Lecture 32 – The West Since World War II

The Cold War Era

Initial Causes: Russia’s efforts to create a buffer zone of puppet states in Eastern Europe, combined with Russian resentment of efforts to prevent Russia from looting Germany and Americans feeling betrayed by Russia’s creation of a buffer zone helped to collapse the spirit of wartime cooperation and led to a series of escalating confrontations over the future of Europe and the world between the US and its allies and Russia.

Demobilization: Americans at first tried to reduce their commitments, sending home the vast majority of the wartime military.

A New Order: The US hoped for a new order based on national self-determination, free-trade, and promotion of democracy. This conflicted with Russia’s goal of creating a giant human shield in Eastern Europe against future attacks (understandable in light of Russia losing over 15 million people in World War II). Russia’s promotion of communist parties in western Europe also aroused fears of Soviet agression.

Areas of Early Cold War Conflict:

Brief Monopoly: An early monopoly on the A-Bomb made many Americans feel very secure. But it made the Russians more insecure, jumpy, and aggressive.

Partition of Germany: Russians stalled any re-unification of Germany; by 1947, it was effectively permanently divided.

Baruch Plan: June 1946, proposed creating a UN agency to control atomic power; the Soviets shot it down. By 1949, Russia had its own atomic weapons.

Iron Curtain Speech: Fulton, Missouri, Churchill declared an Iron Curtain had come down, dividing Europe.

Containment: George Frost Kennan wrote a critical article calling for a policy of containing Soviet expansion until it collapsed under its own weight.

Truman Doctrine: The US would support any free nation struggling to avoid being overthrown by armed minorities and outsiders. (Applied first to Turkey and Greece)

Marshall Plan: A plan to rebuild Europe's economy; the Russians quickly withdrew from it for fear it was intended to infiltrate them. This would be both humanitarian and enable Americans to sell more goods there. Stalin's 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia overcame isolationist reluctance to loan huge amounts of money. 17 billion in aid went into Europe over the next four years. (Equivalent to 120 billion in aid today. In 2005, the US spent 21 billion on foreign aid for the entire planet, equivalent to 2.7 billion in 1948)

The Berlin Airlift: The western powers wanted to reintegrate Germany to create a new trading partner and to prevent a repeat of the post WWI experience. Stalin, angry, cut off access to Berlin (June 25, 1948 - May 11, 1949, so the West began shipping in supplies by air. Stalin finally caved, and in the meantime, the integration of the west continued.

NATO: This helped lead to the creation of NATO in 1949, in which the US allied with Canada, France, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Portugal. Isolationists opposed it.

Warsaw Pact: In 1955, Russia formed its own defensive alliance, the Warsaw Pact, made up of its puppet states in Eastern Europe.

A New Era: The US was now much more strongly engaged with international politics than ever before.

Crisis of 1956:

The Suez Crisis: In July 1956, President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been controlled by the British for decades. This leads France, Britain and Israel to team up to crush Egypt. The US refused to support them, and opposition by Russia eventually convinced them to pull out. The incident showed that Britain and France were no longer world-class powers, while the US and Russia could restrain their allies to avoid a world war.

Poland: The Poles tried to slip the Russian leash in 1956. A crisis followed until a compromise candidate, Wladyslaw Gomulka was chosen Communist leader of Poland.

Hungary: In October 1956, Hungary revolted against Soviet rule. A more nationalist Communist ministry took over, led by Imre Nagy. He wanted to kick out the Russians and leave the Warsaw Pact, so in November, the Soviets invaded. Many urged the US to intervene, but Eisenhower stayed out to avoid a general war.

The Cold War Intensified: After 1956, the nations of Europe could not act with full autonomy, but only within the context of the Cold War situation, dominated by the US and Russia. Tensions remained high despite some efforts by both sides to ratchet things down through summit meetings. In August 1961, the Russians built the Berlin Wall in Berlin, a symbol of the Cold War, trying to stop refugees from fleeing to West Berlin.

Cuban Missile Crisis:

Spring 1962: Soviets position intermediate range missiles, similar to US ones in Turkey, in Cuba.

Kennedy: Kennedy saw this as a major threat and sought to stop it, though it was legal under international law. (But a huge threat to the US).

Blockade: He responded in October 1962 with a naval blockade. For a week, both powers rode the brink; the Soviets then backed down.

Results: After this, direct confrontations became rarer, and proxy wars in the Third World more common.

Detente and Afterwards: A period of efforts at more peaceful relations now ensued.

Test Ban Treaty of 1963: Banned atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

Salt (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) I: Nixon proposed an anti-ballistic missile defense system in 1969, so he could negotiate arms reductions from a position of strength. This brought the Russians to negotiate at Helsinki, where, in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was signed, banning ABM systems.

