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Cold War and its Causes
Lasting from the end of World War II in 1945 until the early 1990s, the Cold War was one of the
most significant events of the 20th century. The term was first used by the English writer George
Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear
stalemate between “two or three new monstrous superpowers, each possessed of a weapon by
which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds”. The term was first used in the US
by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State
House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947.
As a concept, Cold War has been defined by various writers from different standpoints of view.
In its most ordinary sense, Cold War means the extreme state of tension, mutual distrust and
suspicion that marked the relations between the US and the USSR in the aftermath of World
War II. Thus, at its heart, the Cold War is essentially a ‘face off’ or competition between the two
superpowers that emerged in the post-World War II period. The competition that resulted in
rivalry and hostility between the two superpowers was essentially a restricted one and it
manifested itself mainly at the political, economic and propaganda fronts with limited recourse
to weapons. The causes of the Cold War are described as below:
(1) The breakdown of the uneasy wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the West.
(2) The ideological conflict between the US and the USSR
(3) The emergence of nuclear era
(4) The American fear of the spread of communism
(5) The Soviet fear of likely damage to communism by the West
(1) The breakdown of the uneasy wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the
West. The first major cause of the Cold War was the increased tensions between the
United States and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. During the Second World
War, the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, was allied with Britain,
France, and the United States against Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan. At the time, the
alliance was formed on the basis of a common understanding of similar perception of
threat. The Soviet Union and the Western powers needed to confront Nazi Germany in
Europe and Japan in the Pacific region in combination with each other. However, by
1945 the major fighting in both the European theater and the Pacific theater began to
come to an end. During the final stages of the war, the partnership between the Soviet
Union and the other Allied nations began to fall apart. Also, there were differences of
opinion between the Soviet Union and the Allied powers on several issues at the
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wartime conferences at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945respectively. These conferences
sought to deal with the post-war territorial, economic and social problems in Europe.
(2) The ideological conflict between the US and the USSR : The basic cause of conflict
between the US and the USSR lay in difference of principles between the communist
states and the capitalist or liberal-democratic states. The communist system of
organizing the state and society was based on the ideas of Karl Marx. He believed that
the wealth of a country should be collectively owned and shared by everybody. The
economy should be centrally planned and the interests and well-being of the working
classes are to be safeguarded by state social policies. The capitalist system,, on the other
hand, operates on the basis of private ownership of a country’s wealth. The driving
forces behind capitalism are private enterprise in the pursuit of making profits and the
preservation of the power of private wealth. The communist system does not advocate
for democracy whereas capitalist system seeks to establish democracy. As a result, one
finds that the Soviet Union was positioned on the far-left side of the economic
spectrum, while he US was positioned on the right side. This difference in ideology was a
major source of the conflict between the two nations because the Soviet Union sought
to expand communism to other regions and the US sought to stop it with its policy of
containment.
(3) The emergence of the nuclear era : The next major cause of the Cold War was the
emergence of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II. While the war ended in
European sector by May 1945, it did not end in the Pacific theatre by then. With the US
bombing of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the war ended
in the Pacific theatre. The US developed its atomic weaponry during the final years of
the war through its secretive programme called the Manhattan Project. With the atomic
bombing of Japan, the US had begun the era of nuclear weapons and the nuclear arms
race. Eventually, a growing mistrust and tension developed between the US and the
Soviet Union and the latter sought to equalize the US show of atomic power by
developing its own nuclear weapons. In an atmosphere charged with tension and
misapprehension between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union detonated its first
nuclear bomb in 1949 code named ‘First Lighting’.
(4) The American fear of the spread of communism : In the months following the end of
World War II, the Soviet Union systematically interfered in the countries od eastern
Europe to set-up pro-communist governments. This happened in Poland, Hungary,
Bulgaria, Albania and Romania. In some cases, the opponents of communism were
either tortured or murdered. The Soviet Union further frightened the US and her
western allies through the speech of its leader, Stalin, who said in 1946 that communism
and capitalism could never live peacefully together and that future wars were inevitable
until the final victory of communism was achieved.
(5) The Soviet fear of likely damage to communism by the West: The hatred of the
capitalist bloc towards the communist bloc created a fear in the Soviet mind that the
capitalist countries under the leadership of the US were determined to inflict damage on
the communist world. The perception of western threat particular became clear to the
Soviet Union when it witnessed the US’s attempt to bring the west European countries
under its own sphere of influence.
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Immediate Tangible Manifestations of the Cold War
The US Side
(a) The Truman Doctrine (1947)
(b) The Policy of Containment (1947)
(c) The Marshall Plan (1948)
(d) The formation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization- 1949)
The Soviet Side
(a) The Communist Information Bureau – COMINFORM (1947)
(b) The Molotov Plan (1947)
(c) The Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia (1948)
(d) The Berlin Blockade (1948-1949)
(e) The Soviet support to communist revolution in mainland China (1949)
(f) The Soviet support to North Korean invasion of South Korea (1950)
(g) The formation of WARSAW Pact (1955)
Effects of Cold War on International Politics
Some of the important impacts of Cold War on post-war international politics are the following:
(1) The emergence of bipolar international order: The world was polarized in two poles-
roughly East and West. It led to indirect conflicts such as the War in Korea(1950-1953)
and the War in Vietnam(1964-1974). Also the Soviet Afghan War (1979-1989) and to
some extent the Arab Israeli Wars. Local problems could be made worse by the
willingness of either of the superpowers to supply arms.
(2) An extensive arms race : Both the superpowers involved themselves in an extensive
arms race including conventional and non-conventional weapons. However, no direct
confrontation was possible because of the Atomic Bomb and weapons of mass
destruction. But then confrontation in areas like in the Far East was possible. After the
fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, the USA became the only
superpower on the planet.
(3) Politically speaking Cold War meant the opposition between liberal democracy and
dictatorship of the proletariat. Geopolitically, it meant the submission of the countries
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either to the US bloc or the Soviet bloc. But many countries in the Third World shunned
block politics and adopted the policy of non-alignment.
(4) Economically the Cold War created an opposition between socialism and capitalism.
The military-industrial complex grew in power in the USA and dominated political
decisions over public interests. The military-industrial complex in collusion with the
various Multinational Companies tried to influence world politics.
(5) Socially speaking countries were divided over the support of either the USA or the
USSR. Various means of propaganda were used by the two superpowers to preach their
ideology and culture.
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