Thomas Gim

Ch 31 Notes
The Cold War and Decolonization
The term iron curtain became a term that defined the Cold War which had a lot of political
tension and military rivalry between the US and its allies and the Soviets and their allies.

The Cold War

The alliance between the US, GBR, and USSR had a lot of tension. The iron curtain provided a
lot of conflict also. The USSR was seen as a potential war threat and after the NATO was
created in 1949, the USSR felt surrounded by hostile forces.

The United Nations: The UN was created in 1945 with 2 main bodies: Gen. Assem. and Security
Council. CH, FR, GBR, US, and the USSR were part of this. A bureaucracy led by the Secretary
General performed tasks for the 2 bodies. Other agencies were a part of it too like UNICEF,
FAO, UNESCO, and more. The UN didn’t actually stop conflicts or make them better. The
General Assembly grew in size because Africa and Asia decolonized. This made poverty and
racism big topics rather than the Cold War so the GA was ignored.

Capitalism and Communism: 1944-46 was when the capitalists made a new int’l monetary
system, exchange rates, an Int’l Monetary Fund, and a World Bank. The USSR made their own
system because they didn’t trust the capitalists. The US economy recovered and succeeded
during and after WWII. Europe improved after WWII thanks to the American Marshall Plan
(provided lots of money in forms of food, raw materials, and goods). W. EU. Countries increased
their role in managing economy and in 1948 Europeans started a process of economic
cooperation and integration that included creating the Org of EU Econ Coop which developed
into the EU Econ Comm or Common Market which led to the EC. USSR and East EU depended
on the gov’t to control economy. This allowed for initial rapid improvement but in the long run,
the eastern states could not compete.

West Versus East in Europe and Korea: Communist regimes popping up in east EU made US
see the USSR as an enemy. This led to the Truman Doctrine which offered military aid to
Turkey and Greece against USSR. In response to NATO, USSR made the Warsaw Pact. USSR
and West tested each other in events such as the USSR blockade of West Berlin and making
the Berlin Wall and the West encouraging a split between Yugoslavia and USSR. In Korea, this
tension led to a communist North Korea and a noncommunist South Korea. In 1950, the north
invaded the south which started the Korean War. This led the US to help the south while China
helped the north. A truce happened in 1953 but there was no peace treaty.

US Defeat in Vietnam: After independence from FR, communist N Viet supported the Viet Cong
(guerillas) to fight against the noncommunist South. JFK sent military advisors to the south and
Lyndon B Johnson sent troops. The US stopped its participation in 1973 and the Viet Cong and
the North took over the South. The Vietnam War had a lot of deaths on both sides and led to
economic issues and anti war movements in the US. The military and many civilians said that
gov’t restrictions led to defeat.
The Race for Nuclear Supremacy: Weapons of mass destruction affected the Cold War greatly
and caused paranoia in the US and spread fear of nuclear weapons globally. USSR deployed
nuclear missiles in Cuba as retaliation to the US doing the same in Turkey. However Kruschev
backed out from deploying weapons to Cuba. As the supply, speed, and strength of these
weapons grew, limitations on these weapons also came into place. After 1972, the superpowers
started to come up with weapons limits. EU nations decided to try to relax tensions instead of
following the USSR-US arms race. They did this through the Conf of Sec and Coop in EU which
led to the Helsinki Accords (no boundaries should be changed through military force). Space
exploration was another race other than the arms race.

Decolonization and Nation Building

Foreign colonies and dependencies were handed to the winners. A lot of these places became
independent. Some newly independent places were well off while some weren’t.

New Nations in South and Southeast Asia: India and Pakistan were very different in that
Pakistan was defined by its religion, control through military leaders, and belief that India
seceded from it, while India had a larger share of resources and maintained unity despite
heterogeneity of languages. Japanese victories against BR, FR, and NE in WWII were an
example of Asians standing up to Europeans. Post war movements led to the independence of
Indon., Burma and Malay Fed, and the Philippines.

The Struggle for Independence in Africa: France wanted to keep Algeria but a revolt led to
independence. None of the wars in Africa for independence were as large as the one in Algeria.
New states suffered from unclear borders, overdependence on exports, lack of transportation,
and overpopulation. Some leaders who dedicated their lives to getting rid of foreign occupation
were Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya. Some leaders didn’t want
independence because they foresaw the economic consequences. Decolonization often
included struggles between Europeans and the indigenous for rights, property, and power.

The Quest for Economic Freedom in Latin America: Independence occurred earlier here but
influence from USA and EU increased. The Mexican Inst’l Rev Party ruled a place where there
was a huge gap between the rich and the poor. President Guzman in Guatemala tried to take
away land of the large landowners such as the United Fruit Company. This led to the US CIA to
help in a coup that overthrew Guzman and threw the country into decades of violence.
Fulgencio Batista of Cuba was the leader of a corrupt country whose economy was controlled
by the US and the wealthy. Fidel Castro led a revolution that forced Batista to leave. Castro
redistributed land, lowered rents, raised wages, and took the land of big corporations. When the
US blockaded them, Castro asked for the USSR for help which led to economic downfall and
dependency. In April 1961, 1500 CIA trained Cuban exiles landed in the Bay of Pigs to
overthrow Castro but this failed because of lack of air support.

Challenges of Nation Building: Decolonization was large and led to a lot of new nations.
Government establishment and economic issues were big problems. New nations also had to
try to decide a language, try to create a sense of national unity, and provide jobs. Many nations
chose authoritarian rule.

Beyond a Bipolar World

The new states had domestic and regional issues. A huge challenge was to follow an end of the
bipolar structure of the Cold War.

The Third World: President Sukarno held a meeting in 1955 of 29 African and Asian countries.
This was the start of many new nations forming and being born from colonialism to banding into
the Third World. The leaders like to call it nonaligned but it had the support of the USSR and
China so no one believed them. Nonalignment for the leaders were a source of money and
support from the superpowers.

Japan and China: They both took advantage of the superpowers being busy during the Cold
War. American occupation made the country have a limited army. With them out of the way, the
Japanese grew and they became important in electricity, steel, and shipbuilding. China was also
involved in the Cold War because of their allies, the USSR. But the PRC and the USSR
diverged in 1956 and Mao used his own policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the
Cultural Revolution. Nixon was able to make an alliance between China and the US.

The Middle East: The struggle with Israel is huge. The UN Gen Assem led to Palestine being
split into two different states. Israel was ind. in May 1948 and fought off Palestinian and Arabs.
Israel took Arab lands and the Palestine Liberation Org led by Yasir Arafat used terrorist attacks
to fight Israel. The increasing demand for oil led to the formation of the OPEC in 1960. It
embargoed the US and the NETH for support of Israel.

Emergence of Environmental Concerns: The Cold War and postwar economic recovery was
about technological innovation and industrial projects. A few people such as Rachel Carson
warned about the environment degradation. Student protests in the 1960s in US, FR, JP, and
MEX was the start of youths being involved in environmental issues.

Conclusion
The impact of WWII was so large that the few decades after that were called the postwar era by
people living in that time period. Cold War and decolonization were effects along with who
would control what. Some people saw this as a struggle between cap and comm. Leaders of
new nations had to see how to take advantage of the Cold War. Historians disagree whether
postwar era ended in 1975.