Salt II (1979): Capped ICBMs, MIRVs, and other strategic nuclear weapons. The invasion of Afghanistan prevented further action.

Reagan Foreign Policy

Soviet = Evil: Reagan's Foreign Policy was based on saber-rattling and confrontation with the 'Evil Empire'. Russian crackdowns on Polish labor union Solidarity in 1981 led to sanctions by the US against Russia.

Soviet Expansion: In 1980, the Soviets were supporting Marxist regimes in civil wars in Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Reagan Doctrine: The US held that these regimes and other communist-influenced or controlled regime had to be overthrown to defeat communism. (Though it’s notable Reagan largely avoided use of armed force except on a very small scale.)

Afghanistan: In 1980, the Soviets invaded directly and took over, leading to a decade of struggle which created the Taliban, an Islamicist organization which began as an anti-Russia organization.

SDI: In 1983, the Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed, an anti-ballistic missile system in space. The Soviets attacked it and proposed US missile deployments in Europe. Reagan offered to share SDI once it was finished and deployed the Pershing Missiles anyway; the Soviets now walked out of arms negotiations.

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ): Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 opened a period of attempted reform in the Soviet Union--glasnost--openess, which tried to encourage more intellectual freedom, and perestroika--an openess to more use of private and individual incentives to revive the faltering Soviet economy. Reagan now adopted a more civil foreign policy which heightened Gorbachev's international standing and strengthened his hand within the Soviet Union. This would be crucial to the end of the Cold War.

End of the Cold War: In 1989, the Soviet Empire came apart at the seams. Hungary and Poland held successful free elections in 1989, and popular uprisings overthrew Soviet puppet governments while the USSR did nothing. The Berlin Wall was torn down, and by 1990, Germany reunited. Gorbachev's openness had unleashed a tide of internal dissent without creating the massive economic revival needed to overcome decades of economic backwardness.

Soviet Decline: The Soviet Union was now falling apart. The Baltic Republics, and then other components revolted while the Soviet economy stagnated. The first free election in June 1991 elected Boris Yeltsin to become the new President of the Russian Republic.

Hard-Liner's Attempted Coup: The Hardliners tried to stage a coup on August 1991. But Yeltsin rallied the leadership of the Russian Republic and defeated the Coup. Gorbachev survived, but was now beholden to Yeltsin.

End of the USSR: The USSR now entered its final death throes. Shortly before Christmas 1991, it officially dissolved and was replaced by the much looser Commonwealth of Independent States.

European Society in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century and Beyond

Towards Western European Unification: Since 1945, the nations of Western Europe have integrated their economies to an unprecedented degree. In 1950, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembour organized the European Coal and Steel Community. It created a common market in coal and steel with no trade barriers and set precedents for future organizations. The failure of the Suez war convinced many Europeans to pool their strength so as to avoid being mere pawns in the Cold War. In 1957, the members of the European Coal and Steel Community now signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community (also called the European Common Market), which sought to create a trans-national market with no tariff bariers, the free flow of capital and labor, and similar wages and labor rights in all its members. (Heritage, p. 968.) It was a huge success and other nations began pressing for membership. In 1973, Britain, Ireland, and Denmark joined. Spain, Portugal, and Greece joined in the 1980s. In 1993, the EEC became the European Union, with a unified currency and a strong central bank. However, the European public has become somewhat restive over the tendency of the leaders of the EU to push through measures of further unification without much consultation of the general public. The EU also faces the problem of the desire of the eastern european nations to join it. In 2002, the process of creation of a unified currency came to a head and the Euro came into general use. In 2004, 75 million people in 10 countries joined the EU: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Many other nations are still vying for membership but have yet to meet standards set by the EU, most notably Turkey.

Students and Popular Music: Rock music embodied the rising youth and student culture of the post World War II period. The spread of radio, television, and music playback devices made music an intimate part of the culture of the industrial nations. Rock appealed across national borders, helping to create a common European culture. Some rock music was simply entertainment, but other songs formed a continuing critique of Western culture. In the 1960s, rock was an integral part of the anti-war movement. In the 1970s and 80s, it played a major role in the emerging East European critique of communism. (Revolutionary reformers in Czechoslovakia went so far as to try to bring Frank Zappa into their post-war government as a special minister in 1990. “Under Russian rule, many kinds of music were banned outright. The music of Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground were specifically blacklisted, and hence held a special signifigance both to the government and the revolutionary underground as representing freedom and independent thinking. Zappa was stigmatized into a kind of revolutionary hero, without him even knowing it.”, .)

