The Cold War

A Bi-Polar and Dangerous World1945-1991

Origins

• Historical Antagonisms

• Ideological Differences

• Fractures in the Great Alliance

• Problem of Perception—events “confirmed” the worst

End of World War II

• Yalta Conference

• Death of FDR

• Potsdam Conference

• Division of Germany

• Elections

• Need for security—understandable paranoia

Division of Germany

Evolving Strategies

• Collective Security—Eastern Europe—Warsaw Pact

• Western Europe—NATO

• George Kennan—Containment

• Truman Doctrine

• Berlin Airlift

• Arms Race: “Super” and Missiles

Divided Europe along an Iron Curtain

Cold War Become Global

• Mao and China

• Korean War

• Vietnam

• 3rd World

• Cuban Revolution

Cold War Images

“Temporarily divided at the17th parallel, Vietnam becamea quagmire—the Iraq of U. S.policy in the 1960s

KOREAN WAR

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz(1926- )

Cuban Revolution spurred fear of Communism in Western Hemisphere

Key Episodes (1950-1981)

• Berlin Blockade• Hungarian Uprising• U-2 Spy Plane• Espionage—Joe McCarthy• Cuban Missile Crisis• “Détente”• Re-escalation in late 1970• El Salvador and Nicaraugua

Sputnik—1957

Apollo 11—1969

Taking the Cold War to space

• Ideology and mortality

• Star Wars• Nationalities and

economic problems in Soviet Union

• Glasnost• Perestroika• Arms Reduction

Treaties• Collapse of Berlin

Wall

Collapse of Berlin Wall, 1989.Boris Yeltsin during 1991 Coup