, but the US will tolerate anti-Soviet strongmen.
Red Scare • Evidence suggested that spies had given the Soviet Union information on the construction of an atomic bomb. • In 1948-49, the government of China had been driven out by the communist guerillas on Mao Zedong, and “Red” China subsequently aided North Korea with several hundred thousand ‘volunteers” • Dis-satisfaction over the Korean War enabled many to charge that parts of the U.S. government and society were “soft” on communism. • In 1950, Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy charged that U.S. government offices harbored many Soviet agents. • The rush to produce accurate missiles armed with nuclear warheads will lead to a :race to the moon” in the 1960s.
Overturning Governments One CIA operation was in 1953, when Arbenz, the President of Guatemala, was overthrown for accepting Soviet aid – and for nationalizing land owned by the United Fruit Company. Guatemala’s new head was a military dictator who was provided with U.S. military aid.
A Pro-American Hemisphere Throughout the Cold war, the U.S. acted to prevent any strong pro-Soviet state from emerging south of the border – except Cuba.
Utilizing a Nuclear Threat Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union maintained large numbers of nuclear weapons. They were cheaper than standing armies (“more bang for a buck”) and could produce peace by a no-winner formula: Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).
Missile Race Building better, bigger, more accurate missiles consumed billions of dollars – competition in arms technology would eventually drive the Soviet Union into economic ruin.
Southeast Asia and the Domino Theory The collapse of France’s empire in southeast Asia prompted the US to establish SEATO (the Pacific version of NATO) in 1954 and extend aid to several new nations – otherwise they would “fall like dominos” to communism.
JFK – The Cold Warrior In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected as President. Young, seemingly vigorous, he committed the US to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Cuban Missile Crisis In 1962, Kennedy ordered the blockade of Castro’s Cuba after learning that Soviet missiles had been placed on the island. A Third World War seemed likely for two weeks in this classic “brinkmanship” confrontation, before Russia “blinked” and withdrew the missiles.
Going into Vietnam In 1963, concerned that the corrupt government was driving more Vietnamese into the arms of the communists, the CIA helped the Vietnamese army overthrow President Diem. The US military warned Lyndon Johnson in 1964 that American ground troops would soon be needed in South Vietnam. Those who did not welcome the Americans were seen as guerilla “terrorists” – but they saw themselves as anti-colonial “freedom fighters.”
Guerilla Warfare and Terror America had previous experience with guerillas. In 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo employed guerilla warfare against American troops in the Philippines. American units regarded these attacks as acts of terrorism and spent months breaking up Filipino ‘cells’ loyal to Aguinaldo.
SEmantrics Dictionary definition -- The systematic use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. Nazi Germany used terror to control Europe in the 1940s (mass executions, villages destroyed). Many such acts were later punished as “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity. The Soviet Union and other states regularly used secret police to terrify its citizens into obedience. International law agencies have yet to agree on what is a crime of terrorism
Disaffection over Anti-communism. The Cold War also affected US ties in rest of the world. France withdrew from NATO in the 1960s. Britain refrained from supporting the war in Vietnam, while Canada granted safe haven to draft resistors. India began to accept more aid from Russia and other Asian countries condemned the American presence in Southeast Asia. Anti-war protestors, being arrested in 1968.
The Great Society Lyndon Johnson had committed the Federal government to an ambitious domestic program – the “Great Society,” with huge investments in education, elimination of poverty, and support of cultural development. But as the cost of Vietnam grew, funding for the Great Society program declined. Could the nation afford both guns and butter?
Civil Rights • The nation also divided in the 1960s over the Civil Rights movement. Most citizens accepted Federal laws to protect minority voting rights and guarantee assistance for education and economic development. But many resisted proposals to integrate neighborhoods and increase taxes for minority job training. • Urban riots, in such cities as Los Angeles, Detroit, and Newark, also worried white voters, as did the decline in US trade once Europe and Asia had rebuilt their own industry. • Protests against the war, and the assassinations of Malcolm X in 1965 and Martin Luther King in 1968 marked a turning point – middle-class American began worrying more about law and order than civil rights.
