The Cold War existed between the 1940s
to the 1990s. It was a conflict between the United States and the USSR together with their respective allies. The powers at
war engaged in boosting their respective defense systems that led to massive spending of their national resources.
The Cold War was firmly expressed through propaganda,
military coalitions, weapons development, espionage, industrial advances as well as technological development. Such activities
successfully heightened further competition and tension between the warring parties.
The cold war led to numerous proxy wars, and new developments in both nuclear and
conventional arms. Hence, because of the Cold War, numerous countries in the world today possess nuclear weapons that pose
a great threat to world existence.
The
Cold War also led to significant effects in neighboring countries as well as those far away. Such international crises as
the Korean War, the Berlin Blockade, the Vietnam War, the Berlin crisis, and Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979
were a direct manifestation of the cold war. Quite a number of countries experienced massive losses in wealth and life at
such times.
Yet another adverse effect
of the war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 that widely drew fears of an impending Third World War. In addition, in November
1983, a ten-day NATO command exercise that spanned a major part of Western Europe simulated a time of conflict escalation,
with heightened nuclear alerts, which finally culminated in a well-coordinated nuclear release.
At the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, several counties including the Soviet
Union suffered monumental economic stagnation as a direct result of investment in the war. The effects of the war are far
reaching and they contributed to the final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, leaving the US as a sole superpower.
The Communist party strictly enforced laws to limit
such basic human rights as freedom of speech and worship. Government censors carefully controlled what writers could publish.
And Brezhnev clamped down on those who dared to protest his government’s policies. For example, the secret police arrested
many dissidents, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for literature. They then expelled him from the Soviet Union. Brezhnev made it clear that he would
not tolerate dissent in Eastern Europe either. His policy was put to the test in early 1968. At that time, Czech Communist
leader Alexander Dubcek (DOOB•chehk) loosened controls on censorship to offer his country socialism with “a human
face.” This period of reform, when Czechoslovakia’s capital bloomed with new ideas, became known as Prague Spring.
Prague Spring, however, did not survive the summer. On August 20, armed forces from the Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia.
Perhaps most important of all, if the Cold War had ended
shortly after Stalin’s death, the United States almost certainly would have been spared its debacle in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union would likely have avoided its enervating
war in Afghanistan. Many of the roughly 1 million Vietnamese and 1.5 million Afghans who died in these wars would have survived,
and so would the 58,000 Americans and 14,450 Soviet soldiers. Some 1.5 million Cambodians who were slaughtered by Pol Pot’s
regime in 1977–1978, in the wake of the Vietnam War, would also have been spared.30 Similarly, if the Cold War had ended
in 1953, a long series of civil wars in Africa and Central America from the 1960s through the 1980s that were fueled by the
Cold War—wars that cumulatively killed millions of people and destroyed large swaths of territory— would likely
have been settled more easily and with far less bloodshed. The major Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973, as well as lesser
conflicts in the Middle East such as the Yemeni civil war in the 1960s, the War of Attrition in 1969–1970, and the Lebanese
civil war in the mid-1970s, might have been averted or kept at lower levels of intensity if the Cold War had ended in 1953.
The Soviet Union, as part of its Cold War rivalry with the United States, fueled these conflicts by transferring vast quantities
of weapons and providing direct military support to the Arab states opposing Israel.
In the era after World War II, the Soviets occupied
most of Eastern Europe. They occupied Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. East Germany
was also controlled by the Soviet Union. Stalin had promised to allow free elections in these countries, but he broke this
promise. In addition to his failure to hold free elections, Stalin also cut off communication, trade, and travel between these
satellite countries and other western countries.
During this time period, the term Iron Curtain was coined by Winston
Churchill. Churchill said that an Iron Curtain of dictatorship had descended on Eastern Europe. Many world leaders were concerned
about the Soviet dictatorship that had arisen.
President Truman decided to enact a policy of containment regarding communism.
In other words, Truman wanted to prevent communism from spreading. He wanted to prevent the spread of communism without using
military force.
George Marshall, the US Secretary of State came up with a plan. It was called the Marshall Plan. This
plan called for the United States to provide billions of dollars in aid to European countries in order to speed the recovery
of countries that suffered losses during World War II. Truman felt that an economic recovery in Europe would enable Europeans
to have the strength to resist communism and the energy to maintain democratic governments.
