Week 14

Decolonization
Decolonization
and the Global
Cold War
Decolonization

Between the end of World War II and 1980, imperial

powers lost control of their colonial possessions,
mostly in Africa and Asia.
 More than ninety nations became independent during
this process.
 In 1945, the United Nations had 51 founding members.
 By 1980, its membership had grown to 154.
 It now stands at 193 members.
 Other nations that had not been formally controlled by
imperial powers—especially in Latin America—also
sought after 1945 to throw off the shackles of foreign
influence.
Decolonization and the Cold War

Decolonization and the cold war

occurred simultaneously.
 Both processes contributed significantly
to global political transformations,
frequently in conjunction with one
another.
Decolonization and the Cold War

The wave of new nation-states, that came into

being as empires fell after 1945, had to face the
two opposing superpowers – the Soviet Union and
the United States - now dominating global
politics.
 As cold war animosities deepened, the Soviet and
American leaders often demanded that newly
independent nations take sides and choose between
capitalism and communism.
 At times these demands compromised the independence
of new nations, particularly those deemed strategically
important by either or both superpowers.
Decolonization and the Cold War

Partly as a result of cold war tensions,

people in newly independent and
developing nations around the world
discovered that independence was
just the first step on a much longer,
and often much more difficult, road
to national unity and social and
economic stability.
 India’s
Partitioned
Independence
The Coming of Self-Rule in India

After World War II, it became painfully

obvious to the British government that it
could not continue to bear the financial
burden of governing India.
 Indian nationalists were now making it clear
that they would accept nothing less than
complete independence.
 At the same time, Muslims increasingly feared
their minority status in a free India that would
probably be dominated by Hindus.
Muhammad Ali
Jinnah and the
Muslim League

Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, leader of
the Muslim
League, openly
expressed these
Muslim concerns
and their desire
for a separate
Muslim state.
The Congress Party

In response to
Jinnah, Congress
Party leaders
(see week 11)
like Jawaharlal
Nehru and
Mohandas K.
Gandhi urged all
Indians to act
and feel as one
nation.
Partition:
India and
Pakistan
When the British
withdrew from India in
1947, two new states
were established:
 Muhammad Ali Jinnah
led Pakistan (divided
between parts of
Bengal in the east and
Punjab in the west);
 Jawaharlal Nehru led
India. (Gandhi was
assassinated in
January 1948.)
Partition and Violence

Because of the partition, an estimated

ten million Muslim and Hindu refugees
had migrated by mid-1948 to either
Muslim Pakistan or Hindu India in
order to escape religious persecution.
 Moreover, between half a million and one
million people had died in the violence
that accompanied those massive
migrations.
Significance of Indian and
Pakistani Independence
Nevertheless, independence in India and
Pakistan in 1947 further encouraged anti-
imperial movements throughout Asia and
Africa.

Moreover, once India left the British

empire, there could be little doubt about
the fate of Britain’s remaining imperial
possessions.
 Nonalignment
during the Cold
War
Nehru and Nonalignment

Indian independence also

inspired other nations
through Prime Minister
Nehru’s strategy for
grappling with
decolonization amid the
cold war.

Nehru called his strategy

nonalignment.
 He argued that “each
country has not only the
right to freedom but also to
decide its own policy and
way of life.”
 The Bandung Conference

In April 1955 leaders from 23 Asian and 6 African nations—

including Nehru from India—met in Bandung (Indonesia) to
discuss neutrality or nonalignment as an alternative to choosing
between the U.S. and the USSR in the ongoing cold war.
 The conference also stressed the struggle against colonialism and racism.
 The Nonaligned Movement

The Bandung Conference was

the precursor of the broader
Nonaligned Movement.
 The movement’s primary goal
was to maintain formal
neutrality between the rival, US-
and Soviet-led blocs.
 It held occasional meetings so
that its members could discuss
their relations with the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Participants of the First Nonaligned
Conference (Belgrade, September 1961)
The Nonaligned Movement
 Asof 2012, the Nonaligned Movement had
120 members.
The Nonaligned Movement

However, although theoretically

nonaligned with either superpower,
many member states of this
movement maintained close ties to
one or the other.
 This situation often caused dissension
within the movement.
 Nationalist
Struggles in
Vietnam
Nationalist Struggles in Vietnam