Mending Fences in Asia As the American commitment to Vietnam faltered, Richard Nixon, elected president in 1968, sought to reach an understanding with the People’s Republic of China. His trip to China in 1971, greatly altered foreign policy.
Détente The new foreign policy was “détente” (a French word that literally means to let up on a drawn bow string). Nixon met with Soviet leaders to discuss disarmament, increased American-Russian trade.
Defeat The impeachment Nixon in 1974 and the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 were the most embarrassing American moments in foreign policy – and divided the nation over questions of “exporting democracy.”.
Limiting the Bomb Détente continued under President Jimmy Carter, who reached an agreement with the Soviets over arms reductions in a SALT (strategic arms limitations) treaty in the late 1970s.
Terrorism One reason that the US and Russia agreed to “Nuclear non-proliferation” (checking the spread of nuclear arms) was the increasing activities of terrorists in various parts of the world. Most Americans ignored terrorism until 1972, when terrorists killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
Economic Woes The 1970s were a time of reduced American exports, rising prices, uncertain employment, and concerns about the increasing Federal and national debts. The failure Presidents Ford and Carter to solve these problems gave a boost to conservative candidates.
Iran Hostages Carter’s already-shaky presidency was wrecked in 1979-80, when Iranian militants (with the new of the new Shiite-dominated Iranian government) held over 100 Americans hostage in Tehran. People began to realize that the Middle East contained issues beyond the Cold War.
The Middle East The “Middle East Question” was a complex mix of America’s commitment to Israel, American need for oil, a number of young nations (formerly colonies of France and Britain) that contained numerous ethnic and religious rivalries, historic Russian ambitions, and sheer ignorance about the cultures of this part of the world.
Israel-Palestine At the heart of the Middle east puzzle (at least for most Americans) was oil and the fact that the nation of Israel was created in the late 1940s on lands claimed by the ethnic Moslems of Palestine. Palestinian refugees made up the cadres of many early terrorist groups in the region.
Middle East “Accords” • In efforts to reduce Arab-Israeli tensions (and wars), and check the growth of terrorism in the region, the US has tried repeatedly to broker Middle East “Accords” – various agreements have been negotiated but few have succeeded for long. • In the late 1970s, Egypt and Israel reached an “understanding” (with American help), that has kept Egypt out of the most of the Middle East violence. • In 1993, the “Oslo Accord” paved the way for a Palestinian state, which was proclaimed in 2000. But great tensions between Israel and Palestine since 2000 has led to growing violence once again.
Reagan Era The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 marked a shift in foreign policy away from détente to the older, more confrontational Cold Wear stance. Many conservatives believed that the US had yielded too much military advantage in the disarmament talks, and now sought to reassert American leadership in the world.
Reagan Doctrine Reagan’s pledge to “role back” communism in the world, and assist any “anti-communist insurgents,” became known as the Reagan doctrine. When CIA and military officers, with White House knowledge, sold arms to Iraq and used the money gained to give arms to “freedom fighters” in Central America, Congress investigated – Republicans and Democrats could no longer agree on a foreign policy “consensus.” Congressional hearings on the “Iran-Contra” affair exposed major party differences on foreign policy.
Russia’s Vietnam In 1979, Soviet troops went into Afghanistan to support a group of Moslem traditionalists against a pro-American government. This triggered a long guerilla war, with heavy Russian loses and eventually defeat. US aid to the anti-Russian guerillas (including a group led by Osama Bin Laden) was part of a Cold war victory – but also the seeds of a long-term problem with terrorism.
Glasnost Severe economic difficulties (partly from military costs), and growing numbers of disaffected Russians, forced Soviet premier Gorbachev to proclaim a policy of “glasnost” (openness) in Russia. People now could openly talk about the Soviet systems defects. Gorbachev discovered he could not control Glasnost or close the Pandora’s Box it opened.
