Cold War

Cold War, The | Introduction

For forty-three years, although no war between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union was ever officially declared, the leaders of the democratic West and the Communist East faced off against each other in what is known as the Cold War. The war was not considered "hot" because neither superpower directly attacked the other. Nevertheless, despite attempts to negotiate during periods of peaceful coexistence and dÐ"©tente, these two nations fought overt and covert battles to expand their influence across the globe.

Cold War scholars have devised two conflicting theories to explain what motivated the superpowers to act as they did during the Cold War. One group of scholars argues that the United States and the Soviet Union, along with China, were primarily interested in protecting and advancing their political systemsÐ'--that is, democracy and communism, respectively. In other words, these scholars postulate that the Cold War was a battle over ideology. Another camp of scholars contends that the superpowers were mainly acting to protect their homelands from aggressors and to defend their interests abroad. These theorists maintain that the Cold War was fought over national self-interest. These opposing theorists have in large measure determined how people understand the Cold War, a conflict that had been a long time in the making.

A History of Conflict

The conflict between East and West had deep roots. Well before the Cold War, the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union had been hostile. Although in the early 1920s, shortly after the Communist revolution in Russia, the United States had provided famine relief to the Soviets and American businesses had established commercial ties in the Soviet Union, by the 1930s the relationship had soured. By the time the United States established an official relationship with the new Communist nation in 1933, the oppressive, totalitarian nature of Joseph Stalin's regime presented an obstacle to friendly relations with the West. Americans saw themselves as champions of the free world, and tyrants such as Stalin represented everything the United States opposed. At the same time, the Soviets, who believed that capitalism exploited the masses, saw the United States as the oppressor.

Despite deep-seated mistrust and hostility between the Soviet Union and Western democracies such as the United States, an alliance was forged among them in the 1940s to fight a common enemy, Nazi Germany, which had invaded Russia in June 1941. Although the AlliesÐ'--as that alliance is calledÐ'--eventually defeated Germany, the Soviet Union had not been completely satisfied with how its Western Allies had conducted themselves. For example, the Soviets complained that the Allies had taken too long to establish an offensive front on Germany's west flank, leaving the Soviets to handle alone the offensive front on Germany's east flank. Tension between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies continued after the war.

During postwar settlements, the Allies agreed to give control of Eastern EuropeÐ'--which had been occupied by GermanyÐ'--to the Soviet Union for its part in helping to defeat Germany. At settlement conferences among the Allies in Tehran (1943), Yalta (February 1945), and Potsdam (July/August 1945), the Soviets agreed to allow the nations of Eastern Europe to choose their own governments in free elections. Stalin agreed to the condition only because he believed that these newly liberated nations would see the Soviet Union as their savior and create their own Communist governments. When they failed to do so, Stalin violated the agreement by wiping out all opposition to communism in these nations and setting up his own governments in Eastern Europe. The Cold War had begun.

During the first years of the Cold War, Soviet and American leaders divided the world into opposing camps, and both sides ac- cused the other of having designs to take over the world. Stalin described a world split into imperialist and capitalist regimes on the one hand and Communist governments on the other. The Soviet Union and the Communist People's Republic of China saw the United States as an imperialist nation, using the resources of emerging nations to increase its own profits. The Soviet Union and China envisioned themselves as crusaders for the working class and the peasants, saving the world from oppression by wealthy capitalists.

U.S. president Harry Truman also spoke of two diametrically opposed systems: one free and the other bent on subjugating struggling nations. The United States and other democratic nations accused the Soviet Union and China of imposing their ideology on emerging nations to increase their power and sphere of influence. Western nations envisioned themselves as the champions of freedom and justice, saving the world for democracy. Whereas many scholars see Cold War conflicts in these same ideological terms, others view these kinds of ideological pronouncements as ultimately deceptive. They argue that despite the superpowers' claims that they were working for the good of the world, what they were really doing was working for their own security and economic advancement.

Two Schools of Thought

Ideological theorists claim that the Soviets and the Americans so believed in the superiority of their respective values and beliefs that they were willing to fight a cold war to protect and advance them. Each nation perceived itself to be in a "do-or-die" struggle between alternative ways of life. According to foreign policy scholar Glenn Chafetz, a leading proponent of the ideology theory:

Ideology served as the lens through which both sides viewed the world, defined their identities and interests, and justified their actions. U.S. leaders perceived the Soviet Union as threatening not simply because the USSR was powerful but because the entire Soviet enterprise was predicated on implacable hostility to capitalism and dedicated to its ultimate destruction. From the earliest days of the Russian Revolution until the end of the cold war, Moscow viewed the United States as unalterably hostile. Even when both nations were fighting a common enemy, Nazi Germany, the Soviets were certain that the Americans were determined to destroy the Soviet Union.

Other scholars argue that the United States and the Soviet Union chose actions that would promote national self-interest, not ideology. That is, the nations were not primarily motivated by a desire to defend capitalism or communism but by the wish to strengthen their position in the world. These scholars reason that