There was much distrust and
rivalry between communist countries and democratic countries after World War II. This led to the era known as the Cold War.
The Cold War was not an actual war. There were some conflicts as both sides fought for control, but these conflicts were more
political, as opposed to being physical battles.
In order to prevent this struggle from turning into a real war, the
United Nations was formed by more than fifty countries in 1945.
In 1949, the United States, France, and Great Britain
formed an alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO. NATO was the result of the democratic
nations’ fear of Soviet aggression. The members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization all agreed to treat an attack
against any one of their countries as an attack against all of them.
Up until 1949, the US was the only country with
the technology and knowledge to use a nuclear weapon. This changed in September of 1949. In September, the Soviet Union detonated
its first atomic bomb. There were now two countries with nuclear weapons capabilities. This began the arms race, wherein both
countries sought to build more weapons and better weapons than their counterpart.
Since the United States had recently
dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world had witnessed the devastation of nuclear
warfare. As a result, it became increasingly important that countries attempt to solve their differences peacefully. The memory
of the destruction caused by World War II and the atomic bombs most likely prevented the Cold War from turning into a true
war.
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania,
and Yugoslavia. East Germany was also controlled by the Soviet Union. Stalin had promised to allow free elections in these
countries, but he broke this promise. In addition to his failure to hold free elections, Stalin also cut off communication,
trade, and travel between these satellite countries and other western countries. During this time period, the term Iron Curtain
was coined by Winston Churchill. Churchill said that an Iron Curtain of dictatorship had descended on Eastern Europe. Many
world leaders were concerned about the Soviet dictatorship that had arisen. President Truman decided to enact a policy of
containment regarding communism. In other words, Truman wanted to prevent communism from spreading. He wanted to prevent the
spread of communism without using military force. George Marshall, the US Secretary of State came up with a plan. It was called
the Marshall Plan. This plan called for the United States to provide billions of dollars in aid to European countries in order
to speed the recovery of countries that suffered losses during World War II. Truman felt that an economic recovery in Europe
would enable Europeans to have the strength to resist communism and the energy to maintain democratic governments. There was
much distrust and rivalry between communist countries and democratic countries after World War II. This led to the era known
as the Cold War. The Cold War was not an actual war. There were some conflicts as both sides fought for control, but these
conflicts were more political, as opposed to being physical battles. In order to prevent this struggle from turning into a
real war, the United Nations was formed by more than fifty countries in 1945. In 1949, the United States, France, and Great
Britain formed an alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO. NATO was the result of the democratic
nations’ fear of Soviet aggression. The members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization all agreed to treat an attack
against any one of their countries as an attack against all of them. Up until 1949, the US was the only country with the technology
and knowledge to use a nuclear weapon. This changed in September of 1949. In September, the Soviet Union detonated its first
atomic bomb. There were now two countries with nuclear weapons capabilities. This began the arms race, wherein both countries
sought to build more weapons and better weapons than their counterpart.
On a number of occasions since the invention of nuclear
weapons, false alarms have occurred, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war within minutes. Early in the morning on
November 9th 1979, four American command centres received signals of a full scale Soviet nuclear attack on its way. Within
six minutes, massive preparations were made to counter the attack with US nuclear weapons, before someone realized this was
a false alarm caused by the accidental running of an exercise tape about a Soviet nuclear attack through the US surveillance
system. The telephone ”hot line” established in 1963 between the US and the Soviet Union to prevent nuclear war
by mistake or miscalculation was not used during these six minutes of panic. In 1995, Russia was close to ordering a nuclear
weapon launch. The Russian warning system received signals about a rocket being fired near the Norwegian coast. Russian military
officers interpreted it as a submarine-launched US nuclear missile targeted at Moscow. President Yeltsin, during these few
tense minutes, opened his nuclear suitcase containing the codes for launching Russian nuclear weapons. Some five minutes later,
the missile - a Norwegian research missile - turned in another direction and the alarm was called off. 35 states, including
Russia, had informed about the Norwegian research missile, but the information had apparently not reached the people operating
the warning system.
In addition to the technical problems that may cause
false alarms, there is always the human factor. Just like the control systems of nuclear power plants, the nuclear weapons
warning systemshave to be monitored around the clock. Many accidents happen during the night, as a result of people being
tired and bored.4 Mistakes happen easily. We get on the wrong bus, dial the wrong number or forget to call our mom on her
birthday. But when the mistake is about dialing the wrong digits in the navigation system of an aircraft or shutting off the
wrong monitor of a surveillance system – that is when the consequences can become catastrophic.