The Movement of Peoples: In the period 1945-60, about a half a million Europeans left Europe each year. At the same time, people came from European colonies to Europe, both Europeans living abroad, such as the million French colonists who fled to France when Algeria became independent, and non-Europeans from the Colonies, such as the many Indians and Pakistani who came to Great Britain. This often led to social conflict over jobs and housing. Today, several nations have large Islamic populations.

Internal Migration: World War II created a huge refugee problem. Changes in borders, prisoners of war, destruction of cities, and other factors shuffled people around. However, the rise of Cold War barriers then restricted internal migration. After 1950, economic opportunity tended to draw labor whenever it arose; one of the major goals of the EEC and the EU has been to facilitate the mobility of labor in search of work.

The New Muslim Population: For centuries, few Europeans outside the Balkans had any significant contact with Muslims, unless they went to a Muslim-ruled country, and most considered their homelands to be Christian nations. During the post-world-war-II period, however, many Moslems moved to Europe. European economic growth created jobs for immigrants (in the context of a labor shortage) and decolonization also led to immigration due to ties between European and newly free Moslem states. Today, there are 1.3 Moslems in Britain, 3.2 million in Germany and 4.3 million in France (Heritage, p. 971.) Many other nations have smaller communities. Originally, the host countries assumed immigration was temporary, and only Britain allowed Moslems to fully participate in social life. They also lacked experience coping with immigrants, which the US and the Latin American nations had gained by long and sometimes painful experience. The Moslem communities remained unassimilated. However, the unskilled labor which drew many immigrants has dried up, leading to unemployment problems for the communities. Right wing politicians blame them for unemployment for others as well. Some have become radicals in response, though there is a wide range of employment and religiosity in the Moslem communities.

New Patterns in the Work and Expectations of Women: Since World War II, women have been able to enter more and larger political, economic, and social roles.

Feminism: Gender inequality remains a problem for Europe in the early 21st century. European feminism is not as well organized as American feminism, but has pushed for greater equality and freedom for women in European society, attacking gender-differentiated pay, limits on what women can do, and legal disabilities, such as the different treatment of men and women in divorce cases. Simone de Beauvoir (1909-1986)’s The Second Sex 1949) was a work of extentialist feminism, argued that what it meant to be a woman was a social construct, and in this society, it was a construct used as a tool of oppression. This construct accused women of being deviant, while men were the standard of ‘normality’. This put strong limits on women which had to be overcome if women were to advance themselves. However, if women worked together, they could break this social construct and build a more positive view of femininity.

More Married Women Work: With children no longer working and most men not making enough to support a family alone, combined with the rising aspirations of women, the number of working married women has increased. Single women increasingly worked past marriage as well. With longer lifespans, women spend less of their lives (in terms of a percentage) on child-rearing and both want and need other things to do with themselves, of which work is one. Many women have increasingly limited their childbearing through birth control as well.

Women in Eastern Europe: Under Communism, east European women were considered socialist equals of men and were both free to and expected to work. However, communism suppressed specifically feminist movements (along with any other kind.)

American Domestic Scene Since World War II: Three themes have dominated the post-war American experience: “An opposition to the spread of communism, an expansion of civil rights to blacks and other minorities at home, and a determination to achieve ongoing economic growth.” (Heritage, p. 974.)

Truman: President Harry Truman pushed a policy of containment of Soviet expansion, through measures such as the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and the Truman Doctrine which offered aid to nations against revolution. At home, he fought the Republicans to continue and expand the New Deal in his ‘Fair Deal’ program, which raised minimum wage and provided aid with acquiring housing, among other measures. The Republicans stopped many of his plans, however. The Red Scare paralyzed Truman’s domestic plans, as many Americans saw communist infiltrators under every rock, thanks to demagogues such as Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Red Scare and the stalemated Korean War (1950-4) helped bring Dwight D. Eisenhower into the presidency. Eisenhower combined liberal internationalism with maintenance (but not extension ) of the New Deal. For the most part, the country was quietly prosperous, except for the rising problem of conflict over civil rights and the beginning of American commitment in Vietnam and elsewhere.

The Civil Rights Movement:

1930s: DeanCharles Hamilton Houston, dean of Howard University’s Law School, began training civil rights lawyers to pursue civil rights lawsuits. He trained Thurgood Marshall, who began working for the NAACP with Baker Motley, to push law suits. Smith v. Allwright invalidated all-white primary elections in 1944.

Earl Warren: 1948 running mate of Thomas Dewey, Earl Warren was a moderate Republican and former governor of California, appointed to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice by Eisenhower in 1953. He would preside over one of the most liberal Supreme Court lineups ever.