1. C 36 continued:
The Bipolar
World

2. Origins of the Cold War
US, USSR, Great Britain unnatural allies during World War II
Tensions submerged until close of war
Yalta Conference (Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt) 1945
Potsdam Conference (Stalin, Truman) (1945)
Decided on USSR declaration of war vs. Japan, setting up of International Military Tribunal
Free elections for Eastern Europe (The Atlantic Charter)
Stalin arranges pro-communist governments in Eastern European countries (By 1948: Satellite Countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania).
In wake of two revolutions (Russia, China), collapse of five empires within last 35 years (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian, Japanese), decline of two great imperial powers (British, French) =
TWO global superpowers (US and Soviet Union) with diametrically opposed political agendas
1946: “Iron Curtain” descends
Soviet threat is different than all prior
forms of imperialism: they seek to impose
their absolute authority over the rest of the
entire world.

3. Truman Doctrine 1947: CONTAINMENT
Occupied Germany:
Truman Doctrine 1947: CONTAINMENT
Marshall Plan
Berlin Crisis/ Berlin Airlift

4. Bipolar Alliances: Whose Side??
The Cold War
Bipolar Alliances:
Whose Side??
Some Independence:
France (Charles DeGaulle)
Yugoslavia (Marshall Tito)
Soviet Allies:
Eastern European
Satellite Nations
China
North Korea
Cuba
North Vietnam
1949 Truman announced that the
Soviets have successfully tested a
nuclear device
1950 US developed Hydrogen Bomb
1953 Soviets developed Hydrogen Bomb
1956 Khrushchev =
Peaceful Coexistence

5. 1956 Khrushchev =
Peaceful Coexistence?
Sputnik:
October 4, 1957
1958

6. Peaceful Coexistence??? What Did It Look Like??
Senator Joseph McCarthy and The Red Scare

9. PROXY WARS: Korean War 1950-1953 Vietnam War (1954)-1975
Caribbean 1980s
1954 Eisenhower’s “Domino Theory”:
Used to justify US response to real or
Imagined communist threats in
Central and South America, Africa
and Asia

10. The Cold War:
The Caribbean 1980s

11. Peaceful Coexistence??? August 1961 Berlin Wall fortified Hungary 1956
Prague Spring 1968 =
Brezhnev Doctrine
Fall of the Berlin
Wall:
November 9, 1989
3.5 million East Germans
Fled to the West

12. STANDOFF:
Bay of Pigs:
April 1961
Cuban Missile Crisis:
October 1962
Soviets agree to remove missile sites and return missiles to USSR in exchange for US promise not to invade Cuba, and to remove US missiles in Turkey (private)

13. Ho Chi Minh
Ngo Dinh Diem
Vietnam War
Unification 1976

14. Kent State May 4, 1970

15. Johnson’s “Credibility Gap”
Johnson does not run for re-election in 1968
Nixon’s Vietnamization: gradual withdrawal
Negative effect for Cambodia:
Pol Pot
The Pentagon Papers 1971

16. Fall of Saigon April 30, 1975

17. DÉTENTE 1960s
Soviets and the US agree to reduction in hostility ??????
Nuclear Arms race was too costly
New spirit of cooperation : SALT Treaties 1972, 1979
Continued in spite of Vietnam War, Soviets in Africa
and Soviet human rights violations
Demise of Détente:
1972 Nixon became first US President to visit Communist China
1979 US established full diplomatic
relations with China
1981 US announced sale of weapons
to Chinese military
1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan
However, SUPERPOWERS are on
the wane: US lose in Vietnam,
Soviets lose in Afghanistan

18. 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative: “Star Wars”
Soviets are forced to spend heavily to meet this technological match

19. November 9, 1989

20. The End of the Cold War Perestroika= Glasnost =
Mikhail Gorbachev
1989 Restructuring of the Soviet Union
Perestroika=
“restructuring the
economy
Glasnost =
“openness to public
criticism”
Boris Yeltsin
demanded independence
for Russian Republic
Collapse of the Soviet
Union = December 1991
Germany reunited 1990
Yeltsin dismantled Communist party
Communism exists now only in Cuba and North Korea

21. Decolonization of Africa 1960s South Africa: Abolition of Apartheid
President Nelson Mandela 1994
Ethnic and Religious Conflicts
Iranian Revolution 1979
Iran-Iraq War 1988
Democracy in China
Deng Xiaoping 1981
Cultural, economic reform
Political
Authoritarian:
1989
Tiananmen
Square