EASTERN ACADEMY IMPHAL

CUET-UG

POLITICAL SCIENCE

CH: 1, COLD WAR ERA

COLD WAR

The Cold War period of 1985–1991 began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as General
Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

• The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the
Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc.
• It began following the end of World War II.
• The period of Cold War is generally considered to span from the announcement of the
Truman Doctrine on 12 March 1947 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26
December 1991.
• The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the
two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars.
• The Cold War was not simply a matter of power rivalries, of military alliances, and of the
balance of power. These were accompanied by a real ideological conflict as well, a
difference over the best and the most appropriate way of organizing political, economic,
and social life all over the world.
• The western alliance, headed by the US, represented the ideology of liberal democracy
and capitalism while the eastern alliance, headed by the Soviet Union, was committed to
the ideology of socialism and communism.
• Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the
struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare,
propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and
technological competitions such as the Space Race.
The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that originated with the primary goal of
containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by
President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947.

• The western alliance was formalized into an organization, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), which came into existence in April 1949. It was an association of
twelve states which declared that armed attack on any one of them in Europe or North
America would be regarded as an attack on all of them. Each of these states would be
obliged to help the other.
NATO now consists of 30 member states from Europe and North America with 12
original founding member states - Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United
States.

• The eastern alliance, known as the Warsaw Pact, was led by the Soviet Union. It was
created in 1955 and its principal function was to counter NATO’s forces in Europe.
Member countries include Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary,
Poland, Romania, Soviet Union.
On 25 February 1991, the Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defence
and foreign ministers from remaining Pact countries meeting in Hungary.
On 1 July 1991, in Prague, the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally ended the
1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and
so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR.
The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991.

• In East and Southeast Asia and in West Asia (Middle East), the United States built an
alliance system called — the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).
SEATO member countries were the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand,
Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan.
 By the early 1970s, members began to withdraw from the organization. Neither Pakistan
nor France supported the U.S. intervention in Vietnam.
Pakistan formally left SEATO in 1973, because the organization had failed to provide it
with assistance in its ongoing conflict against India.
When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the most prominent reason for SEATO’s
existence disappeared. As a result, SEATO formally disbanded in 1977.
CENTO’s membership included Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and Great Britain, with the
United States. Following the fall of the Shah in 1979, Iran withdrew, and CENTO was
dissolved.

• The Soviet Union and communist China responded by having close relations with
regional countries such as North Vietnam, North Korea and Iraq.
• Cracks and splits within the alliances were quick to appear. Communist China quarrelled
with the USSR towards the late 1950s, and, in 1969, they fought a brief war over a
territorial dispute. The other important development was the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), which gave the newly independent countries a way of staying out of the
alliances.
• The superpowers formed allies and alliances in order to gain access to
(i) vital resources, such as oil and minerals,
(ii) territory, from where the superpowers could launch their weapons and troops,
(iii) locations from where they could spy on each other, and
(iv) economic support, in that many small allies together could help pay for military
expenses.

They were also important for ideological reasons. The loyalty of allies suggested that the
superpowers were winning the war of ideas as well.

ARENAS OF COLD WAR

• Arenas of the Cold War refer to areas where crisis and war occurred or threatened to
occur between the alliance systems but did not cross certain limits.
• The two superpowers were poised for direct confrontations in Korea (1950-53),
Hungarian Revolution (1956), Sues Canal (1956), Berlin Crisis (1958-62), Cuban
Missile Crisis (1962), the Congo (the early 1960s), and in several other places.
• Countries outside the two blocs, for example, the non-aligned countries, played a role in
reducing Cold War conflicts and averting some grave crises.
• Jawaharlal Nehru — one of the key leaders of the NAM — played a crucial role in
mediating between the two Koreas.
• In the Congo crisis, the UN Secretary-General played a key mediatory role.
• As the Cold War rolled from one arena to another, the logic of restraint was increasingly
evident, yet, mutual suspicions led them to arm themselves to the teeth and to constantly
prepare for war. Huge stocks of arms were considered necessary to prevent wars from
taking place.
• In time, therefore, the US and USSR decided to collaborate in limiting or eliminating
certain kinds of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. A stable balance of weapons, they
decided, could be maintained through ‘arms control’. Starting in the 1960s, the two sides
signed three significant agreements within a decade.
• These were the Limited Test Ban Treaty, Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty.
CHALLENGE TO BIPOLARITY

As non-alignment grew into a popular international movement, countries of various different

political systems and interests joined it. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum that is
not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.
Drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference in 1955, the NAM was established
in 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia through the initiative of President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz
Tito, President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser, Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru,
President of Indonesia Sukarno, and President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah.
• The first non-aligned summit was held in Belgrade in 1961 and was attended by 25
member states.
• The latest or the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement was held from October 25–
26, 2019 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The summit was attended by the delegation from more
than 120 countries.
• Non-alignment is not isolationism since isolationism means remaining aloof from world
affairs.
• The non aligned countries including India played an active role in mediating between the
two rival alliances in the cause of peace and stability.
• Non-alignment is also not neutrality. Neutrality refers principally to a policy of staying
out of war.
• Non-aligned states, including India, were actually involved in wars for various reasons.
They also worked to prevent war between others and tried to end wars that had broken
out.

NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER

• The idea of a New Inter - national Economic Order (NIEO) originated with the
realization that most of the NAM countries were categorized as the Least Developed
Countries (LDCs) and was needed to be more developed economically to lift their people
out of poverty.
 • The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) brought out a
report in 1972 entitled Towards a New Trade Policy for Development. The report
proposed a reform of the global trading system so as to:
(i) give the LDCs control over their natural resources exploited by the developed
Western countries,
(ii) obtain access to Western markets so that the LDCs could sell their products and,
therefore, make trade more beneficial for the poorer countries,
(iii) reduce the cost of technology from the Western countries, and
(iv) provide the LDCs with a greater role in international economic institutions.
• Gradually, the nature of nonalignment changed to give greater importance to economic
issues.
• By the mid-1970s, economic issue had become the most important issues. As a result,
NAM became an economic pressure group.
• By the late 1980s, however, the NIEO initiative had faded, mainly because of the stiff
opposition from the developed countries who acted as a united group while the non-
aligned countries struggled to maintain their unity in the face of this opposition.
• The legacy of the NIEO is mixed. Parts of the NIEO were realized while some judged the
NIEO as a failure. The United States government rejected the NIEO almost immediately.
Economist Harry Johnson criticized the NIEO for using central planning and
monopolistic power to extort transfers of income and wealth from the developed
countries.

INDIA AND THE COLD WAR

As a leader of NAM, India’s response to the Cold War was two-fold: At one level, it took
particular care in staying away from the two alliances. Second, it raised its voice against the
newly decolonized countries becoming part of these alliances.

India’s non-aligned stance served her national interests directly, in at least two ways:

• First, non-alignment allowed India to take international decisions and stances that served
its interests rather than the interests of the superpowers and their allies.
 • Second, India was often able to balance one superpower against the other. If India felt
ignored or unduly pressurized by one superpower, it could tilt towards the other. Neither
alliance system could take India for granted or bully it.

India’s policy of non-alignment was criticized on a number of counts:

• First, India’s non-alignment was said to be ‘unprincipled’. In the name of pursuing its
national interest, India, it was said, often refused to take a firm stand on crucial
international issues.
• Second, it is suggested that India was inconsistent and took contradictory postures.
Having criticized others for joining alliances, India signed the Treaty of Friendship in
August 1971 with the USSR for 20 years. This was regarded, particularly by outside
observers, as virtually joining the Soviet alliance system. However the justification that
India had was that India needed diplomatic and possibly military support during the
Bangladesh crisis and that in any case the treaty did not stop India from having good
relations with other countries including the US.

The Cold War came to an end when the last war of Soviet occupation ended in Afghanistan, the
Berlin Wall came down in Germany, a series of mostly peaceful revolutions swept the Soviet
Bloc states of Eastern Europe in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed and formally dissolved
itself from existence in 1991.

Détente is a term often used to refer to a period of general easing of the geopolitical tensions
between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. It began in 1969, as a core
element of the foreign policy of US President Richard Nixon, in an effort to avoid nuclear
escalation. The Nixon administration promoted greater dialogue with the Soviet government,
including regular summit meetings and negotiations over arms control and other bilateral
agreements.
THE COLD WAR TIMELINE

YEAR EVENT
1947 American President Harry Truman’s Doctrine
about the containment of communism.
1947-52 Marshall Plan: US aid for the reconstruction of
the Western Europe
1948-49 Berlin blockade by the Soviet Union and the
airlift of supplies to the citizens of West Berlin
by the US and its allies
1950-53 Korean War; division of Korea along the 38th
Parallel.
1954 Defeat of the French by the Vietnamese at
Dien Bien Phu Signing of the Geneva Accords
Division of Vietnam along the 17th Parallel
Formation of SEATO
1954-75 American intervention in Vietnam
1955 Signing of the Baghdad Pact, later CENTO
1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary
1961 US-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba
Construction of the Berlin Wall
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
1965 American intervention in the Dominican
Republic
1968 Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia
1972 US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China
1978-89 Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia
1979-89 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
1985 Gorbachev becomes the President of the
USSR; begins the reform process
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall; mass protests against
 governments in eastern Europe
1990 Unification of Germany
1991 Disintegration of the Soviet Union End of the
Cold War era

