Australia in the Vietnam War Era … or how we learned to stop fearing the domino effect

The Cold War Why was it ‘cold’? Because there was no direct fighting between the USSR and the USA – just an awful lot of propaganda, posturing and war by proxy.

Communism Versus Capitalism CommunismCapitalism

The early development of the Cold War o By 1945 the alliance between the USA, the USSR and Britain to fight and defeat Nazi Germany was breaking apart. o In particular, Britain and the USA were nervous about the territory in Eastern Europe (including Germany) that the ‘Red Army’ had captured as they drove the Germans back. o Their concern was that Stalin would use these countries as protection, by making them Communist countries like the USSR. o Stalin, on the other hand, wanted to create a ‘buffer zone’ of countries friendly to the USSR to protect it from invasion (the Germans had already tried twice in the twentieth century). He didn’t trust the USA or Britain, believing that they would have left the USSR to fight the Nazis alone if they could have. The delay over D-Day ‘proved’ this to him. o Stalin did not have a good track record when it came to things like human rights … o US President Truman believed that the democratic countries of Europe would need to work together to ‘contain’ the spread of Communism. Containment became the focus of US policy from 1947 – known also as the ‘Truman Doctrine’. NATO (1949) and the Marshall Plan (1947) were two ways they tried to do this. o In 1949, when Mao Tse Tung established a Communist government in China, it seemed as though Communism was spreading across Asia as well. This was the domino theory.

Europe divided by Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ (Fulton Speech, 1946) The division of Europe into two ‘blocs’, each with its own strategic alliances – NATO, (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) formed in 1949 and the corresponding Warsaw Pact, formed in Albania and Yugoslavia were ‘non-aligned’ Communist countries and Finland was not a Communist state, despite being part of the Warsaw Pact. Note the division of Germany; this was paralleled by the division of Berlin as well (via the Berlin Wall from 1961)

The world divided into ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ blocs The world divided into two ‘blocs’. The victory of Mao Tse Tung’s Communists in China and China’s subsequent economic and military development, combined with Stalin’s failure to support Mao until a Communist victory seemed certain, led to a split in the leadership of the Communist world. Kissinger in particular was able to exploit this, a policy maintained by Nixon.

M.A.D. – Mutually Assured Destruction designed to keep the peace The use of the atomic bomb by the USA on Japanese cities to end World War II led to a nuclear arms race and the threat of nuclear war and destruction as well as summits and agreements (such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and SALT I in 1972) to limit the development and deployment of nuclear weapons. Arguably, Reagan’s push to expand the USA’s nuclear arsenal and to develop the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence, pushed the over-stretched Soviet economy into collapse. Conservative historians credit Reagan with ending the Cold War for this reason.

Cold War historiography - causes TraditionalistsRevisionists 1940s and 1950s; influential into the 1960s Schlesinger McNeill Blamed the Cold War on Soviet expansionism and Stalin’s desire for world domination. Defenders of US policy of containment. Early: late 1950s. Influential: 1970s (aftermath of US ‘failure’ in Vietnam) Williams, Ambrose Cold War blamed on the US due to the post-WWII power of American capitalism and its demand for markets and raw materials. Marshall Plan seen as an attempt to introduce this into Western Europe. The USA was perceived as a hegemonic power and as establishing a form of economic imperialism. The USA misunderstood Soviet foreign policy coming out of WWII, saw the USSR as militarily ‘weaker’ and believed in its own omnipotence – this led it to ‘overplay’ its hand (Vietnam). The USSR perceived the USA and its allies as ‘untrustworthy’ before and during World War II. The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (1939) is seen as stemming from this. Radical revisionists from the left, such as Chomsky, emphasise the imperialist intentions of the USA. Radicals from the right see the USA as protecting the free world from Communist aggression.

Cold War historiography continued Post-revisionists Recent historiography 1970s, 1980s Gaddis, Taubman Focussed on the geopolitical origins of the Cold War. Looked at the role of events, perceptions and misconceptions and bureaucratic decision-making in the development of the Cold War. Identified internal contradictions within US foreign policy and saw this as complicating relations with the USSR. Post-1991, with (limited) access to the Soviet archives. Graebner, Leffler, Trachtenberg, Gaddis. Emphasises the conflicting ideologies of each superpower as the source of the Cold War and as influencing its subsequent development. Also views the competing interests of each side, especially in Europe, as a contributing factor – US national self- determination and stability; USSR security needs and ideology. Some historians argue that power was more important than ideology in Soviet foreign policy. Others see that the issue of the Cold War was really about Germany and that, after 1963 when the status of Germany was ‘normalised’, the Cold War began to decelerate.

Forward defence in action … The Korean WarThe Vietnam War

Why???

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Evdokia Petrov boarding a plane.

The Federal government tries to ban the CPA.

Growing opposition to the war