1
Cold War
ROGER KANGAS
INTRODUCTION
The period between World War II
(1939–1945) and the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991 is considered by many
scholars and policy officials to be that of the
Cold War, which was ostensibly a conflict
between the Soviet Union and the United
States, their respective allies, and affiliated
security organizations. On a grander scale,
the Cold War was also a relationship that
pitted competing political ideologies and
views of the world against each other.
Each had its own view of human nature
and the future state of politics and interna-
tional relations. That they denied the legit-
imacy of the other, and felt threatened in
the process, was demonstrated in the pur-
suit of military might and exemplified in
proxy wars. While the two sides never tech-
nically engaged in military combat with
each other, their cyclical tension spawned a
variety of conflicts and political crises
throughout the world and shaped other
nations’ actions. Without question, this
relationship was also one of power – defined
in terms of how the competing sides could
exert political, economic, and military
influence. One cannot look at the military
history of the second half of the twentieth
century without considering the influence
of the Cold War.
There are several key issues to address
with respect to the Cold War’s dynamics.
First of all, it started among military
allies that were the victors of World War II.
Second, the basis for the conflict was
ideological in nature. Third, it shaped how
these states dealt with neighboring countries,
allies, and potential allies. Fourth, it required
the competing sides to develop their militar-
ies in a way that took into account potential
The Encyclopedia of War, First Edition. Edited by Gordon Martel.
© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
conflicts with the other side. Fifth, regional
conflicts in other parts of the world often
became “proxy wars” in light of the Cold
War tension. None of these aspects is clear-
cut, and a host of scholarly articles, books,
and conferences are still part of a very active
debate on the ultimate legacy of the Cold
War. Indeed, the current phenomena of
transnational terrorism, extremism, failed
states, and the ethnic strife endemic in cer-
tain parts of the world are linked to the Cold
War. Even if not in a causal relationship, the
Cold War is still viewed as an influencing
factor in today’s multiple security crises.
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR
Discussing the origins of the Cold War
suggests that there is a recognizable starting
point. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917
and the formation of Soviet Russia (later
renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, or Soviet Union, for short) were
viewed unfavorably by western countries,
which sent military forces in support of
the opposition White Army. When the
Bolsheviks were victorious, international
tensions continued through the 1920s and
1930s. The fact that the Soviet Union
and the Western Allies cooperated to defeat
the Axis forces in World War II proved to be
a temporary “marriage of convenience.” As
early as 1941, the Western Allies in World
War II – the United States and the United
Kingdom – received strong signals from the
Soviet leadership that the post-war world
should be considered in terms of “spheres of
influence.” Stalin made such remarks to
British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden in
December of that year, even suggesting
the Soviet Union retain acquired territory
in post-war Europe. At the Moscow Con-
ference in October 1944, Great Britain’s
prime minister, Winston Churchill, and
the Soviet Union’s general secretary, Joseph
2
Stalin, famously negotiated how to appor-
tion percentages of influence in eastern and
central Europe as the discussion turned to
the geopolitical map of Europe following
the demise of Nazi Germany. From
Moscow’s perspective, this was a logical
return of “lost territories” of the former
Russian Empire, although there was an
interest in maintaining control over states
outside of these borders. Both Stalin
and Churchill adhered to the centuries-old
belief that larger, more powerful nations
would have an inordinate influence over
the continent’s smaller nations.
By 1945 such spheres were established,
and the Soviet Union quickly assumed
greater control over those regions already
within its grasp. Not surprisingly, those
countries in the eastern part of Europe were
deemed part of the Soviet sphere of influ-
ence. As the Red Army advanced through
Poland, for example, a Soviet-backed gov-
ernment (the “Lublin government”) was set
up and recognized as the legitimate post-war
regime for that country by the Soviet Union,
in spite of the fact that there was a
government-in-exile located in London that
had the loyalty of Polish military units fight-
ing alongside the Allied forces in Italy and
France. Numerous experts still believe that
the Red Army stopped at the Vistula River in
late summer of 1944 during the Warsaw
Uprising in order to ensure that the opposi-
tion leadership in Poland would be elimi-
nated in the slaughter that ensued in
August of that year. As episodes such as this
became public, the discussions between the
Western Allies and the Soviet Union became
more acrimonious.
The Soviet leadership continually
complained that the Western Allies were pur-
posefully delaying military operations in
Italy and later France in order to have the
Axis forces focus their main efforts against
the Red Army. Specific attention was drawn
to the fact that the vast majority of the Axis
forces were indeed fighting on the Soviet
front, and the Soviet Union was taking a
disproportionate percentage of casualties.
By the end of the war, the Soviet Union
had suffered nine to ten million military
and twelve to fourteen million civilian
deaths, or approximately 30–38 percent of
all deaths suffered in the conflict. These
numbers represented nearly 15 percent of
the Soviet Union’s pre-war population,
profoundly affecting the country and the
post-war view of sacrifice that exists even
today. The complaint that the Western
Allies were minimizing their own casualties
colored the Soviet language in Allied sum-
mits during the war and continues to shape
the historiography of the Great Patriotic
War, as World War II is still known in Russia
and the other successor states of the former
Soviet Union.
