Vietnam with Professor Jacobs
Following the conclusion of World War II, the United States was positioned to be the most powerful country in the world with the strongest economy and military. This demonstrated an insurmountable defense of free market capitalism and democratic superiority. This placed a dire strain on the world’s second strongest power, the communist Soviet Union. Almost immediately there was a new conflict of ideologies: capitalism and communism. Historian John Lewis Gaddis’ contention that the Soviet Union was principally responsible for starting the eventual Cold War is correct because of their refusal to commit to diplomatic relations during Yalta and Potsdam and their aggressive expansion in the Eastern Bloc. This, therefore, forced the United States’ to defend the integrity of international capitalism and democracy abroad; out of fear for the spread of Communism to the countries of Greece and Turkey and subsequently the rest of Eastern Europe.
In February 1945, The Yalta Conference was the beginning of the Soviet Union’s refusal to commit to the political goals of their Western counterparts. The moment at Yalta presented an opportunity for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin; they were all committed to agreeing to whatever it took to combat the unrelenting crisis of the Axis Powers. The Big Three agreed to commit to promoting free and fair elections in all of the previously Nazi occupied European countries following the end of war. However, Stalin was still devoted to expanding the Soviet sphere of influence to the Eastern Bloc of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. The Soviets’ position was adamant in their concern over Poland and the rise of Germany in the future. Germany marched through Poland and invaded the USSR which resulted in the deaths of over 27 million people. The eventual fracture of Germany between the UK, US, France, and USSR into different occupation zones and the split of Berlin between the East and West presented an existential battle of ideas for the future of the country. Obviously, any country would do anything in their power to prevent such an incalculable loss from ever happening again; which of course included the prevention of an autonomous Germany.
At the conclusion of WWII, the Truman administration was faced with a schism of interests in US domestic and international affairs. The Republican majority congress and the American public were not interested in funding more conflict abroad after the ordeal of the previous three years. This led to a major demobilization effort of forces out of Europe which placed the US in a compromising position in the face of the Red Army. The US was not equipped to prevent Soviet expansion and consequently could not stop their actions in Czechoslovakia and Poland. It was not until Secretary of State George Marshall went to a conference in Moscow that the US realized Stalin’s hopes for European economic collapse. The common understanding was that impoverished nations were highly susceptible to communism and economic fallout would certainly be exploited by the Soviet’s plans for expanding their sphere of influence. The US economy was dependent on healthy European markets and would suffer great economic loss if they fell. Meetings in Paris were held between European nations, Soviets, and the US on what could be done. Vyacheslav Molotov, USSR’s second in command, refused to agree to a sweeping US control over Europe and demanded that there be individual plans for the recovering nations.
From the years 1948 to 1949, a number of events shifted American public perception of the Soviet threat. Stalin sponsored a brutal communist coup of Czechoslovakia in 1948 that rendered Washington useless. Stalin made it clear he was not impressed by the Atom Bomb because the mobilization of his Red Army across Europe outnumbered the US forces 20:1. Following the coup, General Lucius Clay who was the head of the US occupation zone in Germany responded by sending a telegram to Washington, “War may soon come with dramatic suddenness.” The tension in Europe at this moment between the two world powers could not be understated.
The Marshall Plan was eventually endorsed by the US Republican congress and served as an unified economic recovery program of $17 billion for recovering nations. In the face of severe Soviet aggression, the US was obligated to prevent the economic fallout of Europe for the sake of their own economy and the threat of another world war. The Soviets responded by creating the Molotov Plan and Warsaw Pact which prevented Czechs and Poles from joining the Marshall Plan and further solidified their control over the Eastern Bloc. Their efforts only proved that the US administration’s suspicions were correct.
In June 1948, tensions came to the forefront of Berlin when Premier Stalin instituted a land and sea blockade, choking any food, supplies, and medicine from entering. West Berliners faced starvation at the hands of the tyrannical dictator. His conviction was that if there was no future plan to reunify Germany, then there is no reason to keep West Berlin under US occupation. The solution that the US constructed was one of the most successful humanitarian triumphs the Truman administration accomplished: the airlifting of supplies over Soviet occupied Germany and into Berlin. This averted the starvation of thousands and made Stalin look exceptionally cruel and unyielding. Consequently, in May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade.
That same year, the US joined NATO, which was the first time the country had joined a military pact during peacetime, alluding to the very real threat they perceived in this Cold War. Another month later, in August 1949, the Soviets successfully exploded an Atomic Bomb, destroying the supposed American superiority of weaponry in the global balance of power. This was the turning point for most Americans who previously never would have imagined the Soviets having the capabilities of creating such a weapon.
The Soviet Union, not the United States, was principally responsible for beginning the Cold War following the conclusion of WWII. The American public had zero interest in another war abroad but the aggressive war-like tactics the Soviet Union took in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany forced the US government’s hand. Stalin was a brutal dictator that killed millions of his own citizens and subjected millions of others to his Communist regime. The US was under no obligation to oblige the Soviet Union’s desires for solidified control over Eastern Europe. Premier Stalin’s ambitions outweighed all promises made during the two countries’ time of strategic alliance. His use of instilling political puppets, violent coup d’etats, and ambivalence to the post-war order demonstrated he was a tyrannical dictator that would stop at nothing to expand his influence. The United States was not the first mover of the Cold War; only a rejoinder. Had the Soviet Union not taken the aggressive actions they did, it is compelling to argue the 45-year old conflict between the two nations may not have occurred.
Anne Leahy 