The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century

7. The Patterns of the Cold War, 1945-89, and Their Aftermath

7 The Patterns of the Cold War, 1945-89, and Their Apemath The patterns of war after World War I1 emerged against a background of several historic developments. The first was the continuing technological revolution in the twentieth century, especially as regards nuclear explosives, their carriers, precision-guided munitions of all kinds, and electronics. The second was four decades of Cold War between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a rivalry compounded by the tendency of many countries to align themselves with one or the other of the two “superpowers” in opposing blocs. The third was the breakup of Western overseas empires in Asia and Africa, producing a myriad of successor states which oriented themselves to the West, the Communist bloc, or the so-called Third World of non-aligned countries. And finally, the United Nations, beset with Cold War rivalries and an explosion of national sovereignties across the globe, met with only limited success in its peace-keeping mission in the first decades of its existence. War became all too common in the turbulent world after 1945. I. The Early Cold War, 1945-50 The Cold War began in Europe with quarrels between Soviet Russia and its former Western allies over a peace treaty with Germany and the Soviet imposition of Communist governments in countries overrun by the Red Army during the course of World War 11. Britain, France, and the United States protested Joseph Stalin’sarbitrary changes of the frontiers in Eastern Europe to Soviet advantage and without reference to the West. The Western powers were especially angered by Soviet treatment of Poland, 7 The Patterns of the Cold War, 1945-89, and Their Aftermath The patterns of war after World War II emerged against a background of several historic developments. The first was the continuing technological revolution in the twentieth century, especially as regards nuclear explosives, their carriers, precision-guided munitions of all kinds, and electronics. The second was four decades of Cold War between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a rivalry compounded by the tendency of many countries to align themselves with one or the other of the two "superpowers" in opposing blocs. The third was the breakup of Western overseas empires in Asia and Africa, producing a myriad of successor states which oriented themselves to the West, the Communist bloc, or the so-called Third World of non-aligned countries. And finally, the United Nations, beset with Cold War rivalries and an explosion of national sovereignties across the globe, met with only limited success in its peace-keeping mission in the first decades of its existence. War became all too common in the turbulent world after 1945. I. The Early Cold War, 1945-50 The Cold War began in Europe with quarrels between Soviet Russia and its former Western allies over a peace treaty with Germany and the Soviet imposition of Communist governments in countries overrun by the Red Army during the course of World War II. Britain, France, and the United States protested Joseph Stalin's arbitrary changes of the frontiers in Eastern Europe to Soviet advantage and without reference to the West. The Western powers were especially angered by Soviet treatment of Poland, The Patterns o f the Cold War, 1945-89, and Their Aftermath 267 for whose independence Britain and France had gone to war in 1939. Tensions were further heightened by the outbreak of a Communistinspired civil war in Greece even before the end of World War 11,followed by the internal Communist overthrow of the democratic government in Czechoslovakia in March 1948. When Stalin imposed a land blockade of the Western sectors of occupied Berlin in May 1948, the governments of Western Europe and North America concluded that Stalin was intent on dominating Europe and capable of using the Red Army-at the time, 175 mobilizable divisions and the largest military force in the world-as a tool of Soviet aggression. While an Anglo-American Berlin Airlift supplied the garrisons and people of West Berlin for a year, and the Marshall Plan (announced in 1947) aided in Western Europe’s economic recovery, the West European and North American governments began to take measures for their common defense. In April 1949, the representatives of twelve nations-the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland-met in Washington, D.C., to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. The treaty created the North...