On a strategic level, the February 1945
conference in Yalta with Stalin, Churchill,
and US president Franklin Roosevelt rein-
forced the notion of “occupation zones” in
post-war Europe, with particular attention
paid to the division of Germany. These
zones were confirmed in the July 1945
conference in Potsdam, which was attended
by the new US president, Harry Truman,
who assumed office upon Roosevelt’s
death in April of that year. In August 1945
the Soviet Union finally declared war on
Japan, a maneuver the Allied forces had
been requesting for some time. This was
largely a move to better position the
Soviet forces in the post-war Pacific theater.
Specifically, the Red Army occupied
Manchukuo, Sakhalin Island, part of the
Korean Peninsula, and the Kurile islands.
In retrospect, these events during the last
month of the Pacific conflict set the stage
for the Cold War in the Chinese Civil War
and the Korean War and placed post-war
Japan as a future ally to the United States.
Tensions between the Western Allies and
the Soviet Union began almost immediately

after World War II officially ended on
September 2, 1945. From the management
of occupied Germany to the ability of
national parties and political actors to func-
tion in certain countries, including Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, suspicion
dominated the relationship. When US
Secretary of State George C. Marshall intro-
duced the European Recovery Program of
1947, several countries in eastern Europe
were forced to decline the offers of assistance,
after initially appearing receptive. The Soviet
leadership viewed the Marshall Plan, which
was formally funded as the European
Recovery Act by the US Congress in 1948,
as a means by which the United States would
gain greater influence among the European
states and limit the Soviet Union’s reach.
Indeed, the Marshall Plan did cement a
greater presence of the United States in
post-war Europe and helped define the
terms of the competing sides in the Cold
War. An early mindset in the Cold War was
that of “zero sum:” successful actions on the
part of one side were inevitably seen as losses
for the other. This early period, in which
former allies became globally recognized
adversaries, was perhaps best summarized by
Winston Churchill in a speech in Fulton,
Missouri, on March 5, 1946. In reference to
the way in which the Soviet Union closed off
access to the eastern European countries,
Churchill declared: “From Stettin in the
Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron
curtain has descended across the Continent.”
If the Cold War is viewed as a struggle between
East and West, then Churchill’s introduction
of the phrase Iron Curtain is often cited as a
“beginning declaration” of the war.
By the end of the 1940s, the struggle was
out in the open. Events such as the civil war
in Greece, in which the Soviet Union and
its satellites aided the communist side and
the West aided the royalists, as well as early
elections in Europe, in which communist
parties came close to winning significant
3
majorities in countries such as Italy, caused
rifts between the Soviet Union and its former
allies. It was clear that the Soviet Union saw
a much-weakened Europe as an opportunity
to establish itself as a “superpower” with no
security challenges to its west. Ideally, states
would be subservient or neutral. Three Baltic
states – Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – were
actually incorporated into the Soviet Union
and given the status of “union republics,”
which was to last until their renewed efforts
at independence in 1990. Others, including
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia, were
deemed “satellite states,” and Soviet advisors
crafted their internal political systems.
Czechoslovakia required a Soviet-backed
coup to accomplish this result. Early on, two
of the states – Albania and Yugoslavia – were
able to distance themselves from absolute
control, largely because minimal Red Army
units were present when they were liberated
during World War II, and the key individuals
in their countries, such as Josip Broz Tito
in Yugoslavia, were able to form their own
governments without Soviet interference.
Germany remained a special case, as it
was occupied by the four “victorious Allies:”
the United States, France, Great Britain, and
the Soviet Union (an arrangement that was
also replicated in occupied Austria until
1955). The three western zones more or less
acted as a single unit and found it increas-
ingly difficult to traverse the “eastern zone”
(Soviet-occupied Germany), especially as
they had to maintain open links to their
respective zones in occupied Berlin (divided
into West and East Berlin). On June 24, 1948,
the Soviet government blockaded rail
and road supply lines to Berlin in an effort
to change the arrangements of supply and
ownership of these territories. Some have
viewed this as a reaction to western efforts
to forge a West German state and revive the
economy of this entity. Almost immediately,
the Allied powers began the Berlin Airlift
4
campaign in order to supply the city.
The blockade lasted until May 12, 1949, at
which time the Soviet Union opened up the
existing routes. Seen as a victory of the
West over the Soviet Union, the shipment
of nearly 2.4 million tons of supplies on
over 278,000 flights was the result of logisti-
cal and technical ingenuity, at a cost of nearly
$225 million (over $2 billion in today’s cur-
rency). In May 1949 the Federal Republic of
Germany (FRG), or West Germany as it was
more commonly known, was established,
and it became “fully sovereign” in May
1955, with Bonn as the capital. The German
Democratic Republic (GDR), or East
Germany, was established in October 1949,
from the eastern, Soviet-controlled section,
with East Berlin as its capital. As with the
other eastern European states, Soviet troops
were stationed in the GDR to ensure loyalty.
IDEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
The American diplomat George Kennan
summed up the US position toward the
Soviet Union in his “Long Telegram,”
written at the end of his tour in the US
embassy in Moscow in 1946. A year later,
Kennan presented his views more publically
in the article entitled “The Sources of Soviet
Conduct” in the journal Foreign Affairs,
under the pseudonym “X.” In it, Kennan
focused on the geopolitical and ideological
reasons for the Soviet Union’s aggressive
behavior, as well as the country’s historic
circumstances. For many policymakers, the
essential recommendation from this piece
was the need for “containment.” Tensions
between the two camps would create long-
term and potentially irreparable problems
in the world. The only way to minimize this
risk was to limit the political and military
opportunities for expansion by the Soviet
Union and its allies and ensure that
other states did not fall under their sway.
In this way, the Cold War began to shape the
language of international relations in the
modern era.
From the western point of view, the Soviet
Union was intent on the expansion of its
power and the concurrent weakening of
the liberal democracies in the world. Cast in
that familiar zero-sum mindset, political
speeches and popular media highlighted
the dangers of the opposing side. The lan-
guage of the “Red Menace” that existed in the
1910s and 1920s reemerged with a more sin-
ister reality. It was no longer individuals or
“communist parties” but instead a commu-
nist-based bloc of nations attempting to take
over other countries. From the West’s per-
spective, the Cold War was an ideological
struggle between a system that focused on
individual liberties and freedoms (the West)
and another that was ultimately totalitarian in
nature (the Soviet Bloc).
Academics such as Carl Friedrich and
Zbigniew Brzezinski stressed the controlling
and ultimately flawed nature of the Soviet
system. Whether one called it totalitarian
or authoritarian, it was assumed that
such a system did not allow individual
expression. In contrast to claims that the
socialist world was a “workers’ paradise,” it
was actually a “workers’ prison.” Dissident
writers such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
Milovan Djilas, and Milan Kundera wrote
of the system’s horrors in their fictional and
personal accounts. The ideological struggle
was therefore paramount for the survival
and safety of the liberal democratic world.
Moreover, it was assumed that eventually
individuals living in the Soviet Bloc would
rise up in protest and aspire to live in the
same manner as people in the West. This
view was illustrated several times: in the
1953 demonstrations in Berlin, in the 1956
uprising in Budapest, Hungary, the 1968
protests in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and
through the 1980s with the Solidarity
movement in Poland. Western analysts

often stated that people’s aspirations to
travel to the West and enjoy the freedoms
there would prevail over political ideology.
Not surprisingly, the ideological impetus
of the Communist Bloc was equally
critical for understanding the motivation
of the Soviet leadership. Marxism-Leninism
framed the discourse of the Soviet leaders,
as well as Communist Party theoreticians.
A critical feature of this structure was Karl
Marx’s view of history, which stressed that
nations and peoples would go through sev-
eral key stages. From the Soviet perspective,
because the socialist world (and communist
thereafter) was superior to the capitalist
world, it was only a matter of time before
the working classes in the West would seek
to emulate the Soviet Union. At various
times it was suggested that perhaps the
Soviet Union could cooperate with western
powers, but the long-term view was that
the former would eventually triumph over
the latter. At a 1956 reception at the
Polish embassy in Moscow, Premier Nikita
Khrushchev told a group of western
diplomats, “whether you like it or not,
history is on our side. We will bury you.”
Rather than issuing a threat, Khrushchev
was simply expressing the Soviet leader-
ship’s deeply held view that the Soviet
Union would eventually surpass the capital-
ist West economically and politically.
Moreover, Soviet and Eastern Bloc popular
culture regularly presented the West as
decadent and corrupt. It was a place with
significant internal differences and levels of
oppression, and as a result, class, ethnic,
and racial divides characterized the West,
unlike the more harmonious East.
The West’s view of the Soviet Bloc
changed over time, with some factions
looking at the Realpolitik rivalry while
others stressed the potential for détente
and Ostpolitik, the policy by which
West and East Germany began to foster
relations. The same occurred with respect
5
to the Soviet view of the West. The strict
Marxism-Leninism rhetoric espoused by
Stalin and by the Soviet leadership in the
early 1950s evolved in the middle of that
decade. In February 1956 Khrushchev
spoke to the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union’s 20th Congress and outlined
the “reality” of Stalin’s crimes against the
Soviet people and humanity in what
became known as the “Secret Speech” (so
named because it was delivered to a closed
session of the Congress, and the actual text
of the speech was not officially published
until 1989). At the time, Khrushchev’s
denunciation was a momentous shock to
the system, and as the effect of it was felt
throughout the Soviet Bloc, serious ques-
tions arose as to the ideological legitimacy
of the communist experiment. In some
countries, reformist leaders such as Imre
Nagy in Hungary challenged the system
and attempted to break away. Others,
such as Enver Hoxa of Albania and Mao
Zedong in China, felt that Khrushchev was
betraying the Revolution. The divisions
within the Soviet Bloc were more pro-
nounced than ever before. From this point
onward, some countries, including the
Soviet Union itself, went through phases
of more rigid interpretation of Marxism-
Leninism while others, such as Hungary
and Yugoslavia, were more benign. For
example, shortly after the “Thaw” of the
late 1950s and early 1960s, in which the
arts, media, and popular culture within
the Soviet Union were able to address new
themes and subjects, Khrushchev oversaw
a militant anti-religious campaign that
harkened back to the Stalinist years of the
1930s. For the idea of socialism to advance,
the Soviet state would have to continually
challenge “relics” such as religion. By the
1970s the Soviet leadership softened or
even reversed such policies on religion,
but tightened them on dissent and free
speech.
