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American YAWP - Chapter 25 - The Cold War

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all right this is the American yach

chapter 25 the Cold War so the cold war

is the global event that follows World

War II so recall last chapter World War

II uh that started conventionally in

1939 when Hitler invaded Poland and

ended in

1945 immediately as World War II ends

the world is sent into this other

conflict we refer to it as the C war and

in terms of the dates although you could

make an argument that a lot of the

features of the Cold War existed prior

to World War II we typically say that it

started in 1945 so that as soon as World

War II ended the Cold War began and this

lasted until

1989 so one important thing to keep in

mind as we make our way through future

chapters is that the cold war is going

to be going on in the background for

almost the rest this textbook so um you

know do keep that in mind and

understanding some of the key components

in this chapter will help us understand

future chapters we're introducing this

chapter with an image here of a testing

of a nuclear weapon in Nevada in 1962

and this points to uh an important

feature of the Cold War and that

something that we call the arms race and

the arms race was a competition by the

United States and the Soviet Union to

develop the latest and greatest in terms

of weapon technology and we can connect

that back to the ending of World War II

uh the atomic weapons that were used on

Japan to force their surrender the idea

is that um you know nations want to

continue building bigger batter more

destructive Weaponry so why don't we go

ahead and just Define the Cold War here

in terms of uh a definition and then we

can uh we can progress from there so as

far as the cold war is concerned we're

going to Define this as the

global uh

political and

ideological

struggle between

capitalists

and

communist

countries so an important feature of the

Cold War is this term ideological so

when you see the term ideological think

idea and that is to say the cold war is

much more a battle over ideas than it is

about let's say territory or resource

ources although those things definitely

do have a role here and the two ideas

that are represented here are the ideas

of capitalism on the one hand and

communism on the uh on the other now

these are mostly in terms of like uh you

know economic

modalities um but they end up being

proxies for a lot of other things during

this conflict now even though this is an

ideological struggle and and and

actually there's a a phrase here that

will help us better understand

what exactly the cold war is about and

they said this in fact at the time and

that was to quote

unquote win the hearts and

Minds so the idea is that for each side

the capitalist and communist Nations is

to convince the world that their

economic system that their political

system is superior now in terms of the

major drivers or motivators of the Cold

War it's going to be the the superpower

Nations and this term superpower is

something that we use in the post World

War II period to describe two Nations

specifically the superpowers we'll say

these are the

two

Nations which

emerged

from World War

II a

leading the

world in

wealth

power and

influence you know the case in terms of

you know geopolitics prior to World War

I and during World War II itself is that

you had world powers you know you had

countries like Japan and Germany and

Britain and France and the United States

and Soviet Union and you know it wasn't

really clear which nation was superior

to the others and this had been the case

for quite some time but after World War

II because of the way that J Japan Was

Defeated because of the way that Germany

was defeated uh France was occupied

Nations like uh Britain you even though

they did emerge on the Victorious side

the British had fought in World War II

longer than any of the other Victorious

powers and so they were forced to give

up their empire so after the war was

over there's really only two Nations

that stand above everyone else in terms

of wealth power and influence and we

don't just call them world powers we

call them superpowers because there's

really nobody else close and it's the

superpowers that lead uh this cold war

um one is the United

States and the United States represents

and will fight and influence for the

ideas of

capitalism and

democracy the other one is the Soviet

[Music]