QUESTIONS

1. The event that took place in 1961 was:

a) The construction of the Berlin wall.
b) Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
c) Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia.
d) The unification of Germany.
2. After Second World War, the world was divided into the blocks of:
a) USA and UK
b) USSR and China
c) Japan and Korea
d) USA and USSR
3. The person that opposed neo colonialism wqas:
a) Churchill
b) Breznev
c) Khrushchev
d) Kwame Nkhrumah
4. The Warsaw pact was led by:
a) Japan
b) Britain
c) Italy
d) Soviet Union
5. Which of the following was not a NATO member?
a) Germany
b) Czech Republic
c) France
 d) India
6. The Western Alliance was headed by:
a) US
b) Brazil
c) Soviet Union
d) Balkan Countries
7. The island country that received both diplomatic and financial aid from the Soviet Union
was:
a) Japan
b) Cuba
c) Sri Lanka
d) Norway
8. The rivalry between USA and USSR during the post second world war is known as:
a) Apartheid
b) Cold war
c) Policy of Non Alignment
d) Hot War
9. Korea was a colony of:
a) USA
b) Japan
c) Britain
d) Poland
10. In which countries are the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki located?
a) China
b) Japan
c) France
d) Italy
11. When did USSR placed nuclear missiles in Cuba?
a) 1960
b) 1961
c) 1962
 d) 1963
12. What is the full form of SEATO?
a) South East Asian Task Organization
b) South East Asian Treaty Organization
c) South East Asian Tally Organization
d) South East Asian Team Organization
13. What is the full form of CENTO?
a) The Central Task Organization
b) The Central Treaty Organization
c) The central tally Organization
d) The Central Team Organization
14. Which two ideologies were involved in a conflict during the Cold War era?
a) Communism and Capitalism
b) Monarchism and Capitalism
c) Communalism and Capitalism
d) None of the above
15. Which organization came into existence in April 1949?
a) SEATO
b) CENTO
c) NATO
d) Warsaw Pact
16. Which of the following is an agreement signed between the two superpowers starting in
the 1960s?
a) Berlin Pact
b) Limited Test Ban Treaty
c) Moscow Agreement
d) Warsaw Pact
17. Which among the following statements about the Cold War is wrong?
a) It was a competition between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies.
b) It was an ideological war between the superpowers.
c) It triggered of an arms race.
 d) The US and USSR were engaged in direct war.
18. Which among the following statements does not reflect the objectives of NAM?
a) Enabling newly decolonized countries to pursue independent policies.
b) Not to join any military alliances.
c) Following a policy of neutrality on global issues.
d) Focus on elimination of global economic inequalities.
19. Mark wrong against each of the following statements that describe the features of the
military alliances formed by the superpowers.
a) Member countries of the alliances are to provide bases in their respective lands for the
superpowers.
b) Member countries to support the superpower both in terms of ideology and military
strategy.
c) When a nation attacks any member country it is considered as an attack on all the
member countries.
d) Superpowers assist all the member countries to develop their own under weapons.
20. Here is a list of countries. Write which of the following belongs to non aligned:
a) Poland
b) France
c) Japan
d) Nigeria
21. Which of the following was not a member of NATO?
a) USA
b) England
c) France
d) None of the above
22. Which of the following was not a member of SEATO?
a) USSR
b) New Zealand
c) Pakistan
d) Australia
23. Which of the following statements about the NIEQ is false?
 a) Given the LDCs control over their natural resources.
b) Obtain access to Western markets.
c) Reduce the cost of technology from the Western countries.
d) Provide the developed countries with a greater role in international economic
institutions.
24. In 1945 the allied forces included the US,_________, USSR and _________
a) Britan and France
b) France and Japan
c) Italy and Germany
d) Italy and Austria
25. Which of the following countries are the main countries of Axis Powers?
a) Germany
b) Italy
c) Japan
d) All of the above
26. Write the main countries of Allied Forces during Secong World War from the following:
a) USA
b) Great Britain
c) USSR
d) All of the above
27. Which of the following country did not join Soviet Bloc?
a) Bulgaria
b) Hungary
c) Poland
d) Sri Lanka
28. Who called Cold War a ‘long twilinght struggle’?
a) American President Nixon
b) American President Jackson
c) American president Kennedy
d) American President Trump
29. In which year was the South East Asia Treaty Organization established?
 a) 1957
b) 1954
c) 1985
d) 1959
30. In which year was CENTO established?
a) 1954
b) 1955
c) 1956
d) 1957
31. Which of the following doesn’t come under the Western Alliance?
a) USA
b) Great Britain
c) France
d) India
32. In which year did USSR intervene in Hungary?
a) 1956
b) 1949
c) 1945
d) 1946
33. In which year did USA dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki?
a) 1945
b) 1948
c) 1939
d) 1944