6

Soviet relations with the West were

equally cyclical. The scholarly term peaceful
coexistence was used to describe periods
when the Soviet Union and the West
found areas in which they could cooperate.
The West viewed moments such as
Khrushchev’s visit to the United States in
September 1959, the “Prague Spring” of
1968, and détente of the 1970s as opportu-
nities for greater interaction. A realist in
actions, the US foreign policy actor Henry
Kissinger helped create the terms for
détente between the Soviet Union and the
United States, as well as their respective
allies. Parallel to German chancellor Willy
Brandt’s policy of Ostpolitik, which
effectively created conditions where West
and East Germany tacitly recognized each
other, relations between the two sides Plate 22 Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin. Press
became more complex. There was discus- Association.
sion of arms reductions and an opening of
ways in which the populations of both sides
could communicate. Indeed, as the People’s August 12–13, 1961, the border around
Republic of China and the United States West Berlin was sealed, eventually in the
established contact, the 1970s was seen as form of a solid stone wall. The wall itself
an era when the Cold War could be coming became a symbol in the West for the
to an end. Communist Bloc’s intransigence and
Ultimately, divisions remained between authoritarianism. East Germans were kept
the two sides. Perhaps this was best symbol- out of the West by means of soldiers, addi-
ized by the creation of the Berlin Wall. tional smaller walls, barbed wire, and
Built in 1961, it was the result of a concern landmines, and those who attempted ille-
in both East Germany and the Soviet gally to cross over were subject to arrest and
Union that East German citizens were too execution. At present, the German govern-
readily leaving for the West. Throughout ment recognizes 136 individuals who were
the Cold War, East Germany remained the murdered during the period 1961–1989.
smaller and poorer of the two Germanys. On June 12, 1963, US president John F.
Thus, East German citizens slipped Kennedy spoke at the Berlin Wall, uttering
across the border to the more prosperous the famous phrase, “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
West, whether to join relatives and friends, Twenty-four years later, in a presidential
or simply find a better life, and the GDR visit to Germany, President Ronald Reagan
leadership, at the behest of the Soviet delivered a speech on June 12, 1987, at
Union, began solidifying the border Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate at the wall.
between the two countries. While these Reagan famously declared, “Mr. Gorbachev
tensions existed in the 1950s, it was early [then General Secretary of the CPSU and
in the next decade that the GDR and its the leader of the Soviet Union], tear down
Soviet ally decided to act. On the night of this wall.” Until the Berlin Wall’s demise

on November 8, 1989, it remained a symbol
of the ideological differences between East
and West.
THE COLD WAR AND INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
It is because of the ideological divide – and
the strong sense of certainty and correctness
on both sides – that the Cold War was not
just a rhetorical exercise. As noted, both sides
were willing to exercise power to defend
their respective positions and project influ-
ence in different parts of the world. When
the Soviet leadership decided to invade
Czechoslovakia in August 1968, it was cast
as a way in which fellow communist states
could prevent that country from falling into
the decaying trap of western capitalism.
Further afield, when promoting alliances
and cooperative efforts with countries in
the Non-Aligned Movement, both sides
played up their own strengths and castigated
the other in the most negative terms.
It was inevitable that the tension between
the two sides would influence security
arrangements, and the result was the estab-
lishment of two competing military alliances
for collective defense – the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), founded on
April 4, 1949, and the Warsaw Treaty
Organization (WTO), founded on May 15,
1955. The Soviet Union formed the Warsaw
Pact, as the latter organization was often
called, in direct response to NATO’s full
inclusion of West Germany in October
1954. The NATO countries’ respective mili-
taries were decimated from World War II and
subsequent demobilization, so US forces
remained on the European continent.
Throughout the subsequent decades, NATO
developed into a political alliance as well. It
would be a simplification to assume that the
“European allies” were expected to share the
same views toward the East and work in
7
concert with the United States. As the post-
war European states recovered and acceler-
ated their economic and social growth, any
dependence upon the United States was soon
challenged. For example, France withdrew
from the military command structure of
NATO in 1966 following disputes between
French president Charles de Gaulle and the
US leadership on policies vis-à-vis the East,
as well as his desire to establish a separate
military strategy independent of NATO.
