COLD WAR 1945-1991

PRESENTATION MADE BY – ARTI SINGH

 THE COLD WAR

 After the Second World War, the Allies of the war-the

United States of America and Soviet Russia-were
engaged in what has been described as the ‘Cold War’.
During the War the two countries were on the same side
with Britain and France to defeat the Fascist
dictatorships (Germany and Italy) and the empire of
Japan. The two countries also signed a five-year
nonaggression treaty in 1941, and even as late as the
Yalta Conference in February 1945 there was some
harmony among the two countries. But soon the
situation changed completely and the USA and the
Soviet Union stood against each other in a “war like
situation” which has generally been described as the
Cold War.
 causes for cold war

1. The origin of the Cold War

may be traced back to the
1917 Russian Revolution,
which gave birth to a new
system. The system came
to be known as socialist
system, opposed to
exploitative capitalist
system.
2. Idiologicaldifferences
3. Potsdam conference
4. Truman's Doctrine
5. Iron Curtain
 Various events of cold war from
1945-1991
 The Marshall Plan In 1947,
American Secretary of
State George Marshall,
unveiled European
Recovery Programme
(ERP), which offered
economic and financial
help wherever it was
needed. One of the aims of
the ERP was to promote
the economic recovery of
Europe. However, this was
an economic extension of
the Truman Doctrine.
Cominform
the soviet unions response to the Truman doctrine and the marshal plan was the
resurrection of the comintern as the Cominform (the communist information
bureau) at a special conference of 9 communist parties in wilizia Gora on
September 22-24, 1947 .The Soviet Union denounced the whole idea of Marshall
Plan as 'dollar imperialism. Therefore, the Cominform (the Communist Information
Bureau) - was launched in 1947, as the Soviet response to the Marshall Plan.
The Cominform become an instrument for ensuring a monolithic control over the
European communist parties and it served as a nucleus for future intra-eastern
European economic planning and integration. The Cominform helped in
crystallizing opposition to western policy and it was a symbol of communist unity
and cooperation.
 Berlin blockade

As the tension between Soviet Union and

Allied countries grew, Soviet Union
applied Berlin Blockade in 1948.
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt by
the Soviet Union to limit the ability of
Allied countries to travel to their sectors
of Berlin.
 Berlin airlift

The Western Allies organised the Berlin Airlift from 26 June 1948
to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West
Berlin, a difficult feat given the size of the city's population.
American and British air forces flew over Berlin more than
250,000 times, dropping necessities such as fuel and food, with
the original plan being to lift 3,475 tons of supplies daily. By the
spring of 1949, that number was often met twofold, with the peak
daily delivery totalling 12,941 tons. On 12 May 1949, the USSR
lifted the blockade of West Berlin.
 Crisis in Yugoslavia

 The relationship of soviet union and its satellites in the post-

war period was troublesome/. Differences with Yugoslavia took
very serious turn and resulted in the expulsion of that country
from, comintern. Yugoslavia under the leadership of Tito,
became the 2 nd great socialist power not to take any
significant help from the soviet union.
 Tito collectivised and industrialised Yugoslavia at an
excessively fast pace. The Yugoslavs resisted Sovietsation.
While the soviet union did not appreciate the nationalist
feelings of Yugoslavia bcz they contradicted the belief that the
prioritiesof socialist fatherland, Tito refused to be monovered
by the soviet union.
 Tito’s success was stalin’s loss. Stalin was convinced that
since the socialist revolution had succeeded first of all in
soviet union, it alone had the right to interpret the various
connotations of Marxism-leninsim. He also insisted that the
progress of Yugoslavia should be subservient to that of the
soviet union. Yugoslavia communist party was expelled on 28
june 1948 from Cominform and alleged that it had deviated
from the united socialist front against imperialism and had
taken up postions that were in consonance with nationalism
and not socialism
 NATO AND WARSAW PACT

 The United States and 11 other nations

establish the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), a mutual defense
pact aimed at containing possible Soviet
aggression against Western Europe.
NATO stood as the main U.S.-led military
alliance against the Soviet Union
throughout the duration of the Cold War.
 The Warsaw Pact ( 1955) was signed
between Russia and her satellite states
shortly after West Germany was admitted
to NATO. The Pact was a mutual defense
agreement, which the Western countries
perceived as a reaction against West
Germany's membership of NATO.
 Soviet union and china

