Lecture notes: Reykjavik, 1986

The Iron Curtain

a speech Winston Churchill gave on March 5, 1946 in Fulton, Missouri
cf. the kinds of iron curtains you find in theaters

Some modifications:

Yugoslavia and Albania — not liberated by the Russians — manage to stay outside of Soviet sphere of influence
Russians actually withdraw from parts of Austria — become a neutral country
German is divided in two parts — East and West

The Berlin Blockade, 24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949

Berlin is divided between all Allies

complication since Berlin is wholly inside East German territory

one of the first major international crises

the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies’ railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control
the Berlin Airlift from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin
over the course of the airlift, cargo planes made thousands of flights, delivering supplies to the city around the clock

how is it resolved?

In May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, allowing land and water routes to be reopened

consequences?

a divided Berlin and a divided Europe

The Marshall Plan

European Recovery Program

US aid to Western Europe.
transferred over $15 billion (equivalent to $130 billion in 2019) in economic recovery

shortage of dollars in Europe

the money allowed them to buy things from the US, for example

technical expertise

how to run companies “the American way”

Impact?

Soviet Union a participant?

the Soviets participated in some initial planning meetings
Stalin pulls out — worried that it would allow too much US control
pressurizes East European countries to reject the aid

another step towards a divided Europe

NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization

treaty signed on 4 April 1949

military defense of the Western allies

countries associated with the US

today 30 members

only North America and Europe
headquarters in Brussels

collective defense

independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party

but some discussion regarding that …

this is the official interpretation

the actual wording:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

The Warsaw Pact

founded May 1955 in Warsaw, Poland, hence the name

uniting the countries of the Soviet sphere

The Suez Crisis

29 October 1956 – 7 November 1956, 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 nationalized the canal.

The Hungarian Uprising

Was a nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from the 23rd of October until the 10th of November 1956. Leaderless at the beginning, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the Red Army drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the End of World War II in Europe.

The Sputnik Crisis

The satellite was launched on October 4, 1957, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This created a crisis reaction in national newspapers such as the New York Times, which mentioned the satellite in 279 articles between October 6, 1957, and October 31, 1957 (more than 11 articles per day).

McCarthyism

speech by senator McCarthy, February 1950

Senate Committee for Un-American Activities
hold hearings

US hunt for Communist spies

get rid of all left-leaning people
media, Hollywood, state department, universities
“why we lost China”

left-leaning movements very strong in the US

socialists in Kansas etc
strong labor movement

ruined thousands of people’s lives

obviously authoritarian

Second Berlin Crisis 1961, 4 June – 9 November 1961

the USSR launched an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of all armed forces from Berlin

including the Western armed forces in West Berlin

the crisis culminated in the city’s de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall

a lot of people in areas under Soviet control could walk over to the Western side of the city
continue on to the West

very embarrassing for the Soviets

the build a wall

Cuban Missile Crisis, 16 October – 20 November 1962

Audio: http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/background/original-historic-%20sources/audio/

showdown between the US and the Soviet Union
the closest we ever got to an actual nuclear war

American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey

matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba

the US feels threatened

demand that the missiles be removed

after some tense negotiations

the situation is defused
Cuban and Turkish missiles removed

however,

there was no strategic issue involved
there were already weapons — airplanes and submarines — that posed the same threat
rather: Kennedy worries about reelection

cray calculation:

officially: 10% risk that 200 million people would die
and they were doing this to reassure Kennedy’s reelection!

Nuclear weapons: Mutually Assured Destruction

if you remember from Dr. Strangelove

actually a very accurate portrayal of the logic

1945-50, US superiority

first strike capability for the US
the Soviets worried about this — the US could attack them and they couldn’t defend themselves
actually: some saw the

Nuclear parity, 1952-58

First strike for both superpowers
very destabilizing
the one who strikes first wins

The Sputnik crisis

the Russians send a dog into space, Laika
officially peaceful
but rockets can obviously be used for military purposes

Development of second-strike capability

you can strike back even if you are hit first
rockets in airplanes or on submarines

stabilizing

especially when both have it
Mutually Assured Destruction

Jervis, Nuclear weapons

that article I gave you

Flexible response

the threat of complete nuclear holocaust is not credible
what if the enemy tests it and you don’t respond?
you need to respond on different levels
a war of atrition
you need all kinds of different weapons

Assured destruction

if you start a war we will hit you with all we got
abolishes arms races
you only need to destroy the enemy once

question of why they armed themselves

The Vietnam War

this starts out as a liberation struggle against the French

Indo-China had been a French colony (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia)

after Dien Bien Pu, 1954

quite obvious that the French cannot hold the colony
fear of Communist take-over
“domino theory”

the US takes over the war

gets more and more involved
100,000 US soldiers
draft in the US — very unpopular

eventual US defeat

flee from the embassy in Saigon

The Non-Aligned movement

We talked about this last week

everything that came out of Bandung, 1955
Non-Aligned movement in Belgrade, 1961

use of the UN

we talked about that too

“World revolution”

last week we talked about it as the poor people of the world raising their voice
also: the Cold War goes to Latin America, Africa and everywhere else
the Soviets has a horse in most civil war and guerrilla struggles