Other NATO members periodically differed
as a result of specific actions, such as the
Suez Crisis of 1956, the US military cam-
paign in Vietnam, and the periodic clashes
between Turkey and Greece. In spite of
these disagreements, NATO continued to
function and, over the following decades,
expand. It was much harder to observe sim-
ilar debates taking place in the Warsaw Pact,
as it remained a Soviet-dominated struc-
ture. However, the Sino-Soviet split that
began in the 1950s and reached a crisis
point with the 1969 military clashes on the
Amur and Ussuri rivers, showed that the
Eastern Bloc had its own internal problems.
The doctrines of both NATO and the WTO
suggested preparations for conflict with the
other. Indeed, for much of the Cold War,
the primary theater of battle was that of
central Europe, and both sides regularly
conducted military exercises in this zone
up through the 1980s. In addition, military
organizations such as the Central Treaty
Organization (CENTO) and the South
East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO)
were founded in the 1950s to complement
the West’s objectives vis-à-vis the Soviet
Union’s presence in the Middle East and
Asia. Both were dissolved in the late 1970s.
Of particular concern to both sides was
a parallel development, arguably as power-
ful as the Cold War itself: the decolonia-
lization that was taking place in various
parts of the world. At the end of World
War II, the European powers still controlled
8
much of Africa and Asia. In the decades
following 1945, scores of countries acquired
their independence and were confronted
with the challenges of state-building, eco-
nomic stabilization, and the creation of
a true sense of identity. For many, this was
a troublesome process that descended into
chaos and conflict. Such crises presented
themselves to the superpowers as opportu-
nities for proxy conflicts. However, not all
decolonized states became passive recipi-
ents of outside meddling. In April 1955,
senior representatives from 29 countries
in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia met in
Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss interna-
tional relations and their respective political
situations. The conference focused on issues
such as the Palestinian problem, economic
development, and the struggle for indepen-
dence, especially by the North African
states. Leaders such as Gamal Abdel Nasser
of Egypt, Jawaharlal Nehru of India,
Muhammad Ali of Pakistan, and Prince
Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi
Arabia were key attendees, brought together
by Indonesia’s President Sukarno.
In 1961 the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) held its first congress in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was able to develop
outside of Soviet control because of its
charismatic leader, Josip Broz Tito. Follow-
ing Tito’s split from Stalin in 1948, and as
rifts within the Soviet camp became more
pronounced in the wake of the 1956 Secret
Speech, Tito opted to chart his own political
and economic development. Although
NAM’s importance can be debated, it is
critical to note that such movements
challenged the growing view of the world
being divided into two competing camps,
especially as promoted by political leaders
in the Soviet Union and the United States.
As the colonial empires disappeared,
there was greater focus on the rights of
and economic and cultural opportunities
for the developing world. In this way,
security organizations like the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the
South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC), and the Organiza-
tion of African Unity (OAU) developed
outside of the classic East–West rivalry.
Moreover, economic structures such as the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) in 1960 emerged as
a way for postcolonial powers to better con-
trol the emerging oil export business. For
example, within twenty years, OPEC came
to symbolize power and wealth in the Mid-
dle East. Regional powers often used these
organizations to assert themselves, but
the primary security organization dyad
remained that of NATO–WTO. Even
through the 1980s, as scholars began
discussing multipolar economic dynamics,
the security architecture remained bipolar.
THE COLD WAR’S IMPACT ON
SECURITY FORCES
During the Cold War the ideological divide
between the superpowers also helped to
justify a significant investment in militaries
and the arms industry. As early as the 1950s,
President Eisenhower raised concerns about
the importance of the “military–industrial
complex” that was becoming so crucial to
the US economy. In the West, as such
spending had to be presented and justified
to the electorate, it was essential to explain
why so many billions of dollars had to be
spent. While there was a demobilization of
forces shortly after World War II, both the
United States and the Soviet Union contin-
ued to spend money on their arsenals, armies,
and strategies. According to government
statistics, through the 1946–1991 period,
the United States spent roughly $300 billion
per year (in 1996 dollars) and the total
estimated cost of the Cold War was $13.1
trillion. As a percentage, the US Department

of Defense budget ranged from 5–13
percent of the US gross domestic product,
with sharp increases during the height of
the Vietnam War period. The majority
of these expenditures were for conventional
weapons and personnel, as the force was
prepared to fight a “two-conflict” scenario
for much of the period. It is harder to discern
the Soviet Union’s defense expenditures, in
part because its military–industrial complex
was inextricably linked to the civilian sectors,
and most aspects of the Soviet-era budget
remain classified. Experts estimate that
during the Cold War the Soviet Union
spent 15–17 percent of its gross national
budget on defense. Like the United States,
much of this was in support of a military
consisting of over two million personnel
and conventional weaponry that was often
stationed in eastern Europe.