 Vietnam could not keep its

nationalist struggle for
independence separate from
the complications of the
cold war.
 It became deeply enmeshed
in the contest between
capitalism and communism.
 Therefore, decolonization in
Vietnam was a long and
bloody process.
Nationalist Struggles in Vietnam

 The French had colonized Vietnam in

the mid-nineteenth century.
 Vietnam’s nationalist leader in the
twentieth century, Ho Chi Minh, was
also a communist.
 He began struggling for Vietnamese autonomy
from French imperialism immediately after
the end of World War I.
 To Ho, the Japanese invasion of Vietnam
after the fall of France in 1940 seemed like
the replacement of one imperialist power
with another.
 During World War II, Ho fought against Japan,
and, in the waning days of the war, he helped
oust the Japanese from Vietnam altogether.
The U.S. and Vietnam during WW2

 During World War II, the

United States aided Ho’s
national independence
coalition in its resistance
against the Japanese.
 When Ho issued Vietnam’s
declaration of
independence on 2
September 1945, he and
other Vietnamese expected
American support for the
new republic.
Fighting the French

 However, immediately after the end

of the war, France sought to reclaim
its imperial possessions—including
Vietnam.
 When French troops landed in
Vietnam and began reestablishing
French authority in early 1946, the
American government did not stand
in the way of this French move.
The U.S. and Ho’s Fight
against the French
 U.S. policymakers supported the
French.
 They feared that Ho represented a
serious threat to global security, for
he
 had been a founder of the French
Communist Party,
 had lived in Moscow for some time, and
 was committed to socialist ideals.
Fighting the French

 By 1947, the French

seemed to have
secured their power in
much of Vietnam.
 However, the
Vietnamese resistance
forces, led by Ho Chi
Minh and General Vo
Nguyen Giap, mounted
a campaign of
guerrilla warfare.
Fighting the French

 The Vietnamese communists

increasingly regained control of
their country, especially after
1949 – when newly-communist
China sent aid and arms to the
Viet Minh.
 The Vietnamese were thus
strengthened, and they defeated
the French at their fortress in
Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
 The French had to sue for peace
at the conference table.
The Geneva Conference and Partial
Independence

 The peace conference

was held in Geneva in
1954.
 Vietnam was
temporarily divided at
the 17th parallel:
 North Vietnam would
be controlled by Ho Chi
Minh and the
communist forces.
 South Vietnam would
remain in the hands of
non-communists.
The U.S. Attitude after 1954

After the Geneva Agreements, the U.S.

took on from the defeated French the
project of eradicating communism
from Vietnam.
 By 1954, leaving all of Vietnam in the
hands of communists was unthinkable for
the U.S., especially after the globalization
of the cold war that had accompanied the
Korean War (1950-1953; see week 13).
Vietnam after 1954

The Geneva Agreements required elections leading

to Vietnam’s unification.
However, South Vietnam’s anti-communist leaders
1. feared that these elections would likely bring the
communist Ho to power,
2. violated the terms of the agreement with U.S. military
support,
3. avoided elections, and
4. sought to build a government that would prevent the spread
of communism in South Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia.
Cold War Stalemate in Vietnam

However, the leaders of South Vietnam

did not have the support of the people,
who quickly grew discontented enough to
resort to arms.
 In 1960 South Vietnamese nationalists—with
the aid of weapons and troops from the north
—formed the National Liberation Front to
fight for freedom from South Vietnamese rule
and to end U.S. military interference in the
area.
Cold War Stalemate in Vietnam

In North Vietnam, the government received

economic and military assistance from the
Soviet Union and China.
 This Communist aid to the north reinforced, in
turn, the U.S. military commitment in the south.
The participation of three major world
powers – the USA, USSR and Communist
China – in the Vietnamese conflict ensured
that the war would be a long, bloody, and
expensive stalemate.
The Unification of Vietnam

Ultimately, United States forces

withdrew from this unwinnable war in
Vietnam in 1975.
 In 1976 North Vietnam conquered the
south and united the country.
Arab National States,
the Problem of
Palestine, and
Islamic Resurgence
Decolonization in the Arab World