A retired Soviet marine officer who worked for many years as the
commander of a nuclear-equipped submarine tells his story: “During our long periods cruising deep in the ocean, often
for several weeks, I rarely got more than a few hours of sleep per night. For several days I stayed on the bridge, keeping
awake with coffee and vodka. There were times when I was so tired, I found it difficult to see which lights were green and
which were red on the instrument panel. And, yes, during this period I and my crew had the capability to launch our missiles
with more than a hundred nuclear charges.”
When Joseph Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Cold War tensions
were at their worst. Meaningful diplomatic negotiations between the communist and capitalist adversaries had long since ceased,
and the nuclear arms race was entering a new and more dangerous phase with the development of thermonuclear weapons. An atmosphere
of hysteria and suspicion gripped the world’s two superpowers. In Moscow, the aging despot had spent his last days laying
the groundwork for another murderous purge while, in Washington, Senator Joseph McCarthy continued his elusive pursuit of
the spectre of communism. Soviet-American relations were further poisoned by Moscow’s “hate-America” campaign.
This visceral propaganda campaign including charges that Washington had been conducting “bacteriological warfare”
in Korea—where a brutal and bloody war was grinding into an agonizing stalemate. GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower’s
victory in the 1952 election, moreover, brought to power a new administration promising to “win the Cold War,”
leading Soviet intelligence officials to conclude that World War III was a real possibility.
As countries of the Eastern Bloc emerged to claim independence
and democracy, a new post-Cold War era was heralded. It was a heady time, full of optimism and possibility. George Bush spoke
of a .new world order.. Some analysts wrote of the .end of history.; others claimed the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism.
It was hoped that with removal of the paranoia and waste of the
bipolar stand-off, it might be possible to implement collective security initiatives, such as those identified in
the Brandt and Brundtland Commissions of the 1980s. Although the Soviet Union and Warsaw Treaty Organization (or Warsaw Pact)
dissolved, the feared division into several new nuclear-weapon states was averted.1 Whole classes of nuclear weapons were
removed and others taken off alert. The
decades
of East-West nuclear confrontation appeared to give way to East-West cooperation, exemplified by arms control treaties and
the Russian Federation.s participation in new security arrangements such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE) and the economic consultations exemplified by the G-8. In less than a decade, however, much of the optimism
has been lost. The Russian Federation and some of its former Soviet neighbours are in economic and political turmoil. Asian
tiger economies
are collapsing, causing
political upheavals across the region and threatening the assumptions and even stability of western financial institutions.
The .grand coalition. of forces against Iraq.s invasion of Kuwait, of which George Bush was so proud, has given way to the
long, drawn out war of nerves and attrition between UNSCOM and Saddam Hussein, fragmenting the early post-Cold War Security
Council partnership and casting a long shadow over western security thinking throughout the 1990s. The implementation of some
arms control agreements has been paralysed by ratification delays and disputes over resources, while further opportunities
to reduce and control arms have been squandered. The achievement after so many years of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty (CTBT) was widely viewed as a success, thereby strengthening the international norm against nuclear proliferation;
but barely eighteen months after it was signed, India and then Pakistan conducted several nuclear explosions, giving rise
to serious concerns about the overall health and credibility of the non-proliferation regime. Descriptively we are still in
the first decade of the post-Cold War era, but conceptually the security preoccupations are already very different from the
possibilities envisaged in the first few years after the Berlin Wall was brought down. In analysing what went wrong, I give
priority to the implications for arms control policy debates and the choices for the United States, which, as the post-Cold
War hegemonic power, had the greatest resources and opportunities to influence the future.
America swore that it was as far as communism would
get, the Russians had other ideas, the scene was set for a show-down which was to be acted out in the zones of Berlin. By
1947, the Western powers had merged their zones of occupation, ended denazification, released prisoners of war, began a programme
of central German government and relaxed economic restrictions on German economies.