The advent of nuclear arsenals on both
sides cemented the divisions that existed
and cast the Cold War conflict as one that
could potentially result in “total war.” Both
sides increased their nuclear arsenals in the
1950s after it became clear that the technol-
ogy was available to mass produce such
weaponry. In the United States, the
much-contested notion of a “missile gap”
triggered an increase in the production
of nuclear warheads in the early 1960s. US
officials began to believe that the Soviet
Union had leapfrogged past the United States
in missile production and was now creating
a comparatively more robust nuclear arsenal.
In order not to fall behind, the United States
increased its own production, with the result
being an undeclared “arms race.” By the
1970s, both sides had thousands of warheads
and rockets (ICBM, medium, and short-
range weapons) targeted at each other’s
territories. Creating strategies to factor in
these weapon systems was just as important
as the actual arsenals available. Within years
of the development of atomic bombs, the
concept of mutual assured destruction
9
(MAD) was synonymous with how Cold
War nuclear arsenals could be thought of in
terms of deterrence. For the next thirty years
a significant literature on deterrence and the
potential of nuclear conflict developed,
including whether a conflict could be won
and what would be the terms of victory.
During this time, both sides constantly
planned for potential nuclear conflicts and
continued to spy on each other’s capabilities.
One of the most famous espionage episodes
occurred on May 1, 1960, when the Soviet
Union shot down the US U-2 spy plane of
Gary Powers over Soviet airspace. This inci-
dent was an international embarrassment for
the United States but also a reminder of how
seriously the nuclear arsenals were factored
in to their respective military strategies.
The impact of nuclear strategies could be
seen in the types of weapons systems devel-
oped. The United States focused on inter-
continental ballistic missile systems (ICBMs),
sea launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), and
air launched missiles via such iconic bombers
as the B-52. The Soviet Union, likewise,
focused on developing ICBMs and even
more mobile ones that could be stationed in
the territories of its WTO allies. Both sides
attempted to gain advantages in technology
and placement. In October 1962 a US U-2
reconnaissance plane discovered that the
Soviet Union was placing S-4 missile systems
in Cuba. Under the leadership of Fidel
Castro, the new regime in that country had
overthrown the dictator Fulgencio Batista
on January 1, 1959. Although there were
attempts to work together, the United States
and the Castro regime quickly found them-
selves as adversaries. A failed US effort in early
1961 to overthrow Castro by using a small
group of Cuban émigrés landing at the Bay of
Pigs in southwest Cuba further distanced the
two countries. Moreover, the Soviet Union
developed ties with Castro, who subsequently
advocated a Marxist-Leninist revolution in
his country. Indeed, with such intellectual
10
luminaries as Che Guevara helping to spread
this message to other Latin American coun-
tries, Cuba came to represent a bastion of
communism in the Americas. Thus, the dis-
covery of missiles on Cuban soil, a mere 90
miles away from US territory, was deemed
a major security threat. President John
Kennedy announced a blockade of the island
nation on October 21, 1962. During the
following tension-filled week, Soviet naval
forces approached the blockade line and
senior Soviet, Cuban, and American officials
exchanged threats and challenges. However,
by October 28, Khrushchev announced the
dismantling of the Soviet weapons systems
in Cuba, and the blockade was eventually
terminated on November 21. As both the
Soviet Union and the United States were
seriously discussing first-launch of nuclear
weapons against each other after putting
their own forces on high alert, this is often
deemed the most critical moment during the
Cold War.
WAR BY PROXY
Although the Soviet Union and the United
States did not engage in direct armed
conflict, they participated in wars and
insurgencies and supported other militaries
throughout the Cold War. As early as the
1940s, both sides felt committed to helping
friendly or strategically important belliger-
ents throughout the world. Almost imme-
diately after the conclusion of World War II,
Soviet advisors and equipment were sent
to Greece, China, Iran, and the Korean
Peninsula. In some instances it was to sup-
port an existing insurgency. In others it was
to provide aid in a civil war. In international
relations discussions these engagements
were cast as proxy wars. During the 1950s,
arguably the most significant proxy war
was the Korean conflict from June 1950 to
July 1953. While technically a force under a
United Nations mandate, the military
contributions were largely western, under
the leadership of the United States. In
contrast, the Soviet Union supported the
North Koreans with supplies, advisors, and
pilots. In addition, the People’s Republic of
China offered ground forces to the North
Koreans. Although called a “police action,”
the Korean War showed that the tensions
of the Cold War could easily escalate into
a real conflict.
Similar opportunities for violence
occurred throughout the world, especially
as the European colonial empires were
being dismantled. Although the decolonia-
lization process created opportunities for
developing world leaders to assert themselves
through international organizations, the
acquisition of independence was not a guar-
antee of success or stability. A number of
African and Asian states experienced civil
wars, or faced insurgency movements.
