1. THE COLD WAR ERA
AMSCO Chapter 28

2. The United States and the Soviet Union
The Soviets feared capitalism and the Americans feared communism.
After WWII the two allies moved further apart.

3. United Nations
Many people said that there was still a need for a world organization dedicated to peace
The leaders of the US, France, Great Britain Soviet Union, and China discussed the idea of the United Nations in 1943.
The five members of the security council have veto power.

4. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
One of the goals of the United Nations was the promotion of human rights
The United Nations created the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in 1946
Not all UN members belong to the International Court of Justice, which investigates human rights abuses.

5. Protection of Refugees and Peacekeeping
Working with NGOs and UNHCR, the UN provided refugees with food, medicine, and shelter
The UN is well known for their peacekeeping efforts
WTO and GATT worked to promote free trade worldwide

6. Containment Policy vs. World Revolution
The Soviet Union was determined to make the governments of Eastern Europe as much like the Soviet government as possible.
A U.S. diplomat, George Kennan, kept a close eye on the Soviet Union and their actions.
He developed the concept of “containment” to stop the spread of communism

7. Iron Curtain
In March 1946, Winston Churchill declared that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent of Europe.”

8. Truman Doctrine 
In 1947, Harry Truman outlined the Truman Doctrine, a very strong statement that the United States would do what it had to do to stop the spread of communist influence, specifically in Turkey and Greece.
The US pledged to provide economic and military support to Greece and Turkey

9. The Marshall Plan
In June 1947, the Marshall Plan, a plan that was designed to offer $13 billion to all nations in Europe including Germany, was enacted.
The plan seemed to work, yet the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites refused to participate in the plan.
The Soviets developed COMECON, or Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, to help rebuild Eastern Europe

10. The Problem in Germany
When World War II ended, the four allied nations-the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union-divided Germany into four zones in September 2,1945.
In 1948, the three Western allies proposed to combine their zones into a new nation, West Germany. The Soviets viewed this as a threat, so they set up a blockade around West Berlin to prevent food and other supplies from reaching the city.
In response, the United States and Great Britain instituted the Berlin Airlift which lifted one million tons of supplies into the city until the Soviets finally ended the blockade in May 1949.
The United States , Great Britain, and France went ahead with their plan and created the Federal Republic of Germany, also known as West Germany

11. The Arms Race
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched its first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit around Earth, inaugurating what became known as the Space Race
The United States launched its own first satellite in January 1958.Then later the two nations competed to become the first with a manned satellite.
Early in 1959, the Soviet tested the first ICBM capable of causing warhead delivery in the US.
The US tested a similar missile later, and at that moment, both nations realized they had amazing power at their disposal, MAD (mutually assured destruction).

12. Antinuclear Weapon Movement
The nuclear arms race resulted in the antinuclear weapon movement.
One of the first movements was developed in Japan in in opposition to US testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the movement expanded to other countries, particularly to the United States and Western Europe.

13. New Treaties and Organizations
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization): Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, US
Warsaw Pact: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Soviet Union (never included Yugoslavia)
SEATO, CENTO…and many more
Non-aligned movement – countries that avoided formal alliances and played each bloc against the other for economic advantage i.e. India, Egypt, Indonesia, Yugoslavia

14. Communism in Asia
1949 – Mao Zedong takes over in China, nationalizes industry, and starts Soviet style five year plan
Great Leap Forward (1958) organized peasants into communes; 20 million died from famine or violence
Cultural Revolution (1966) – Red Guards used to crush protest
After 1961, China and Soviets had border conflicts

15. Deng Xiaoping
Peasants were able to return to individual farms and selling food at market
Opening of China to foreign companies in special economic zones
1989-huge student protest at Tiananmen Square, where government soldiers crushed protest using tanks and guns, killing hundreds
Chinese government denied events

16. Korean War
Korea had been split after World War II into North and South.
US backed South Korea, Soviets backed North Korea; both sides provided military support and troops
After three years of fighting, war ended in a stalemate with a demilitarized zone at the border.

17. Viet Nam War Also divided into North and South post-WWII
US backed the south, even though the leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, was a dictator.
Domino theory (Pres. Johnson) – if one country in the region went communist, the rest would follow
Pro-communist supporters in the south (Vietcong) fought against US troops.
US anti-war sentiment developed after Tet offensive, and President Nixon pulled last US troops out in 1975/

18. DEVELOPMENTS IN IRON CURTAIN COUNTRIES
Polish workers demonstrated against Soviet domination for better living conditions.
Wladyslaw Gomulka, came to power.
Gomulka pursued independent domestic policy in Poland, but stayed loyal to the Soviet Union.
Forced collectivization of farms ended at this time.

19. Hungary
Hungarian protestors convinced Imre Nagy to declare Hungary’s freedom from Soviet control.
Imre vowed to support free elections.
Nagy announced Hungary’s neutrality in the Cold War.
Nagy also withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact.
Soviet Leaders invaded Hungary and gained control of Budapest.
Nagy was captured and executed.