These reforms angered Stalin who viewed it as weak and granting an opportunity
for the Nazis to rise again. The issue of currency reform was in many ways the straw that broke the camel's back. The
Allies had decided to introduce a new currency to end black trading and instigate an economic revival - it worked - production
rose by fifty per cent in six months. The Russians responded by introducing a new currency in their zone, thus further widening
the division. Subsequently, they blockaded Berlin on 24 June 1945. The Allies organised a massive air-lift to get supplies
to their beleaguered zones in Berlin.
Stalin
realising he had failed agreed to reopen road and rail links in May 1949. However, the Cold War was to spread far from the
European arena. Japan had annexed Korea in 1910, following the Second World War, the Americans and the Soviets agreed that
they should occupy Korea. The demarcation line between the Communist North, under Kim Il Sung an the South under the right-wing
President Syngman Rhee was the thirty-eight parallel. Both leaders desired to see the country united under their respective
systems.
The defeat of Nazi and Japanese war machines during
the Second World War left two dominant powers in a duel. Each of them had different form of government as well as economy.
The capitalist form of government of the US was in direct rivalry with the communist government of the USSR. Both ideologies
would never stand face to face with each other let alone unite. The fact that communist ideals were reactions from capitalistic
policies only deteriorated the situation. The fall of the Third Reich also meant that Russia had a free reign in Europe, while
at the same time, the allies controlled all the areas west of Russia's borders.
The eventual split of Europe led to the formation of the Iron Curtain in Germany.
The West was afraid of further Russian ideological and physical expansion as well as invasion. This prompted the implementation
of the Truman Doctrine which promised monetary aid and military assistance to any country which would resist communism. By
the start of the 60's, Europe was divided into two power blocs and became a potential battleground again for World War
III and nuclear war. The influence of the Cold War eventually spread throughout the globe to include smaller nations, creating
the greatest division the world has known.
The mutual distrust of two superpowers was pervasive. Russia wanted to transform nations into communist states while
America was sowing seeds of democracy even at the door of USSR. Both sides have their own fears--the US was afraid of the
Soviet invasion of Europe, while Russia contemplated of being the target for thousands of nuclear warheads of the US.
The cold war dominated the international system for
nearly 45 years, and exerted a signifi cant infl uence over the nature and scope of the many military and political conflicts
that occurred during those years. In retrospect, the cold war was the major theatre for the West’s struggle against
communist ideas and about regime change in, and the democratisation of, the communist bloc. The cold war was fought very much
on the assumption that ‘if your are not with us, you are against us’, an assumption that fi gured more prominently
in American society than in its Western European counterparts. While the Soviet leadership in its fi nal years accepted it
would be impossible to create a non-Islamic
Afghanistan, Mikhail Gorbachev nonetheless believed that a pro-US/Pakistan regime in Afghanistan would be ‘totally unacceptable’
both to India and to the USSR.1 Thus, the main tenet of the cold war can be seen as the East–West competition in ideas,
arms and spheres of influence. Propaganda activities, information gathering and spying were part and parcel of winning the
hearts and minds of allies and potential allies. The cold war became, to varying degrees, an integral part of the domestic
politics of many countries, such as in the form of
McCarthyism in the USA during the 1950s or anti-nuclear movements in Europe in the early 1980s. The Western alliance was supposed
to have been united during cold war crises, but Europe was seen by the USA as likely to succumb to pitfalls like ‘Finlandisation’,
as America’s European allies were often keen to reduce cold war tensions by means of détente, cultural exchanges,
or negotiations.
At the core of the cold war was the mutually perceived
fear of a possible surprise attack by the other side, a fear which was fed by mutual misperceptions, and a lack of understanding
of each other. This meant that each side tended to depict the other in the worst possible light, which in turn created a situation
whereby both sides misread each other’s intentions and overestimated each other’s capabilities. The possession
of nearly 50,000 nuclear weapons by the two superpowers made the confrontation deadly, while the East–West ideological
competition added to the dynamic to expand, and intensify, the cold war worldwide.