From Angola to Pakistan–India and the
countries of Southeast Asia, political groups
fought for control, and state leaders sought
assistance from the competing camps of the
Cold War. In some instances the connections
were covert, such as US support for the 1953
overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in
Iran, the 1954 coup against Jacobo Arbenz
of Guatemala, and the 1973 overthrow of
Salvador Allende in Chile. Others were
more overt, such as the Soviet and Chinese
assistance to the North Koreans in the 1950s
and the various conflicts in the Middle
East, including most famously the 1973
Arab–Israeli War, in which the United States
backed Israel and the Soviet Union supplied
Syria and Egypt.
Following the Korean conflict, arguably
the most important proxy conflicts were in
Vietnam and Afghanistan. In the former, the
United States found itself mired in a multi-
level conflict that initially pitted Vietnamese
nationalists against the French colonialist
government. Following the May–June 1954

defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French govern-
ment agreed to a framework for indepen-
dence by the Vietnamese states. At this
time, there was no agreement for a unified
nation, so two entities temporarily divided
by the 17th parallel were created – the Dem-
ocratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and
the Republic of Vietnam in the south. Over
time, the communist northern government
of Ho Chi Minh supported an insurgency in
the south. Throughout the first decade of
independence, the southern regime relied
on limited military support from outside
powers, most notably the United States.
When the dictatorship of Ngo Dinh Diem
was overthrown in 1963, and the Military
Revolutionary Council under leaders such
as Doung Van Minh was put in place, greater
American assistance was requested. How-
ever, by the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson
had already raised the total troop levels in the
country to over five hundred thousand.
Unpopular at home, this war effort was
increasingly problematic for the US forces
in the field. Throughout the 1960s and early
1970s, the Soviet Union and the People’s
Republic of China provided assistance to
the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong.
Whether it was surface-to-air missiles,
anti-0.aircraft batteries, or small arms, the
insurgency maintained a steady supply of
weapons to combat the US forces. When
the United States agreed to withdraw as a
result of the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, it
appeared this proxy conflict had, at best,
ended in a draw, or was seen as a strategic
failure on the part of the United States. This
later view was underscored in April 1975, as
the government of South Vietnam fell to
invading forces from the North. the final
interpretation was that this was a strategic
and moral defeat for the United States. Over
58,000 Americans lost their lives in a conflict
that many viewed as pointless. The number
of Vietnamese casualties remains unclear,
with some estimates reaching over two
11
million over the duration of the conflict on
both sides, to include civilian deaths.
In less than a decade, the Soviet Union
experienced a similar fate in its southern
neighbor, Afghanistan. Throughout the
1950s and 1960s the Soviet Union provided
economic assistance to Afghanistan and had
fairly good relations with King Mohammed
Zahir Shah. When he was deposed in 1973 by
a former minister and relative, Mohammed
Daoud Khan, the Soviet Union began to
engage more forcefully with the newly
emerging People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA). However, a key faction
of the PDPA orchestrated an overthrow of
Daoud in April 1978, setting in motion a
series of events that led to the Soviet invasion
on December 25, 1979. Ostensibly to stabi-
lize a faltering ally and impose a figure
more to their liking, the Soviet Union com-
mitted troops that fought alongside the
forces loyal to the PDPA-led government of
Babrak Karmal. Opposing them were a mix
of disparate opposition forces: many reli-
gious-based, often with ethnic differences
and leadership rivalries, these “Mujahedin”
forces fought a low-intensity conflict for the
first several years of the Soviet presence. By
the early 1980s, US, Saudi, and Pakistani
officials were secretly funding and supplying
these anti-Soviet Mujahedin, with dollar
amounts that eventually approached $1 bil-
lion per annum by the end of the decade. In
1986, during his first year in office, the Soviet
Union’s general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
declared that Soviet troops would be leaving
Afghanistan. Although never acknowledging
the experience as a defeat, the conflict had
clearly upset the Soviet leadership and ruined
the general population’s image of the coun-
try. Over fifteen thousand Soviet citizens lost
their lives in the protracted conflict, in addi-
tion to the one to two million Afghan civilian
casualties and over five million refugees.
In an era of increasing news reporting and
access, especially with the new ideas of
12
glasnost permeating Soviet society, the con-
flict was viewed as a sign that the Soviet
Union was in trouble.
When the last Soviet troops crossed the
Friendship Bridge between Afghanistan and
the Uzbek SSR on February 15, 1989, there
was a sense that the Soviet Union’s interna-
tional image was tarnished. Since that time,
some analysts and scholars have argued that
the Afghan conflict was the direct cause of
the Soviet collapse less than three years later.
More to the point, it was part of a broader
set of circumstances that the country faced
and was unable to resolve successfully. At
the same time, the economy was sclerotic
and trade relations within the COMECON,
the trade organization of the Soviet Bloc,
were in disarray. Increasing ties with the
West were considered essential and this led
to greater European–Soviet trade relations.
Ultimately, domestic conditions required
that the Soviet Union focus its efforts inter-
nally, diverting attention away from future
proxy war efforts.
