WEEK 2

COLD PEACE TO COLD WAR (1945-’49)

Dr. Sreeram Chaulia

Vice Dean
Jindal School of International Affairs
O.P Jindal Global University
Sonipat, India
Office: A-125
Email: schaulia@jgu.edu.in
 The End of an Era

o Soviet tanks in Berlin, May

1945

o Germany’s unconditional
surrender

o VE Day- Two winners

"The age-long struggle of the Slav

nations...has ended in victory. Your courage
has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.“

"This is a solemn but glorious hour. General

Eisenhower informs me that the forces of
Germany have surrendered to the United
Nations. The flags of freedom fly all over
Europe.”
Confirming a Suicide

o Did Hitler escape Berlin

before the Russians got there?

o The Smersh team

investigation and a box of jaws

-- Stalin went to great lengths in

1945 to conceal the fact that Hitler’s
body had been identified by
pathologists working for Smersh, the
Soviet military counterintelligence
agency. He even misled his own
commander in chief, Marshal Georgi
Zhukov, demanding to know why he
had failed to find Hitler’s corpse. And
Pravda declared that rumors of the
discovery of Hitler’s body were a fascist
provocation.
Why the
Dissimulation?

o Antony Beevor-

“Stalin ruled by creating fear

and uncertainty among both
subordinates at home and
among his Western allies
abroad, who were of course
seen as potential enemies.
Soviet authorities nurtured
rumors that Hitler was hiding in
Bavaria (part of the American
zone of occupation)… the
implication was that the
Americans had concealed him
and were somehow in league
with the Nazis.”

o Mistrustful allies- Who colluded,

betrayed and sacrificed?

o Past Controversy in the Present

Mistrust Continued….

o Atomic bomb projects in the USA

and USSR born as counter-
measures against the nuclear
potential of Hitler’s Germany

o Germany was the pioneer in

researching nuclear fission- as
early as 1938.

o Stalin and FDR initiated their own

respective nuclear research
programmes by 1939-40.

o July 1945, during Potsdam- First

atomic bomb tested in New
Mexico. Churchill was excited by
the news, but Stalin seemed
unimpressed and in fact probably
already knew of the American
project Manhattan though the spy
Klaus Fuchs. From that moment,
he speeded up the Soviet
Explaining Armageddon

o Why resort to nuclear

holocaust?

Theory 1, still propagated in American

school textbooks and lore:

- military necessity to end the war in

Asia and decimate Japanese
kamikaze holdout

- Key dispute- were Japanese about

to surrender prior to the bombings?

- Nagasaki was unnecessary even if

the military necessity argument is
accepted
Theory 2, looks plausible in light of
the mutual distrust among allies
dating back to the pre-war period:

- First salvo of the coming Cold War

- Truman keen on showing that the

US was ahead of the USSR and
even the UK in this new super
destructive technology

- To pre-empt a full-scale Soviet

invasion of Japan after Machukuo?

- The China prize and preventing a

communist Asia

- Main problem with this explanation

is that it looks better in hindsight.
1945 was NOT the beginning of the
Cold War. All windows of
cooperation were not yet closed.
Theory 3, possibly an additional spur
rather than the main cause, since the
decision to use the weapons were in
political hands:
- Minds of the Manhattan Project

- Headed the Scientific Panel which

advised Truman to use the atomic
bomb on Japan. Later he explained
"We didn't know beans about the
military situation in Japan. We didn't
know whether they could be caused
to surrender by other means or
whether the invasion was really
inevitable." – Implication?

