Chapter 38: The Bipolar World

Vocabulary

• Berlin Airlift: airlift in 1948 that supplied food and fuel to citizens of West Berlin when the Russians closed off land access to Berlin. 

• Nuclear Arms Race: The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers. 

• Containment: A United States policy using military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to temper the spread of Communism, enhance America’s security and influence abroad, and to prevent a “domino effect”. 

• Cuban Revolution: A revolution led by Fidel Castro and a small band of guerrilla fighters against a corrupt dictatorship in Cuba. Lasted from 1956-1959. 

• Bay of Pigs: A small inlet of the Caribbean Sea on the southern coast of western Cuba. It was the site of an ill-fated invasion on April 17, 1961, when a force of 1,500 U.S.-trained guerrilla troops landed in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro and failed.

• Missile crisis: A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. The Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence since the success of the Cuban Revolution three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy of the United States set up a naval blockade of Cuba and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. Khrushchev did. 

• “Domestic containment”: Domestic containment was the domestic manifestation of the foreign policy of containment, articulated in 1947 by Foreign Service officer George F. Kennan. When applied to a domestic context, containment produced a suppression of all social and cultural elements deemed subversive and threatening to national security because of their deviation from the state-supported ideal. 

• Black Nationalism: This was the advocacy of separate national status for black people. This movement was especially prevalent in the United States. At the forefront of this movement was Martin Luther King Jr. 

• Charles de Gaulle: Charles de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who became very popular during World War II as the leader of the Free French forces in exile. He lived from 1890 to 1970. 

• De-Stalinization: A social process of neutralizing the influence of Joseph Stalin by revising his policies and removing monuments dedicated to him and renaming places named in his honor; "his statue was demolished as part of De- Stalinization". 

• Prague Spring: A brief period of liberalization in Czechoslovakia, ending in August 1968, during which a program of political, economic, and cultural reform was initiated 

• Détente: The easing of hostility or strained relations, especially between countries around the time period of the Cold War. 

• Mikhail Gorbachev: Mikhail Gorbachev was the seventh and last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms. He served from 1985 until 1991 as the General Secretary, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991 

• Velvet Revolution: A nonviolent political revolution, esp. the relatively smooth change from communism to a Western-style democracy in Czechoslovakia at the end of 1989. 

Focus Question #1

            How was the rest of the world affected by the U.S./U.S.S.R. rivalry? Use specific examples.

            The direct rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union was known as the Cold War, but their rivalry could also be seen in the Korean War, in Germany, and in Cuba’s missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs.

            The U.S. thought the Korean War was brought about by the Soviets, and they immediately began “to provide the Republic of Korea with all necessary aid to repel the aggressors”. The aggressors mentioned afore were of course the North Koreans. The United States forces combined the South Korean troops pushed the North Koreans as far back as to the thirty-eighth parallel, at which point China intervened and assisted North Korea with an army of 300,000 Chinese soldiers. These Chinese soldiers combined with the North Korean troops halted the combined forces of the U.S. and South Korea and pushed them back to the thirty-eighth parallel. At this location, the Korean War became a stalemate that lasted until a cease fire was agreed upon in July of 1953.

            Germany was affected by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. rivalry in that the Soviet Union blocked off all road, rail, and water links between Berlin and Western Germany. This eventually led to the United States intervening in the form of the Berlin Airlift in 1948 that supplied food and fuel to citizens of West Berlin.

            Cuba was also a site of conflict between the United States and the U.S.S.R., largely because the U.S. had declared the western hemisphere off limits to the rest of the world and the Soviet Union ignored that. The Soviets set up an agreement with the Cubans in which they would purchase fifty percent of the sugar they produced, while also assisting them in developing a nuclear missile program, which brought about the Bay of Pigs. The Bay of Pigs was the site of an ill-fated invasion on April 17, 1961, when a force of 1,500 U.S.-trained guerrilla troops landed in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro and failed. Castro captured and executed many of the surviving Americans.

Focus Question #2

            To what extent do the revolts against the Soviet Union in the 190’s reflect the revolutions of the 19th century? To what extent do they demonstrate the historic difficulties of maintaining any large empire, like Han China, Rome, Persia, Byzantine, or Ottoman?

            When too much power is given to a single ruler they become power hungry for even more power, and it runs in a vicious circle.

            The United States and Soviet Union wanted to control everything, as history has showed us such as in the Han Dynasty, Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire, Roman Empire, and the Persian Empire. All of these empires or dynasties fell for multiple reasons, but they can be summarized into a few, simple categories; lower class rebellions, invaded and conquered by other peoples, go bankrupt (often from having to continue to maintain a military in a time of peace), or the rulers grow too weak or corrupt and leads the empire to self-destruct.

            Because the Soviet Union grew so much Stalin became so engorged with power that he started taking liberties away from the people of Russia so he could feel more in control. This in turn infuriated the Russians to fight back for their freedoms. Soviet Russia did not have the organization and power to control a large enough empire without successful retaliation.