20. Czechoslovakia
Movement of reform in Czechoslovakia reached a peak in the Prague Spring of 1968.
Alexander Dubcek increased the freedom of speech, press, travel.
Dubcek agreed to make the political system more democratic.
Brezhnev Doctrine, claimed that the Soviet Union and its allies had the right to intervene.

21. DEVELOPMENTS IN WESTERN EUROPE
In Western Europe, countries retained their political independence and democratic government.
Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and West Germany signed the Rome Treaty in 1957.
The treaty created the European Economic Community (EEC) or Common Market.
The EEC allowed for free trade among the members.
The EEC became the European Union.
The EU instituted a common currency, the euro.

22. Conflict in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland Catholics suffered discrimination.
The Catholics fought in Irish Republican Army (IRA).
The Protestants fought in the Ulster Defence Association.
Some members of the IRA engaged in acts of terrorism.
IRA renounced the use of violence and turned to the political system to achieve its goals in 1994.

23. Separatists in Spain
A group that used terrorist tactics was Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA).
Actions by ETA claimed the lives of more than 800 individuals.
ETA announced several cease-fires.
In 2011, ETA declared an end to violent actions and promised to work to achieve Basque independence.

24. 1968: The Year of Revolt
After World War II, education opened up for more people in Western society and universities were crowded.
There was a discontent among student population, resulting in a call of reform.
Students took to the streets.
10 million French workers went on strike.
Students protested in Northern Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, England, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, US, Russia, Poland and Japan.
Four student protestors were killed in Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard in 1970.

25. OTHER CRISES OF THE 1960s The Berlin Wall:
In the 1960s many citizens from East Germany wanted to move to West Germany in order to live a more prosperous democratic life style.
The East Germans wanted the east to remain populated, so they set up a barbed wire fence which eventually became “the Berlin Wall.”
The wall divided the city from , when citizens on both sides tore the wall down.

26. The Bay of Pigs Crisis 1959:
Fidel Castro and others overthrew Cuban dictator Bastista.
Fidel set up a dictatorship in Cuba, and started to nationalize foreign- owned industries, one of them being the sugar cane plantation (mainly owned by Americans). As a result the United States broke off all trade with Cuba.
Fidel Castro entered into a Soviet alliance.
Under JFK, US troops trained exiled Cubans in a plan to invade Cuba. The invasion failed and Cuba moved even closer to the Soviets.

27. Cuban Missile Crisis 1963:
US planes detected nuclear missile installations under construction in Cuba.
JFK decided to establish a naval blockade to stop and search Soviet ships entering Cuba for nuclear weapons.
The Soviets turned around and did not engage with the US Navy, pulling the world back from the closest point of nuclear war.
The Soviets later agreed to stop all nuclear efforts in Cuba, and the US later withdrew its missiles from Turkey.
The Hot Line was established to avoid further confrontations
1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty called for prevention spread of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear countries.

28. Detente and a Colder War
After resolving the crises of the 1960s, the relationship between the superpowers improved in the following decade in the era of Nixon and Brezhnev.
SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) froze number of ballistic missiles on both sides
Nixon visited communist China.
US began selling excess grain to the Soviets.
President Jimmy Carter's halt to the grain shipments marked the official end of détente in 1979, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

29. The Final Decades of the Cold War Era
During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, tension between the Soviet Union and the U.S. increased.
Reagan called the Soviets “the evil empire” and sent troops to help Afghanistan fight off Soviet invasion.
In 1980,the U.S. and the Soviets had about 12,000 missiles pointing at each other ready to be used.
During that time, Reagan declared that the U.S. would create a missile defense program called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Dubbed “ Star Wars” by critics, the system would destroy any Soviet missile that would be sent to the U.S. or its allies before it could strike.
The Soviets could not financially compete in the arms race.

30. The Thaw
During the 1980s, non-aligned countries believed they had to choose sides between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, he preferred perestroika, attempts establish some free enterprise in the Soviet economy.
Glasnost was a policy of opening the Soviet society and politics to greater freedom.
In 1987, the Soviet Union and the US signed a new treaty called the INF treaty, which placed restrictions on intermediate-range nuclear weapons.

31. The End of the Soviet Union
Gorbachev’s reform programs were an end to economic support for the Soviet bloc countries, and he also implied that the Soviet Union would no longer rescue the communist governments from internal conflict.
This resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall when the Soviet Union failed to intervene there.
In October 1990, Germany was reunited as one country.
When most Eastern European nations began democratic reforms, many republics began to overthrow their communist rulers and declare independence.
Gorbachev’s reforms led to his political downfall, thus ending the Cold War era.

32. New Information:
President Richard Nixon suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.
President Harry Truman said, “It must be the policy of the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.”
That was the way of thinking that would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades.
Tensions were apparent in July during the Potsdam Conference, where the victorious Allies negotiated the joint occupation of Germany.
In Europe, the dividing line between East and West remained essentially frozen during the next decades

33. Group Members: Joshua Colina: slides 2-5 Tatiana Dunlap 6-8
Kamari Rhodes 9-11
Odette Lima 12-18
Salma Abril