In the event of a nuclear attack on the USA, its key decision-makers were to be
quickly moved to a secret bunker in the heart of the Carolina mountains. At the beginning of his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower
was taken to this emergency White House through a long tunnel, occasionally interrupted by huge security gates. When he fi
nally reached the bunker, he looked back, and told his national security adviser, Dillon Anderson, that: ‘Good God;
I did not realise we were this scared.’ After the death of Stalin in 1953, NATO believed that the prospect of a third
world war was unlikely except by accident or miscalculation. Nevertheless there was still a great degree of uncertainty in
the West surrounding Soviet military intentions. One scholar states that ‘On a medical analogy, the West by the 1980s
had become well informed about Soviet anatomy and physiology; but the windows to the antagonist’s mind remained largely
opaque.’7 Similarly the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc were aware that NATO’s strategy was defensive, but this
did not dispel the fear that NATO’s strategy could be a ‘cover up for a possible surprise nuclear strike’.8
This also explained why the Kremlin’s
suspicions
of a NATO pre-emptive attack increased in the aftermath of the November 1983 Able Archer exercise. The cold war was not like
the conventional wars that had been fought between the great powers before 1945, but nonetheless it was a global contest and
a sort of war. The cold war shared many of the characteristics of modern warfare – ideological differences, large numbers
of weapons, war plans, operational manuals, covert operations, psychological warfare, proxy and often bloody battles in the
Third World, the formation of alliances, economic and trade pressures and the control of society – but the cold war
thankfully did not end in the apocalyptic phase of the third world war by nuclear destruction.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States
faces threats of terrorism, antagonism in the Muslim world and suspicions of its motives throughout much of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Many of the roots of such
problems lie in U.S. actions and policies of the last half-century — in the unintended consequences of the Cold War.
Conventional wisdom holds that the United States won the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, international communism
ceased to be a threat, and the United States became the “world’s only superpower.” But accompanying that
“wisdom” is an uncertainty about the global future and, in the United States, questions as to why a nation
so powerful and “good” has such difficulty in wielding its worldwide influence.
In light of current challenges to U.S. interests, could it be that
the presumed success in the Cold War was a
Pyrrhic
victory? Did the unintended consequences of our anti-Soviet efforts contribute to problems Washington faces today? The confrontation
with the Soviet Union was fought actively, not on the plains of Europe, but in the arena of Asian and African states emerging
from colonialism and in Latin American countries resisting oligarchs. The greater part of my own diplomatic career and that
ofmany of my Foreign Service colleagues was spent in these regions. American policies pursued much that was positive in these
areas in supporting economic development, human rights, conflict resolution and multilateral cooperation. Nevertheless, in regions important to American interests, the United
States was more often perceived as an interventionist
instrument of neo-colonialism than as a democratic liberator. This view was not helped by perceptions of U.S. involvement
in regional issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the Indian-Pakistani tensions over Kashmir, however positive
Washington’s motives. In regions where emotions are rooted in history and memories are long, the effects of such a view
continue. In the immediate post-World War II period, communist parties in Western Europe, backed by a nuclear and ambitious
Soviet Union, did represent both a political and military threat. The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe had a profound effect
on public opinion in the United States. No administration could have failed to respond.
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania,
and Yugoslavia. East Germany was also controlled by the Soviet Union. Stalin had promised to allow free elections in these
countries, but he broke this promise. In addition to his failure to hold free elections, Stalin also cut off communication,
trade, and travel between these satellite countries and other western countries. During this time period, the term Iron Curtain
was coined by Winston Churchill. Churchill said that an Iron Curtain of dictatorship had descended on Eastern Europe. Many
world leaders were concerned about the Soviet dictatorship that had arisen. President Truman decided to enact a policy of
containment regarding communism. In other words, Truman wanted to prevent communism from spreading. He wanted to prevent the
spread of communism without using military force. George Marshall, the US Secretary of State came up with a plan. It was called
the Marshall Plan. This plan called for the United States to provide billions of dollars in aid to European countries in order
to speed the recovery of countries that suffered losses during World War II. Truman felt that an economic recovery in Europe
would enable Europeans to have the strength to resist communism and the energy to maintain democratic governments. There was
much distrust and rivalry between communist countries and democratic countries after World War II. This led to the era known
as the Cold War. The Cold War was not an actual war. There were some conflicts as both sides fought for control, but these
conflicts were more political, as opposed to being physical battles. In order to prevent this struggle from turning into a
real war, the United Nations was formed by more than fifty countries in 1945. In 1949, the United States, France, and Great
Britain formed an alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO. NATO was the result of the democratic
nations’ fear of Soviet aggression. The members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization all agreed to treat an attack
against any one of their countries as an attack against all of them. Up until 1949, the US was the only country with the technology
and knowledge to use a nuclear weapon. This changed in September of 1949. In September, the Soviet Union detonated its first
atomic bomb. There were now two countries with nuclear weapons capabilities. This began the arms race, wherein both countries
sought to build more weapons and better weapons than their counterpart.