After World War

II, the Arab states
of southwest Asia
— including Syria,
Iraq, Lebanon,
and Jordan—
gained complete
independence
from colonial
powers France
and Britain.
Decolonization in the Arab World

 However, the battle to rid southwest

Asia of the remnants of imperialism
took some twists and turns.
 The superpowers – the USA and the USSR
– interfered in the region, drawn by its
vast reserves of oil.
 Independent states in the Arab world
responded to superpower
interference in various ways.
The Palestine
Question
The question of Palestine
absorbed much of the
energies and emotions of
the southwest Asian region.
 Great Britain served as the
mandate power in Palestine
after the Great War (1914-
1918).
 Before and during its
mandate (until 1948), Britain
made conflicting promises
both to Palestinian Arabs and
to Jewish migrants who
hoped to establish a
homeland in Palestine.
The End of the British Mandate

After getting full control of Palestine

in 1918, the British
 attempted for the next 30 years to
balance the causes of the Palestinian
Arabs and Jews in Palestine but failed.
 They ultimately realized that they could
not resolve the dispute.
 In February 1947 they turned the region
over to the newly created United Nations
(UN).
The Creation of Israel
 In November 1947, the United
Nations decided to partition
Palestine between two – Arab
and Jewish – states.
 Before the UN could implement
this plan, the British withdrew
from Palestine in May 1948.
 The Jews immediately
announced the creation of the
independent state of Israel.
 In return, the outraged Arab
states of Egypt, Jordan, Syria,
Lebanon, and Iraq joined Arab
Palestinians in a war to destroy
the new Jewish Israeli state.
The Arab-Israeli
War of 1948-1949
 The Israelis defeated the Arab
armies.
 When a truce went into effect
in early 1949 under UN
auspices, Palestine remained
divided among Israel, Jordan
and Egypt.
 Israel controlled the coastal
areas of Palestine and the
Negev Desert to the Red Sea.
 Jerusalem and the Jordan
River valley were divided
between Israel and Jordan.
 Egypt controlled the narrow
Gaza strip.
 Egypt and Arab Nationalism
 In 1952 Gamal Abdel Nasser and
other officers staged a bloodless
coup that ended the monarchy in
Egypt.
 Egypt’s new military leaders
committed themselves to
opposing Israel and taking
command of the Arab world.
 Nasser also labored assiduously to
develop Egypt economically and
militarily and make it the
fountainhead of pan-Arab
nationalism.
Egypt and Arab Nationalism

 Nasser also refused

to align himself
with either the
United States or
the Soviet Union.
 He believed that
cold war power
politics were a
new form of
imperialism.
 He dedicated
himself to ridding
Egypt and the Arab
world of imperial
interference.
The Suez Crisis

Nasser sealed his

reputation during the
Suez crisis of 1956.
 He decided to
nationalize the Suez
Canal and use the
money for internal
Egyptian projects.
 Thereafter, he did not
bow to international
pressure to provide
multinational control
of the vital Suez
Canal.
The Suez Crisis
In late October 1956, British,
French, and Israeli forces combined
to wrest control of the canal away
from him.
 Their military campaign was
successful.
 However, they had not consulted
with the United States, and the
latter strongly condemned the
attack and forced Britain and France
to withdraw.
 The Soviet Union also objected
forcefully and gained a reputation
for being a staunch supporter of
Egypt and Arab nationalism.
After the cessation of hostilities,
Nasser gained tremendous prestige.
 Egypt solidified its position as an
anti-imperial power in southwest
Asia and north Africa.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
 After 1956, Israel continued to
grow stronger.
 More wars were fought
between the Arab states and
Israel in 1967 and 1973.
 Violence between Israelis and
Palestinians—under the
leadership of Yasser Arafat’s
Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO)—continued
into the 1990s and beyond.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict

A brief break in the

violence occurred in the
early 1990s, when Arafat
and Israeli prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin signed peace
treaties that advanced the
notion of limited
Palestinian self-rule in
Israeli-occupied territories.
 The assassination of Rabin
in 1995 by a Jewish
extremist and other
hurdles blocked the peace
process and led to the
resumption of violence in
the region.
The Cold War in Southwest Asia

