The United States and the Soviet Union worked
together during World War II, but it was an uneasy alliance. There was mistrust on both sides because each
country had opposing ideologies and aims. The United States and its Western allies supported
capitalism and democracy, while the Soviet Union supported communism and totalitarianism. However, they set aside their differences
because they faced an enemy who was a great danger to the entire world – Hitler. The Soviet Union soon found itself repelling
an unexpected attack from Nazi Germany after Hitler broke his non-aggression pact with
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1941. The United States offered assistance to the
Soviet Union in the form of weapons and supplies through the Lend-Lease Act passed that same
year, and the Soviet Union accepted it. However, cooperation between the US and the
USSR broke down after Nazi Germany was defeated. Disputes emerged over various postwar issues,
particularly over the fate of Poland. According to a BBC article, the mistrust deepened
because of these disagreements, leading British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to warn in
1946 that an “iron curtain” was descending through the middle of Europe. The Cold War had begun. The Cold War received its name because the
US and the Soviet Union were not involved in a direct confrontation or what The History
Learning Site describes as a “hot war” with each other. Instead, as the JFK Presidential Library and
Museum states, the “two superpowers continually antagonized each other through political maneuvering,
military coalitions, espionage, propaganda, arms buildups, economic aid, and proxy wars
between other nations.” Striking examples of this mutual antagonism
occurred in the late 1940s. This is when Stalin created what biography.com
describes as “a vast ‘buffer zone’ between Western Europe and ‘Mother Russia.’” This buffer zone consisted of Eastern European
countries that were supposed to have free elections under an agreement Stalin made with
the US and Great Britain at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Breaking this agreement, Stalin installed
communist regimes in these countries between 1945 and 1948. US President Harry Truman countered Stalin’s
expansionist move with a policy of containment. One educational website defines containment
as a strategy “in which the Soviets would be prevented – militarily if necessary – from
using force to export their ideology abroad.” Containment resulted in a wide range of actions,
including the US offering economic recovery assistance to Western Europe through the Marshall
Plan in 1948 and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) between
the US, Canada, and other Western European countries. Stalin in turn attempted his own form of containment
in response to what he perceived as a threatening Western takeover of Germany in 1948. He could not stop the US, Great Britain, and
France from merging the zones of occupation they acquired after World War II into the
single economic entity of West Germany, but he could make them suffer for it. Berlin became his pawn in the famous Berlin
Blockade. The Soviets halted highway and railroad traffic
between the newly merged zones and Berlin, which was located deep in Soviet territory. Like Germany, Berlin was also divided into
four zones of occupation held by the Western allies and the Soviet Union. With their supplies cut off, West Berliners
faced starvation and shortages of basic necessities. As Stalin intended, the Berlin Blockade placed
the Western allies in an awkward situation. They would look weak if they gave in to Stalin. They would look heartless if they simply abandoned
Berlin. However, they did not want to go to war over
Berlin. They found another option. They countered the Berlin Blockade with the
Berlin Airlift. The Cold War Museum notes that “this airlift
lasted for 324 days, and approximately 13,000 tons of supplies a day were delivered.” The airlift was a success, and Stalin called
the blockade off in 1949. The Cold War waged on in the decades that
followed. The US mission to stop the spread of communism
and the Soviet mission to expand it led to their involvement in the Korean War, which
lasted from 1950 to 1953, and the Vietnam War, which ran from the 1950s to the 1970s. According to CNN, the US spent about $67 billion
on the Korean War, and it resulted in the deaths of 36,574 US troops. Most Soviet aid to the North Koreans and their
Chinese allies came in the form of military weapons, including Soviet PPSh-41 submachine
guns, T-34/85 medium tanks, and MiG-15 jet fighters. What did both superpowers get for all this
money, blood, and weaponry? The conflict ended with an armistice that
kept North Korea and South Korea divided into two separate regions with a demilitarized
zone between them. The USSR contributed to a communist victory
in the Vietnam War. It provided North Vietnam with arms and economic
aid. Globalsecurity.org states that “estimates
of the total cost of the Soviet Union's support to the North Vietnam government range from
$3.6 billion to $8 billion [in then-year U.S. dollars].” With Soviet and Chinese assistance, the North
Vietnamese and communist guerilla fighters known as the Viet Cong were motivated to continue