On a number of occasions since the invention of nuclear
weapons, false alarms have occurred, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war within minutes. Early in the morning on
November 9th 1979, four American command centres received signals of a full scale Soviet nuclear attack on its way. Within
six minutes, massive preparations were made to counter the attack with US nuclear weapons, before someone realized this was
a false alarm caused by the accidental running of an exercise tape about a Soviet nuclear attack through the US surveillance
system. The telephone ”hot line” established in 1963 between the US and the Soviet Union to prevent nuclear war
by mistake or miscalculation was not used during these six minutes of panic. In 1995, Russia was close to ordering a nuclear
weapon launch. The Russian warning system received signals about a rocket being fired near the Norwegian coast. Russian military
officers interpreted it as a submarine-launched US nuclear missile targeted at Moscow. President Yeltsin, during these few
tense minutes, opened his nuclear suitcase containing the codes for launching Russian nuclear weapons. Some five minutes later,
the missile - a Norwegian research missile - turned in another direction and the alarm was called off. 35 states, including
Russia, had informed about the Norwegian research missile, but the information had apparently not reached the people operating
the warning system.
In addition to the technical problems that may cause
false alarms, there is always the human factor. Just like the control systems of nuclear power plants, the nuclear weapons
warning systems have to be monitored around the clock. Many accidents happen during the night, as a result of people being
tired and bored.4 Mistakes happen easily. We get on the wrong bus, dial the wrong number or forget to call our mom on her
birthday. But when the mistake is about dialing the wrong digits in the navigation system of an aircraft or shutting off the
wrong monitor of a surveillance system – that is when the consequences can become catastrophic.
A retired Soviet marine officer who worked for many years as the
commander of a nuclear-equipped submarine tells his story: “During our long periods cruising deep in the ocean, often
for several weeks, I rarely got more than a few hours of sleep per night. For several days I stayed on the bridge, keeping
awake with coffee and vodka. There were times when I was so tired, I found it difficult to see which lights were green and
which were red on the instrument panel. And, yes, during this period I and my crew had the capability to launch our missiles
with more than a hundred nuclear charges.”
When Joseph Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Cold War tensions
were at their worst. Meaningful diplomatic negotiations between the communist and capitalist adversaries had long since ceased,
and the nuclear arms race was entering a new and more dangerous phase with the development of thermonuclear weapons. An atmosphere
of hysteria and suspicion gripped the world’s two superpowers. In Moscow, the aging despot had spent his last days laying
the groundwork for another murderous purge while, in Washington, Senator Joseph McCarthy continued his elusive pursuit of
the spectre of communism. Soviet-American relations were further poisoned by Moscow’s “hate-America” campaign.
This visceral propaganda campaign including charges that Washington had been conducting “bacteriological warfare”
in Korea—where a brutal and bloody war was grinding into an agonizing stalemate. GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower’s
victory in the 1952 election, moreover, brought to power a new administration promising to “win the Cold War,”
leading Soviet intelligence officials to conclude that World War III was a real possibility.
As countries of the Eastern Bloc emerged to claim independence
and democracy, a new post-Cold War era was heralded. It was a heady time, full of optimism and possibility. George Bush spoke
of a .new world order.. Some analysts wrote of the .end of history.; others claimed the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism.
It was hoped that with removal of the paranoia and waste of the bipolar stand-off, it might be possible to implement collective security initiatives, such as those identified in
the Brandt and Brundtland Commissions of the 1980s. Although the Soviet Union and Warsaw Treaty Organization (or Warsaw Pact)
dissolved, the feared division into several new nuclear-weapon states was averted.1 Whole classes of nuclear weapons were
removed and others taken off alert. The
decades
of East-West nuclear confrontation appeared to give way to East-West cooperation, exemplified by arms control treaties and
the Russian Federation.s participation in new security arrangements such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE) and the economic consultations exemplified by the G-8. In less than a decade, however, much of the optimism
has been lost. The Russian Federation and some of its former Soviet neighbours are in economic and political turmoil. Asian
tiger economies
are collapsing, causing
political upheavals across the region and threatening the assumptions and even stability of western financial institutions.