Union which is for

communism and if you're a little bit

confused about okay what's capitalism

and what's communism they're different

economic models you know capitalism uh

Champions individual ownership um

communism is State ownership uh you

might think about this in terms of a

very simple uh example of something like

private property right in the United

States individuals own their own land uh

in a communist system the resources are

not or you know property is not owned by

individuals but it's owned by the state

right communally that's the idea um and

in terms of the Soviet political system

it's mostly one party rule you know the

Communist Party

uh you know they have elections within

their own party but uh they're

interested in advancing the ideology of

uh of Communism so when we think about

the Cold War conventionally you know in

a broader sense yes it is a struggle

between the capitalists and communist

countries but a lot of times we say look

the cold war is really the United States

versus the Soviet Union capitalism

versus communism you know that's a

little bit more simplified of a uh of an

explanation now an important thing to

understand about the development of the

Cold War is that these two Nations the

United States and the Soviet unions had

actually been allies during World War II

you know you had the US and the Soviets

but we saw that during World War II even

though the Americans and the Soviets got

along because they had a common enemy in

Germany right you know that old adage

the enemy of my enemy is my friend

having a a mutual enemy in Germany made

this Alliance possible but as Germany

was being defeated you know even before

their official surrender as the German

threat was being put away this

cooperation between the Americans and

the Soviets began to disintegrate and

you saw this happening a little bit

during some of those post-war

conferences where the Americans and the

Soviets were trying to decide what are

we going to do after the war and

eventually they couldn't figure anything

out the best example was the case of

Japan

remember that um during World War II an

agreement that was made between the

Soviets and the Americans was that the

Americans had agreed to attack Germany

if the Soviets agreed to attack Japan

well by the time the war unfolded the

Americans went at Japan alone without

Soviet uh assistance they didn't want it

and uh and they didn't need it so the

Cold War and this animosity that

develops between the Soviets and the

Americans it's it's it's sort of uh you

know step by by stamp and event by event

the relationship deteriorates by the

ending of World War II the American

ambassador to the Soviet Union George

Kennan sends a Long Telegram back to the

United States outlining the current

diplomatic situation between the Soviets

and the Americans so The Long Telegram

will say this is a

communication uh

from the uh we'll say

the

Soviet

Ambassador I guess technically the

proper I mean he technically wasn't the

Ambassador I guess but still um from the

[Music]

ambassador to the Soviet Union that

proper way to put

it oops

and what he said in that Long Telegram

George Canon was that

cooperation is not

possible and this outlined the approach

that the United States would take

diplomatically with the Soviet Union

seeking other ways to deal with

Communism and to deal with the Soviets

Dena cooperation we have a quote here

from Kennan in The Long Telegram he says

quote World communism is like a

malignant parasite which feeds only on

disease tissue Russian nationalism in

the new guise of international Marxism

is more dangerous and Insidious than

ever before George Kenan The Long

1946 this uh divide between the Soviets

and American worlds was further

solidified when Winston Churchill uh

former prime minister in Great Britain

and who was uh Britain's leader during

World War II came to the United States

and more or less airm this division

between uh capitalism and communist uh

capitalism and communism gave a speech

called the Iron Curtain and in this

speech Churchill said that the

Eastern European

block or we'll just say Eastern European

nations they

under Soviet

influence had

been cut

off from the

rest of the

world right an iron curtain has

descended over Eastern Europe and that

was characteristic of the fact that as

World War II ended when Soviet and

American armies marched towards Germany

the countries of Eastern Europe were

liberated by the Soviet Union so after

the war was over because the Soviets had

liberated those Nations they had the

boots on the ground so they were able to

reconstruct those governments in a way

that they saw fit and similarly for the

Nations that the United States and Great

Britain and other allies had liberated

they got to control or influence what

type of governments they constructed and

so the dividing lines between where

Soviet and American troops had met

during World War II that became this

great division um not just in Europe but

around the world and you know going uh

you know forward in the Cold War you

know typically when the term West is

used we mean the capitalist Nations and

when the terms East are used we mean

communist Nations right so east west

um Soviet Union United States communism

capitalism all of these things become

you know synonyms right you can fill in

one uh one for the other um as far as

this conflict goes again an important

thing to keep in mind I would say is

that you know looking at it at a macro

level um this quote here does come in

very handy the idea is to win the hearts

and minds of people around the world and

one of the reasons why we call it a

quote unquote Cold War it's because the

idea is that

cold means that no

direct

fighting occurred

[Music]