- Also recommended, for the sake of

good international relations, that
Russia should be told of the atomic
bomb before it was used on Japan. To
his disappointment, this advice was
not taken.
- Problem: Mad scientist story makes
The Nuclear Age

o New risks, hazards and

human insecurity

o Bomb shelters and nuclear

radiation drills

o Arms race among the

great powers

o ‘Nonproliferation’ or the
scramble to prevent
upstart nuclear weapon
powers

o ‘Limited nuclear war’, MAD

doctrines
Descent into Cold War
o ``Realism'' -- the idea that all that
ultimately matters in international
relations is power and competition for
security

o Stalin at Yalta: ``The pope? How many

divisions does he have?'‘

o USSR intent on punishing Germany,

extracting its minerals for Soviet
reconstruction. ‘Divisions’ of the Red
Army to ensure that.

o US, UK and France keen on

resurrecting Germany as an economic
powerhouse and buffer against
communism- ‘European Recovery Plan’
(June 1947)

o Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948- 12 May

1949) and the division of Germany-
Stalin’s “unwanted child” (Wilfried Loth)
Doctrinal Developments to
Split the World
o 1947 article- ‘The Sources of Soviet
Conduct- USSR inherently expansionist
and its influence must be "contained" in
areas of vital strategic importance to the
United States.

o Foundational text of the Cold War;

guiding document of the Truman
administration’s anti-Soviet foreign
policy stance.

o Advancement over Churchill’s ‘Iron

Curtain’ speech (March 1946), which
identified Eastern Europe as the “Soviet
sphere”

o Truman’s ‘domino theory’- If Iran falls

then Turkey and Greece will follow and
soon Red Armies would be converging on
Central Europe. Solution? Target
countries had to be installed with pro-
Western conservative regimes ;
formation of NATO (1949) for collective
defence
Could the Cold War have
been Prevented?

Counterfactuals:

o Had FDR lived……and made peace

with ‘uncle Joe’

o Had there been less lingering

mistrust from the pre-war era

o Had there been no ‘Red Scare’ in

America

o Had there been only one victor at

the end of the war

Cold War: A toxic mix of

ideological conflict and realpolitik
rivalry. Hence different from
Concert of Europe after 1815.
‘Losing’ and ‘Gaining’
China
o October 1 1949, seminal
event of the Cold War

o The ‘China Hands’- American

intellectuals who admired the
CCP as more popular and militarily
effective than the corrupt and
incompetent Nationalists; argued
that it would be in American
national interest to work with the
communists if they gained power.
Became witch-hunt victims.

o Major strategic defeat for the

US
- Asia also firmly divided into
two camps. Japan and South
Korea under the Western
occupation; China and North
Korea in Communist hands
o The Taiwan imbroglio- still
Sundering of the
Holy Land
o A homeland for the Jews after
the Holocaust

o The UN Partition Plan (November

1947) - a compromise between
Zionist ambitions and rights of
existing Arab majority in
Palestine . US, USSR in
agreement.

o Plan triggered civil war (Jewish

and Arab communities clashed
up to May 1948) and the first
Arab-Israeli war (Israel vs Egypt,
Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria
up to July 1949)

o Cause of Palestinian exodus-

historical controversy
-- Israeli version- Arab leaders
ordered evacuation to fight the
Slivering of the
Subcontinent

An even bigger tragedy than

Palestine in numbers (12.5
million displaced, 1 million
killed)

Causes: a) Long-term British

divide-and-rule policies; b)
Muslim elites’ historic fear and
frustrations and Jinnah’s call to
arms (Direct Action); c)
Congress leaders’
intransigence and intolerance;
d) Grassroots rioting, ethnic
cleansing and fundamentalism
in disputed regions (Punjab
and Bengal)

Collective responsibility
Blood in the Valley

o Raiders and the first India-

Pakistan War (1947-’48)

o Jinnah’s grudge over “moth-

eaten Pakistan”

o A clash of nationhood and

identity

o The British role

- Bucher-Gracey Deal
After creation of Israel, “Arab
opinion might be further
aggravated if British policy on
Kashmir were seen as being
unfriendly to a Muslim state.”
estranging Pakistan would
harm Britain’s relations with the
“whole Mussulman bloc”

o Premature ceasefire, ‘neutral’

UN, and a permanent crisis
Why did International Law
and Organisations Fail in
these Four Years?

Power politics tended to prevail despite

early optimism of a post-War peaceful
order

UN in infancy and already paralysed by

Cold War divisions + No developing
country block yet

Genocide Convention (1949),

Nuremberg (1945-’6) and Tokyo
(1946-’8) Tribunals could not deter new
mass scale atrocities because of lack
of political will and universal application

A liminal time, everything in flux