END OF THE COLD WAR
The date when the Cold War ended is just as
debatable as its beginning. Clearly, the fall
of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and
the sudden ability of East Germans to cross
over to the West changed the political
landscape of central and eastern Europe.
Moreover, the political reform movements
that had taken root in countries such as
Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia continued
at an accelerated pace beyond Moscow’s
control. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
attempted a range of reform efforts in his
own country that were increasingly taken to
new levels in these neighboring states. Unlike
in years past, however, Soviet troops did not
intervene and reformist leaders did not fall to
more pro-Soviet ones. On the contrary,
throughout the years 1989–1991, the central
and eastern European countries experienced
upheavals that resulted in liberalization of
media, information, travel, and finally poli-
tics. In Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel and
other members of the famous Charter 77
dissident movement that had challenged
the country’s conservative government on
the issue of human rights in the late 1970s
led the call for reform in what was called the
Velvet Revolution. On the other hand,
Romania experienced a more violent ending
to its communist past, as demonstrated by
the murders of Nicolai Ceausescu and his
wife on December 25, 1989.
With the end of Communist Party
control of the Warsaw Treaty Organization
states, the purpose of that structure was
called into question. East Germany left the
organization in 1990, shortly before unifi-
cation with West Germany. In July 1991
a number of the WTO member states
rescinded their bilateral treaties with the
Soviet Union, and the structure ceased to
exist after 36 years. At this point, the Cold
War “rivalry” between NATO and the WTO
became irrelevant.
The Soviet Union itself outlasted the
WTO by only a few months. In late August
of that year, Mikhail Gorbachev was held
captive during an attempted coup by
hardliners in his government. The coup
failed, and Gorbachev returned to power
but as a much chastened leader of a country
that was literally falling apart. During
August and September 1991 the various
Union Republics declared their indepen-
dence from the Soviet Union, including
most notably Russia itself, with Boris Yeltsin
as the first president. The Soviet leadership
accepted the inevitable and voluntarily
dissolved the USSR on the last day of 1991.
Instead of reforming the Soviet Union,
Mikhail Gorbachev’s effort helped create
conditions for its dissolution.
In each of these final moments, the
dynamics that framed the Cold War

disappeared. The superpower rivalry with
the United States ceased to exist as the
former Soviet Bloc countries embarked
on a decade of reform, retrenchment, and
reorientation. The ideological divide that
defined the Cold War also vanished. While
Marxism-Leninism still exists in modified
forms in different parts of the world, it is
not the force that it once was. Finally, the
militaries that were poised to attack or
defend against each other no longer played
that same role. The Iron Curtain in central
Europe is not noticeable today, short of the
occasional watchtower now used by hunters
or tourists. Berlin as a city is unified, with
memorial markers taking the place of
armed posts. Indeed, the growth of the
European Union and NATO has resulted
in the inevitable inclusion of most WTO
nations into these structures.
Scholars and policy analysts continue to
debate who “won” or “lost” the Cold War
and what might have been the single most
important cause of its end. As noted, the
Cold War was a combination of multiple
factors, each of which was important
to the overall tenor of the relationship
between the West and East and the broader
dynamics of international relations in the
twentieth century. Some writers note that
phenomena such as transnational terror-
ism, the challenges of economic integration,
and the militarization of failed state regions
are all part of the Cold War legacy. As
befitting the Cold War itself, the impact of
this era will also most likely be mired
in controversy.
The views expressed in this article are those
of the author and do not reflect the official
policy or position of the National Defense
13
University, the Department of Defense, or
the US Government.
SEE ALSO: Carter Doctrine; Castro, Fidel
(b. 1926); Churchill, Sir Winston S. (1874–
1965); Greek Civil War (1944–1949); Kennan,
George F. (1904–2005); Korean War (1949–
1953); Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) (1893–
1976); North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO); Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–
1992); Stalin, Joseph (1878–1953); Suez Crisis
(1956); United Nations; Vietnam War (1959–
1975); War and technology; Weapons of mass
destruction.
FURTHER READING
Brune, L. (2006) Chronology of the Cold War,
1917–1992. New York: Routledge.
Dobrynin, A. (2001) In Confidence: Moscow’s
Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents. Seattle:
University of Washington Press.
Gaddis, J. L. (2000) The United States and the
Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Gaddis, J. L. (2005) The Cold War: A New History.
New York: Penguin.
Kolb, R. K. (2004) Cold War Clashes: Confronting
Communism, 1945–1991. Kansas City, MO:
Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Leffler, M. P. (2008) For the Soul of Mankind: The
United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War.
New York: Hill and Wang.
Odom, W. E. (1998) The Collapse of the Soviet
Military. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Westad, O. A. (2007) The Global Cold War:
Third World Interventions and the Making
of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge,
University Press.
X [George Kennan] (1947) “The Sources of Soviet
Conduct.” Foreign Affairs, 25 (4): 566–582.
Zubok, V. and Pleshakov, C. (1996) Inside the
Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.