between the US and Soviet

Union were a quote unquote Hot War now

they don't have anything called the you

know the the hot War but you know if a

war were quote unquote hot that would be

things like you know

bombs guns you know etc etc so a a

unique feature again it's called a war

which might be a little bit

misleading um but this war is much more

a war of ideas now there will be

conflicts and we will cover them in uh

in this chapter and in future chapters

but those conflicts are called proxy

wars and a proxy wars a war that is not

directly between the United States and

the Soviet Union but the United States

and the Soviet Union will be able to

fight each other indirectly so again

it's cold because there's no direct

fighting between the United States and

the Soviet Union as opposed to a you

know Hot War um now as far as the Cold

War goes there's pretty much three

phases of it or we can track you know

sort of three phases uh the first Cold

War this is from you know the 1940s as

World War II is coming to a conclusion

up until the 19

1960s then we enter into the period

known as Deton Deton is a period

say of

relaxed

tension and this is mostly the 1970s so

in the 1970s the competition between the

Americans and the Soviets tends to die

down a little bit um there's a little

bit more cooperation going on in this

period um than in earlier periods um but

the cold war picks back up again in the

quote unquote second Cold War and this

is from 1979 to

1989 so once again you know as we make

our way through the next couple of

chapters um this conflict will be going

on in the background from the 1940s all

the way until

1980 section two political economic and

Military

Dimension so like we mentioned earlier

at some of the post-war conferences

specifically Yalta and potam uh these

were conferences of the Allied powers

during World War II so

conferences uh with United States

Britain and Soviet

Union and early on in the war most of

these conferences were dedicated to

coordinating the war effort you know how

are we us three nations how are we going

to defeat the Germans how are we going

to defeat uh the Japanese well these

later conferences Yalta and potam they

were much more about what was going to

happen uh after the war was over you

know how are we going to rebuild once we

win because by that time victory was a

little bit more clear for the Allied

side how can we reconstruct the post-war

world and uh they were really mired by

non-cooperation

between the US and Soviet Union you know

Britain's going to have to take a back

seat uh a little bit here in the cold

war and some examples that we find of

non-cooperation is one well we'll just

list these things here a

divided

Germany so there was no consensus in

terms of what to do with Germany after

the war was over so instead what the

Allied Powers agreed upon was to divide

Germany in four different parts now at

this time they had hoped that this was

only going to be

temporary that perhaps you know they

might not be able to find a solution

right here right now but maybe in the

future they can figure something out

this agreement to divide Germany into

four parts this ends up being a

permanent condition right for Germany

and part of it was because they couldn't

find anything uh cooperating with

uh another reason is that Roosevelt

died in 1945 just right before Germany

surrendered and his successor Harry

Truman was more well say har Truman was

uh Truman

was we'll say anti-communist might be a

good way of uh putting it no he was not

as interested in cooperating with the

Soviet Union as Roosevelt was and you

know there was a certain degree of

familiarity between Roosevelt and Stalin

for example the two had been meeting

they had an opportunity to build a

relationship with each other and you

know when Truman came in you know he

wasn't as familiar with the process of

diplomacy and and uh wasn't really

looking to cooperate maybe as much and

the third thing is that the United

States by this point had an atomic bomb

and so from the perspective of the

United states with the atomic weapon

there was certainly a sentiment or a

feeling that we don't need any help or

cooperation in fact you saw that in how

the war unfolded in Japan um you know

the United States defeated Japan without

Soviet assistance with the use of this

Atomic weapon so those are just three

examples of the type of non-cooperation

that started to emerge in some of these

post-war uh meetings um this

non-cooperation only continues right as

as the Cold War progresses on another

great example of this is the Breton

Woods conference the Breton Woods

conference this was a conference say

conference to

establish the

[Music]