The .grand coalition. of forces against Iraq.s invasion of Kuwait, of which George Bush was so proud, has given way to the
long, drawn out war of nerves and attrition between UNSCOM and Saddam Hussein, fragmenting the early post-Cold War Security
Council partnership and casting a long shadow over western security thinking throughout the 1990s. The implementation of some
arms control agreements has been paralysed by ratification delays and disputes over resources, while further opportunities
to reduce and control arms have been squandered. The achievement after so many years of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty (CTBT) was widely viewed as a success, thereby strengthening the international norm against nuclear proliferation;
but barely eighteen months after it was signed, India and then Pakistan conducted several nuclear explosions, giving rise
to serious concerns about the overall health and credibility of the non-proliferation regime. Descriptively we are still in
the first decade of the post-Cold War era, but conceptually the security preoccupations are already very different from the
possibilities envisaged in the first few years after the Berlin Wall was brought down. In analysing what went wrong, I give
priority to the implications for arms control policy debates and the choices for the United States, which, as the post-Cold
War hegemonic power, had the greatest resources and opportunities to influence the future.
America swore that it was as far as communism would
get, the Russians had other ideas, the scene was set for a show-down which was to be acted out in the zones of Berlin. By
1947, the Western powers had merged their zones of occupation, ended denazification, released prisoners of war, began a programme
of central German government and relaxed economic restrictions on German economies.
These reforms angered Stalin who viewed it as weak and granting an opportunity
for the Nazis to rise again. The issue of currency reform was in many ways the straw that broke the camel's back. The
Allies had decided to introduce a new currency to end black trading and instigate an economic revival - it worked - production
rose by fifty per cent in six months. The Russians responded by introducing a new currency in their zone, thus further widening
the division. Subsequently, they blockaded Berlin on 24 June 1945. The Allies organised a massive air-lift to get supplies
to their beleaguered zones in Berlin.
Stalin
realising he had failed agreed to reopen road and rail links in May 1949. However, the Cold War was to spread far from the
European arena. Japan had annexed Korea in 1910, following the Second World War, the Americans and the Soviets agreed that
they should occupy Korea. The demarcation line between the Communist North, under Kim Il Sung an the South under the right-wing
President Syngman Rhee was the thirty-eight parallel. Both leaders desired to see the country united under their respective
systems.
The defeat of Nazi and Japanese war machines during
the Second World War left two dominant powers in a duel. Each of them had different form of government as well as economy.
The capitalist form of government of the US was in direct rivalry with the communist government of the USSR. Both ideologies
would never stand face to face with each other let alone unite. The fact that communist ideals were reactions from capitalistic
policies only deteriorated the situation. The fall of the Third Reich also meant that Russia had a free reign in Europe, while
at the same time, the allies controlled all the areas west of Russia's borders.
The eventual split of Europe led to the formation of the Iron Curtain in Germany.
The West was afraid of further Russian ideological and physical expansion as well as invasion. This prompted the implementation
of the Truman Doctrine which promised monetary aid and military assistance to any country which would resist communism. By
the start of the 60's, Europe was divided into two power blocs and became a potential battleground again for World War
III and nuclear war. The influence of the Cold War eventually spread throughout the globe to include smaller nations, creating
the greatest division the world has known.
The mutual distrust of two superpowers was pervasive. Russia wanted to transform nations into communist states while
America was sowing seeds of democracy even at the door of USSR. Both sides have their own fears--the US was afraid of the
Soviet invasion of Europe, while Russia contemplated of being the target for thousands of nuclear warheads of the US.
The cold war dominated the international system for
nearly 45 years, and exerted a significant influence over the nature and scope of the many military and political conflicts
that occurred during those years. In retrospect, the cold war was the major theatre for the West’s struggle against
communist ideas and about regime change in, and the democratisation of, the communist bloc. The cold war was fought very much
on the assumption that ‘if your are not with us, you are against us’, an assumption that figured more prominently
in American society than in its Western European counterparts. While the Soviet leadership in its fi nal years accepted it
would be impossible to create a non-Islamic
Afghanistan, Mikhail Gorbachev nonetheless believed that a pro-US/Pakistan regime in Afghanistan would be ‘totally unacceptable’
both to India and to the USSR.1 Thus, the main tenet of the cold war can be seen as the East–West competition in ideas,
arms and spheres of influence. Propaganda activities, information gathering and spying were part and parcel of winning the
hearts and minds of allies and potential allies. The cold war became, to varying degrees, an integral part of the domestic
politics of many countries, such as in the form of
McCarthyism in the USA during the 1950s or anti-nuclear movements in Europe in the early 1980s. The Western alliance was supposed
to have been united during cold war crises, but Europe was seen by the USA as likely to succumb to pitfalls like ‘Finlandisation’,
as America’s European allies were often keen to reduce cold war tensions by means of détente, cultural exchanges,
or negotiations.