Thus, peace seemed a distant prospect

in southwest Asia because of the political
turmoil caused by the presence of Israel
in the midst of Arab-Islamic states.
 During this conflict, Israel became a staunch
ally of the United States, while many of
these Arab-Islamic states (though not all of
them) allied themselves with the Soviet
Union.
Islamism

One response to U.S. and Soviet interference

in southwest Asia and north Africa was a
revival – especially after the 1967 Arab-Israeli
war – of Muslim traditions.
 Many Muslims gradually became skeptical about
European and American models of economic
development and political and cultural norms.
 These revived Muslim traditions found expression in
an ideology which we call Islamism.
 Islamists desire to reassert Islamic values in politics.
Iran after World War II
 Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
ascended to the throne in Iran in 1941
– during World War II.
 America’s Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) helped keep the shah in power
in 1953 when his autocracy was
challenged by anti-western
democratic forces inside Iran.
 Later, money from Iran’s lucrative oil
industry helped finance
industrialization in the country.
 In the meantime, the United States
provided Iran with the necessary
military equipment to fight
communist influence in the region.
Opposition in Iran

 Islamist influences grew in Iran during the

shah’s lengthy rule from 1941 to 1979.
 By the late 1970s, opposition to the shah’s
government was coming from many quarters.
 Devout Shia Muslims despised the shah’s secular
regime.
 Iranian small businesses detested the influence of
U.S. corporations on the economy.
 Leftist politicians rejected the shah’s repressive
policies.
The Iranian Revolution

In early 1979, The shah fled

the country after months of
widespread protests.
 Power was captured by the
Islamist movement under the
direction of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini.
The Iranian Revolution and the U.S.

The 1979 Iranian revolution soon took on a

strongly anti-U.S. cast, partly because the
deposed shah was permitted to travel to
the United States for medical treatment.
 Inretaliation, Shia militants captured 69
hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in
November 1979, 55 of whom remained captives
until January 1981.
 Iranianleaders also shut U.S. military bases and
confiscated U.S.-owned economic ventures.
 African
Nationalism and
Independence
African Nationalism and
Independence
In Africa, the process of
decolonization occurred over the
course of several decades—from the
late 1950s until 1980.
 The process was complicated because of
 the increase in the superpowers’ global
influence after World War II, and
 internal divisions in African societies.
African Nationalism and
Independence
In Africa,
 Agitation for independence took on many
forms, peaceful and violent.
 Decolonization occurred at a different
pace in different nations.
African
Nationalism and
Independence
 Ghana became the
first independent
state in colonial sub-
Saharan Africa in
1957.
 Independence came
much later—and after
bloody conflicts—to
Algeria (1962), Angola
(1975), and
Zimbabwe, formerly
called Southern
Rhodesia (1980).
African Nationalism and
Independence
In many instances, African nations sealed
their severance from imperial control by
adopting new names that shunned the
memory of European rule and drew from
the glory of Africa’s past empires.
 Ghana set the pattern in 1957.
 Thereafter, the new map of Africa featured
other references to pre-colonial African
places: Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.
Ghana and Kenya

Ghana achieved its freedom from

British rule largely peacefully.
 However, the process of attaining
independence was violent in other
countries in Africa.
 In Kenya, the powerful white settlers clashed
with native nationalists, especially the Kikuyu,
one of the country’s largest ethnic groups,
until Britain recognized the country’s
independence in 1963.
South Africa

Anti-colonial agitation
in South Africa was a
struggle against
internal (white
settler) colonialism.
 After 1948, white South
Africans instituted
apartheid
(“separateness”) by
dividing the population
by skin color and
ethnicity to reserve
South Africa’s resources
for whites and control
the restive black
population.
 South Africa

Apartheid was opposed

from the 1960s by the
African National
Congress (ANC), led by
Nelson Mandela.
 This anti-apartheid
struggle gradually
received wide
international support.
 South Africa
In 1989, when F. W. de Klerk became
president, he began to dismantle the
apartheid system in South Africa.
1. He released Mandela from jail in 1990
after 27 years of imprisonment.
2. He legalized the ANC.
3. He worked with Mandela and the ANC
to negotiate the end of white
minority rule.
4. A new constitution was written.
5. In April 1994 elections were held that
were open to people of all races.
6. The ANC won overwhelmingly, and
Mandela became the first black
president of South Africa.
The Democratic
Republic of the
Congo