postwar

onomy right what would the economy look

like after the war was over because

foras deadly and destructive that the

war was uh there was an entire side of

uh you know the economy that needed also

to be uh considered and what this

essentially did was to

create say an

international primarily

capitalists

system and a lot of nations were

represented at the bretonwood conference

United States would take uh somewhat of

a leading role there in reestablishing

or rebuilding the post-war Global

Financial system and the Soviet Union

who attended it uh they rejected

it rejected it know they did not want to

be part of this new international order

uh you know on the side of the the

economic so we can see the political

disagreements and the economic

disagreements um you know happening

immediately after the war was was over

now as far as the relationship between

the United States and the Soviet Union

goes there was essentially three choices

that the United States could take or not

three choices but there was a range of

actions the United States could have

taken in response to Communism on the

one hand the most aggressive action

would have been something like World War

III you know was the tension and

non-cooperation between the Soviets and

the Americans so intense that perhaps

World War I was required or desired well

considering that World War II was so

deadly and so destructive neither side

really had an appetite for another War

so as much as the Soviets and the

Americans dislike each other neither

side was really wanting another conflict

there was also the ability to Simply do

nothing and that is to allow communism

to influence and spread around the world

while the United States returns back to

a period of isolationism

and if we recall from World War I that's

exactly the uh uh position that the

United States had taken that taken an

isolationist uh position well after

World War II uh many Americans you know

those especially in in leadership

positions don't think it's the wisest

idea to just Retreat from the world uh

especially considering some of the

lessons that were learned from World War

II uh you know some would point out that

it was because of American isolationism

that you know Fascism and other radical

uh regime spread so doing nothing is

rejected and what the Americans

eventually settle on is a strategy that

is somewhere in the middle and that is

containment and uh here in this uh you

know section here these two policies of

containment and the Truman Doctrine

these end up being very important

guiding principles as far as the cold

war is concerned both of these will more

or less be followed by the United States

from 1945 to 1989 so um you know get

these policies down now and it helps

explain American action in the world

again for the next 40 years or so so

containment this is the

policy say the US

policy of

preventing

the spread of

[Music]

Communism and this was inspired by The

Long Telegram and George

Kennan inspired by

Kennan again it's not World War III it's

not doing nothing essentially what the

United States is saying is that

currently where communism exists that's

okay that's acceptable but if communism

is to spread to another area that's

going to call for United States action

and that's pretty much the the position

that the US will uh will approach

according to George Kennan in 19 uh 1947

the Soviet Union quote should be sorry

the United States quote should regard

the Soviet Union as a rival and not a

partner and that is very much the

relationship now another guiding

principle besides containment is the

Truman Doctrine which is named for the

uh the president Harry Truman who came

in into office after Roosevelt passed

away in 1945 in fact it was Truman who

was president during the ending of World

War II and it was Truman who decided to

use the atomic weapons Truman is also

someone that believes in containment and

wants the United States to take a much

more proactive approach but he is

concerned about some of the isolationist

sentiment that is happening now the

Truman Doctrine there's two ways of

looking at it one is a literal way and

in terms terms of what the Truman

Doctrine was literally was that this was

speech

given by

[Music]

Truman to

Congress to get

Aid get pretty much mean money right get

money to

prevent communism

specifically in the countries of

Greece and

Turkey so uh you know with um the defeat

Nazism the question of well what

government is going to succeed in places

like Greece and Turkey these were

Nations that the British had

historically had a lot of influence over

but the British after World War II are

are forced to give up their empire so

the British are retreating from the

world and the question is well what is

going to fill that vacuum and the

Americans and Truman specifically fear

that in Greece and Turkey that communism

might take hold so he's trying to get

Congress to say look we need to reject

isolationism we need to put money

towards uh Greece and Turkey and prevent

communism there now in the short term

Truman is successful he gets money from

Congress uh communism is defeated in

Greece and Turkey and Greece and Turkey

become two uh important

uh allies in the broader Cold War but in

Truman's speech he he outlines a vision

for American action in the world and it

really becomes a guiding principle for

American foreign policy um going forward

um in this speech and we have a little

bit of a quote here from Truman in his

Doctrine he says qu or first of all it

says it falls on the United States to

quote support free people's resisting

attempt tempted sub subjugation by

outside pressures so this dichotomy

between free and

subjugated uh the Truman Doctrine in

some sense Paints the

world in quote unquote black and

white and what black and white mean are

you know free which means

capitalists

and

subjugated which means

[Music]