fighting despite suffering heavy troop losses. As history.com notes, they “refused to stop
fighting, encouraged by the fact that they could easily reoccupy lost territory with
manpower and supplies delivered via the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia and Laos.” Their determination to fight to the finish
played an important role in their victory. While the US had a formidable force of 2,594,000
soldiers in South Vietnam according to CNN, troop morale and public support waned in the
later years of the Vietnam War. History.com notes that a “robust anti-war
movement” took hold, leading to the desertions of “more than 503,000 U.S. military personnel”
and widespread anti-war protests in the US. In 1973, the US entered a peace agreement
with North Vietnam. However, South Vietnam continued to battle
the North Vietnamese until communist fighters overran Saigon on April 30, 1975. With the fall of Saigon, the South Vietnam
surrendered to North Vietnam, and South Vietnam has remained under communist control ever
since. Another Cold War crisis began in 1958. The Soviet leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev,
did not like West Berlin because of its capitalism and because of the large scale exodus of skilled
East Germans into West Berlin. He wanted to oust the US, Great Britain, and
France out of West Berlin and turn Berlin into what one source describes as a “free,
demilitarized city” controlled by the Soviet Union. The three countries refused to leave, so he
decided to address the migration problem another way. East Germany attempted to stop East German
migration with the construction of a barrier, the infamous Berlin Wall. The US made no attempt to stop the construction
of the wall, but tensions rose when East German border guards attempted to block Allied officials’
access to East Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became famous as the setting
of a 16-hour tank standoff between the US and the USSR. Fortunately, back channel negotiations between
US President John Kennedy and Khrushchev resolved the crisis, and the tanks left the following
day. One year later, Kennedy and Khrushchev faced
off again in another Cold War showdown: the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Kennedy did not want Khrushchev positioning
nuclear missiles so close to the US mainland in Cuba. He told Khrushchev to move them away, and
he ordered a naval blockade around Cuba to persuade Khrushchev to do so. Khrushchev sent Soviet ships near the US ships
forming the blockade. The two superpowers were playing a dangerous
game of chicken, and “many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war”
according to history.com. Khrushchev backed down, with Soviet ships
falling short of breaking the US blockade. An agreement involving Khrushchev’s removal
of the missiles, Kennedy’s pledge not to invade Cuba, and a secret deal for the removal
of US missiles in Turkey resolved the crisis. After a period of détente or improved relations
between the two superpowers in the 1970s, Cold War tensions reemerged in the 1980s under
US President Ronald Reagan. Reagan took a more aggressive approach toward
dealing with the Soviet Union than his predecessors did. To weaken the USSR, he would hit it in its
weak spot. He planned to cripple the Soviets economically. The economy of the Soviet Union was already
stagnant, “with productivity growth falling below zero by the early 1980s” according
to one source. He kept the economic pressure on them by drawing
them into an expensive arms race. The US dramatically boosted its military spending. For instance, the Cato Institute reports that
defense spending rose “from $214 billion in 1982 to $258 billion in 1983.” The Soviet Union could not keep spending money
to keep up with US development of new weapons such as the stealth bomber. International relations expert Harry Papasotiriou
argues that US plans for the high-tech Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) persuaded the Soviet
Union to “bid for a de-escalation of the arms race.” The US found other ways to hurt the Soviet
Union economically. For example, Norwich University Online describes
this strategy: “The United States isolated the Soviets from the rest of the world economy,
and helped drive oil prices to their lowest levels in decades. Without oil revenue to keep their economy
solvent, the Soviet Union began to crumble.” And crumble it did. Reagan’s policies combined with other factors
noted by the BBC, including growing “opposition to Soviet policies” in Eastern Europe and
Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika policies, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In his famous 1987 Berlin Wall speech, Reagan
urged Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall!” In 1989, others actually did, using picks,
hammers, bulldozers, and cranes. With the formal dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991, the Cold War officially came to an end. Do you think the Cold War is really over? Let us know in the comments! Also, be sure to check out our other video
called The Deadliest Submarine the USSR Ever Built! Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
forget to like, share, and subscribe. See you next time!