At the core of the cold war was the mutually perceived
fear of a possible surprise attack by the other side, a fear which was fed by mutual misperceptions, and a lack of understanding
of each other. This meant that each side tended to depict the other in the worst possible light, which in turn created a situation
whereby both sides misread each others intentions and overestimated each other’s capabilities. The possession of nearly
50,000 nuclear weapons by the two superpowers made the confrontation deadly, while the East–West ideological competition
added to the dynamic to expand, and intensify, the cold war worldwide.
In the event of a nuclear attack on the USA, its key decision-makers were to be quickly moved to a secret bunker
in the heart of the Carolina mountains. At the beginning of his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower was taken to this emergency
White House through a long tunnel, occasionally interrupted by huge security gates. When he fi nally reached the bunker, he
looked back, and told his national security adviser, Dillon Anderson, that: ‘Good God; I did not realise we were this
scared.’ After the death of Stalin in 1953, NATO believed that the prospect of a third world war was unlikely except
by accident or miscalculation. Nevertheless there was still a great degree of uncertainty in the West surrounding Soviet military
intentions. One scholar states that ‘On a medical analogy, the West by the 1980s had become well informed about Soviet
anatomy and physiology; but the windows to the antagonist’s mind remained largely opaque.’7 Similarly the Soviet
Union and the Eastern bloc were aware that NATO’s strategy was defensive, but this did not dispel the fear that NATO’s
strategy could be a ‘cover up for a possible surprise nuclear strike’.8 This also explained why the Kremlin’s
suspicions of a NATO pre-emptive attack increased in
the aftermath of the November 1983 Able Archer exercise. The cold war was not like the conventional wars that had been fought
between the great powers before 1945, but nonetheless it was a global contest and a sort of war. The cold war shared many
of the characteristics of modern warfare – ideological differences, large numbers of weapons, war plans, operational
manuals, covert operations, psychological warfare, proxy and often bloody battles in the Third World, the formation of alliances,
economic and trade pressures and the control of society – but the cold war thankfully did not end in the apocalyptic
phase of the third world war by nuclear destruction.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States
faces threats of terrorism, antagonism in the Muslim world and suspicions of its motives throughout much of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Many of the roots of such
problems lie in U.S. actions and policies of the last half-century — in the unintended consequences of the Cold War.
Conventional wisdom holds that the United States won the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, international communism
ceased to be a threat, and the United States became the “world’s only superpower.” But accompanying that
“wisdom” is an uncertainty about the global future and, in the United States, questions as to why a nation
so powerful and “good” has such difficulty in wielding its worldwide influence.
In light of current challenges to U.S. interests, could it be that
the presumed success in the Cold War was a Pyrrhic
victory? Did the unintended consequences of our anti-Soviet efforts contribute to problems Washington faces today? The confrontation
with the Soviet Union was fought actively, not on the plains of Europe, but in the arena of Asian and African states emerging
from colonialism and in Latin American countries resisting oligarchs. The greater part of my own diplomatic career and that
ofmany of my Foreign Service colleagues was spent in these regions. American policies pursued much that was positive in these
areas in supporting economic development, human rights, conflict resolution and multilateral
cooperation. Nevertheless, in regions important to American interests, the United
States was more often perceived as an interventionist
instrument of neo-colonialism than as a democratic liberator. This view was not helped by perceptions of U.S. involvement
in regional issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the Indian-Pakistani tensions over Kashmir, however positive
Washington’s motives. In regions where emotions are rooted in history and memories are long, the effects of such a view
continue. In the immediate post-World War II period, communist parties in Western Europe, backed by a nuclear and ambitious
Soviet Union, did represent both a political and military threat. The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe had a profound effect
on public opinion in the United States. No administration could have failed to respond.