communist and what that means for the

United States is that um as far as the

uh the world goes there's really just

two sides you know you're either uh

either free or either

subjugated uh it's either free or

subjugated and that's very much the

Outlook that the United States has you

know it's you know free and subjugated

are you know kind of coded terms for

capitalist and Communists but as far as

the American perspective goes towards

the rest of the world there's just two

sides right you're either with us or

against us and the Truman Doctrine

doesn't leave a lot of room for

countries to for example be neutral or

stay out of it um not according to the

United States and it also

commits the US

us to Global I mean maybe not so much

Global at this time I mean that's yeah

we we'll keep Global in here it's it's

somewhat

inferred uh

intervention in other words the Truman

Doctrine

rejects

isolationism so this idea that there's

only two sides right capitalist and

communist no room in between the idea

that the United States is committing

itself to other countries around the

world that it's rejecting isolationism

all these things are again these are the

guiding principles that motivate US

foreign policy for the next 40 years so

containment Truman Doctrine and their uh

and their significance now one of the

first areas that we find these policies

in action is in Europe and in Europe

following World War II Not only was

world to the deadliest conflict killing

80 million people but it was severely

disrupting in terms of like damaging

infrastructure you know roads Bridges uh

you know telephone wires you know

everything has been destroyed there's

homelessness and so one of the great

fears for the United States was that

communism would spread in Europe and the

reason why communism would spread in

Europe was because the economic

situation was so poor that people would

elect communist repres representatives

and this was somewhat the case during uh

the Great Depression you know when

they're bad Economic Times people are

willing to embrace more radical ideas

and so for fear we'll say the martiall

plan for

fear that

communism say may

be they

voted voted in so this is not a fear of

communist takeover from the outside this

is a fear that the ideas of Communism

will appeal to war torn

countries the

US provided and this is what the

Marshall Plan

is uh what is it $13

billion for

European

the

reconstruction after World War

II so essentially the best way to

prevent communism is to just dump a

bunch of money on war torn Europe and

the Marshall Plan ends up being a very

successful plan you know those Nations

that get um United States Aid uh they

end up rebuilding their economies rather

quickly I think you know some textbook

call it the economic Miracle the

rebuilding from 1945 to 1950 and strong

stable capitalist economies end up being

a pretty good deterrent against the

ideas of Communism so not only does

Europe properly rebuild after the war is

over but for the countries that received

martial Aid dollars um you know they

became allies for the United States for

a very long time and were not enticed by

the ideas of of Communism here we have a

quot qu from General George Marshall for

who the Marshall Plan is named after

says quote United States should do

whatever it is able to do to assist in

the return of normal economic health to

the world without which there can be no

peace so major economic plan economic

aid rebuild Europe Stave off communism

uh that was the idea now the Marshall

Plan interestingly enough was designed

to go to All European countries however

the Nations that were under Soviet

control that had installed Communist

governments the quote unquote satellite

States these are the we're going to call

them the quote unquote independent

because

technically these are nations that are

independent nations of Eastern

Europe these were the ones that were

liberated by the Soviet Union so now

that the war is over their policies and

governments are going to be dictated by

the Soviet Union this is the independent

nations of Eastern Europe

under

Soviet

control with

Communist

governments right this is what uh we

might also describe if we use the uh

previous term the Iron Curtain Nations

right when Winston Churchill said that

an iron curtain had descended over

Europe he was talking about these

satellite states which again technically

they're independent but in reality um

the Soviet Union really dicks gets to

dictate what goes on uh as this foreign

minister from uh I guess at the time

would have been Czechoslovakia the Czech

foreign minister said quote we went to

Moscow Moscow is the capital of the

Soviet Union we went to Moscow as the

foreign minister of an independent and

sovereign state but returned as a Lackey

of the Soviet government as like a stoe

or a fool of the Soviet government so

this foreign minister is very much

reflecting the idea that um you know

these nations truly are independent now

Stalin who was the uh leader of the

Soviet Union

again Stalin is the Soviet