The convergence of
decolonization with the
politics of the cold war
helped to undermine the
possibilities for lasting
stability in Belgian
Congo.
 The country was renamed
Zaire in 1971; and
Democratic Republic of the
Congo, in 1997.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Congo won
independence
from Belgium in
1960 under the
popular
leadership of
Patrice Lumumba.
 Lumumba was a
Maoist Marxist.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo

 In 1961, the general Mobutu Sese Seko

killed Lumumba, a few weeks after a
military coup supported by the United
States.
 Mobutu ruled Belgian Congo/Zaire as a
dictator and devastated the economy in
the process of enriching himself.
 However, his government continued to
receive support from the United States and
other European democracies hoping to
quell the growth of communism in Africa.
 Mobuto was expelled from the country in
1997 and died in exile shortly afterwards.
Neo-imperialism
in Latin America
Neo-imperialism in Latin America

After World War II, nations in Central and South America

– along with Mexico – continued to grapple with the
conservative legacies of Spanish and Portuguese
colonialism, particularly the political and economic
power of the landowning elite of European descent (the
creoles).

Moreover, Latin America continued to have to deal with

mostly American neocolonialism.
 The United States intervened militarily when its interests were
threatened.
 It influenced economies through investment and full or part ownership
of enterprises like the oil industry.
The United States and Latin America

The United States had insisted on the right to

interfere in Latin American affairs since the
enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
 By the early 1920s Latin America had become the site
of fully 40 per cent of U.S. foreign investments.
After World War II, cold war imperatives also
shaped many U.S. actions in Latin America.
 The establishment of communist and socialist regimes
—or the instigation of programs and policies that
hinted of anti-Americanism—regularly provoked a
response from the United States.
 Cuba was one important example; see week 13.
Nicaragua

Anastasio Somoza Garcia first

grasped power in Nicaragua
in the 1930s, when members
of his Nicaraguan National
Guard killed the nationalist
Augusto Cesar Sandino.
 Sandino had earlier led a
guerrilla movement aimed at
ending U.S. interference in
Nicaragua.
 Nicaragua
In 1954, the CIA was also helping
Guatemalan rebels overthrow what
many believed was a communist-
inspired government.
 Somoza assisted the U.S. in Guatemala.
 He funneled weapons to noncommunist
Guatemalan rebels; and
 He outlawed the communist party in
Nicaragua.
Somoza and his sons would control
Nicaraguan politics for more than forty
years, aided by U.S. financial and
military support.
 Nicaragua

The brutality, corruption, and pro-U.S.

policies of the Somoza family alienated
Nicaraguans and other Latin American
nations.
 In the early 1960s, a few Nicaraguans
created the Sandinista Front for
National Liberation in honor of the
murdered Augusto Sandino.
 The Sandinistas launched guerrilla
operations aimed at overthrowing the
Somozas.
 They finally took power in 1979.
Nicaragua
 The Sandinistas were first
recognized by the
administration of U.S.
President Jimmy Carter.
 However, Carter’s staunchly
anti­communist successor,
Ronald Reagan, who
became president in 1981,
withdrew this recognition.
 Reagan believed that the
Sandinistas were helping
communist rebels
elsewhere in Central
America, such as El
Salvador.
 He halted aid to
Nicaragua and instituted
an economic boycott of
the country.
Nicaragua

 In 1983, Reagan offered increasing monetary and

military support to the Contras, a CIA-trained
counterrevolutionary group dedicated to overthrowing
the Sandinistas.
 However, the U.S. Congress imposed a two-year ban on
all military aid to the Contras in 1984.
 Reagan now went outside the law.
 In 1985, he provided funds for the Contras by using the
profits that accrued from secretly selling weapons to Iran.
 This scandal became public and highly visible in late 1986
and early 1987.
Nicaragua

 Peace was reached in Nicaragua in 1989

with the help of Central American
leaders and the presence of a UN
peacekeeping force.
 The Contras were disarmed.
 The Sandinistas lost power through
elections in 1990 but were re-elected in
2006.