In China, the Communists gained power in 1949 under Mao Tse-

Tung and People’s Republic of China was established. The
United States refused to recognise the People’s Republic of
China, which was also denied entry into the United Nations; only
Taiwan (‘Nationalist’ China) was recognized. The United States
used its power of veto to keep communist China out of the U.N.
and the Soviet Union effectively boycotted the U.N. because of
this. However, this did not mean the establishment of friendly
relations between the USSR and PRC: after 1950 their relations
took a turn for the worse.
 KOREAN CRISIS
The Korean War was one
of several military
conflicts that occurred
during the Cold War, as
the United States and its
allies attempted to stop
the spread of
communism. This conflict
began on June 25, 1950,
when North Korea, a
communist nation,
invaded South Korea. ...
After the war, Korea
became two countries.
 Veitnam crisis
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a conflict in
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on
30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially
fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was
supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies; South
Vietnam was supported by the United States, South Korea, the Philippines,
Australia, Thailand, and other anti-communist allies. The war, considered a
Cold Warera proxy war by some lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S.
involvement ending in 1973, and included the Laotian Civil War and the
Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming
communist states in 1975.
 The suez crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli
war, also called the Tripartite Aggression in
the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,
was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by
Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and
France. The aims were to regain control of
the Suez Canal for the Western powers and to
remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel
Nasser, who had just nationalised the foreign-
owned Suez Canal Company, which
administered the canal. After the fighting had
started, political pressure from the United
States, the Soviet Union and the United
Nations led to a withdrawal by the three
invaders. The episode humiliated the United
Kingdom and France and strengthened
Nasser.
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known
as the October Crisis of 1962 was a 1-
month, 4 day (16 October – 20
November 1962) confrontation
between the United States and the
Soviet Union which escalated into an
international crisis when American
deployments of missiles in Italy and
Turkey were matched by Soviet
deployments of similar ballistic
missiles in Cuba. Despite the short
time frame, the Cuban Missile Crisis
remains a defining moment in U.S.
national security and nuclear war
preparation. The confrontation is
often considered the closest the Cold
War came to escalating into a full-
scale nuclear war.
Period of DETENTE:
Detente (French pronunciation: meaning ‘relaxation’) is the easing of
strained relations, especially in a political situation, through verbal
communication. It was the policy of relaxing tensions between U.S.A.
and U.S.S.R. The first evidence of ‘detente’ era cooperation came in
the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, a pact signed by
several of the major nuclear and non-nuclear 6 power nations pledging
their cooperation in stemming the spread of nuclear technology. While
the NPT did not ultimately prevent the proliferation of nuclear arms, it
paved the way for the first round of Strategic Arms Limitations Talks
(SALT-I) from November, 1969 to May, 1972. A peaceful coexistence
between the super powers began with Nixon visited both China and
Soviet Union in 1972. Unfortunately, not all, but most good things
must end. By the end of the 1970s the warm glow of U.S. – Soviet
detente began to fade away. While diplomats of both nations agreed on
a second SALT agreement (SALT-II), neither government ratified it.
Instead, both nations agreed to continue to adhere to the arms reduction
provisions of the old SALT-I pact pending future negotiations.
 The soviet Afghanistan war

 The Soviet–Afghan War was a conflict wherein

insurgent groups known collectively as the
Mujahideen, as well as smaller Maoist groups, fought
a nine-year guerrilla war against the
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and the
Soviet Army throughout the 1980s, mostly in the
Afghan countryside.
 The Mujahideen were variously backed primarily by
the United States, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
China, and the United Kingdom; the conflict was a
Cold War-era proxy war. Between 562,000 and
2,000,000 Afghans were killed and millions more fled
the country as refugees,mostly to Pakistan and Iran.
 Between 6.5%–11.5% of Afghanistan's population is
estimated to have perished in the conflict. The war
caused grave destruction in Afghanistan, and it has
also been cited by scholars as a contributing factor
to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War, in hindsight leaving a mixed legacy to
people in both territories.[
End of the Cold War
The Afghan invasion resulted in the drain of economic and military resources of
USSR and added with the open policy of Mikhail Gorbachev marked by two
characteristics i.e. Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring), the USSR
tottered to its disintegration. Finally, in 1991, Soviet Union collapsed due to multiple
factors which marked the end of the Cold War, as one of the superpowers was
weakened. The end of the Cold War marked the victory of the US and the bipolar
world order turned into a unipolar