leader Stalin saw the Marshall Plan Aid

as somewhat of a a trojan horse right he

didn't trust that the aid was going uh

to Europe just out of the you know

Goodwill of the Americans which it

wasn't it had political motives so what

he did for the satellite States He

forced them to reject

it rejected the Marshall

Plan and um you know this will create

and ends up creating a a pretty

significant divide between the Western

and Eastern uh European nations as far

as their economies are concerned not

just the fact that the West accepted

Marshall Plan Aid in the East didn't

that contributes to it but it's the way

in which the two economies are oriented

under uh the respective U you know

superpowers right superpowers now up

until this point the tension between the

United States and the Soviet Union has

has grown more non-cooperative you know

diplomacy Has Broken down but it hasn't

turned outright violent and certainly

considering that World War II just ended

neither side really wanted conflict

again but pretty soon uh this uh tension

that was building up between the Soviets

and the United States would have the

potential for violence not that it would

break out in violence but both sides

would realize that a war might be

possible and all of this occurred over

the city of Berlin now weall that

Berlin is the German

capital and the German Capital as a

result of you know not being able to

really figure out an agreement was

divided into four

zones along with Germany which was

divided into four zones so it's a little

bit weird in terms of uh you know how it

looks but let's uh do our best to uh

draw Germany here I have no you know no

idea how Germany is shaped it's shaped

something like this um but uh the way

that Germany had been divided after the

war was that Soviets got a big chunk in

the East that's where the Red Army had

invaded and the Americans and the

British and the French they would divide

up the rest of Germany so you had you

know American Zone French Zone and a

British Zone and then you had a Soviet

zone the city of Berlin which was the

capital

was located in the Soviet zone right but

this city was also divided into four

different pieces so uh you had in Berlin

what we might describe right if this is

you know all the Soviet zone and we'll

you put it red for the Soviet Union you

had this little tiny

island of Berlin that served somewhat

like uh you know quote unquote an

island of

capitalism in a

sea of

Communism all right so is the second I

mean it looks really small but we're

talking about like three million people

of a capital city but this this section

of American occupied and American

controlled territory surrounded by uh

Eastern Germany which eventually became

uh called and it was this little speck

uh of Berlin that uh you had a again a

pretty significant situation unfold

which almost led the Americans and the

Soviets into war and we call this the

Berlin blockade or the Berlin airlift so

essentially what happened was that the

Americans the British and the French

because they all you know represented

the capitalist Democratic side of the

Cold War they decided essentially to use

a uniform currency uh in the western

part of Germany in some sense combining

their sections together

so we might say in

response do the

British and

French we'll call it quote unquote a

combined

currency

Stalin

blockaded

I'll say blockaded we'll just say

American

Berlin so you can imagine right from

this again very poorly drawn map here

that in this you know quote unquote

island of capitalism there would have

been roads and trains and all sorts of

other things leading into the city well

Stalin effectively blockaded that entire

section and what Stalin was counting on

was that the Americans and the British

would just give up right this this

section here that it wasn't essentially

worth fighting over and in some sense he

was right because the Americans were not

interested in fighting over it right

this wasn't reason enough to call uh you

know to to declare World War II but the

Americans were also not willing just to

stand by and do nothing and that was

rather than let the people in Western

Berlin be starved out of you know food

and resources and other things the

Americans the British and the French and

other allies would airlift supplies to

the people of Western Berlin effectively

making the blockade uh um uh obsolete

right effectively making it so that it

had no effect so the Berlin blockade

Stalin's blockading of Western Berlin

was responded with the Berlin airlift

this is the US

response to the blockade

lasted and and and to you know clear it

up it's uh blockade we'll just say uh

airlifted

supplies to West

Berlin for 11 months this went on and

again you can imagine you know things

had gotten pretty tense because yes uh

you know the Soviets were counting on

the fact that the United States was not

willing to wage war over a blockade but

you know when Nations start blockading

each other there you know there have

been lesser offenses that have led to

war between two Nations and when the

Americans started airlifting supplies

into Berlin you know it might have just

taken one Rogue Soviet officer to start

shooting at American airplanes that

could have caused World War too so a

very tense situation It ultimately did

not lead to a direct War but it led to a

sense that a war could be possible right

maybe in the future um eventually though

as Americans continued to airlift in

supplies and showed no uh willing this

to uh to back down or to stop the

Soviets or

Stalin removed the

blockade and this was considered a

tremendous American you know Victory I

mean at least in terms of just the

Optics of it that the th was forced to

relent and the United States would

retain control of Western Berlin for the

duration of uh of the Cold War

eventually they would

build a wall oops eventually they would

build a wall around this island here and

that wall that they built around that

that was that would be known as the

Berlin

wall and uh what result Ed from this and

you know if this wasn't already clear

from before was that this temporary

division in Berlin and this temporary

division of Germany became permanent so

uh Germany became divided the western

part of

Germany so essentially the British the

Americans and

um uh the French all

combined their uh section into West

Germany the Soviets

Eastern

Germany and uh that pretty much remained

the case all the way until 1989 right

Germany would provided here so uh let's

just your textbook mentions the actual

names of these nations so

let's go ahead and outline them

so West this was called the

federal repu of Germany

the

East it's called the

German

Democratic

Republic and

Germany

was

permanently be

divided until 1989 right so this

temporary division turned permanent and

uh Germany became uh kind of a Berlin

especially right Berlin became a a

microcosm of the Cold War East West

divide literally a wall eventually being

built between the two sides and um when

we say that the Cold War ended in 1989

it's actually because the Berlin Wall is

destroyed and and you know because the

Wall came to symbolize the Cold War its

destruction symbolized the uh but you

can see the American British and

Canadian effort to airlift all the

supplies um you know I believe that like

uh an airplane landed every 90 seconds

or something like that so um it was um

you know a very big um project that was

undertaken by the United States to

preserve Western Berlin on the side of

um capitalism and democracy now in

response to the Berlin blockade and the

Berlin airlift this increased tension

this sort of ramping up of potential

outbreak for War uh left both sides

seeking military alliances and that's

exactly what they did in 1949 the United

States and Allied Nations created the

military Alliance known as NATO the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization this

was a military

Alliance uh milit

Alliance of the

Us and

other capitalist democracies

and in response the Soviet Union formed

the Warsaw pack was the same thing the

military

Alliance of the Soviets anything but the

opposite

side and

other

communists and uh NATO North Atlantic

Treaty Organization this was you know

primarily a defensive um agreement and

the idea was and this was the

slogan an

attack on

one an

attack on

all and so the United States was

committing itself to the defense of

other nations which traditionally and

historically the United States really

hadn't done that you know the US had

been part of wars and conflicts but they

had always joined those conflicts more

or less on their own terms but now the

United States is committing itself to

the defense of other capitalist

democracies and kind of in the same way

that World War I um you know the one of

the contributing factors to that war was

the alliance Network we have a little

bit of a recreation of an alliance

Network and so it means that potentially

right potentially a smaller conflict

might boil over into much bigger bigger

conflict right and so U you know in some

sense we might assess that the world is

maybe uh maybe more dangerous now for

the most part the United States was

primarily concerned about communism in

Europe right you know the episode over

Berlin the example when it came to the

Marshall Plan um you know the Soviet

Union in a sense was in Europe or at

least Soviet soldiers were in Europe but

in 1949 the United States would

realize uh that the cold war is actually

much more Global than what they

anticipated and their attention is going

to be ripped away from Europe to the

rest of the world specifically in Asia

because in 1949 a very important

development takes place and that is the

founding of the People's Republic of

China this is uh we'll say the

communist regime

China and it came to

Power by

defeating uh Chen Kai

Shack you remember from last

section

and and and

the

Chinese

nationalists in the Chinese Civil

War and this was a big blow to the

United States you know if the United

States policy is to contain Communism

then allowing communism to take over the

biggest country in the world world has

got to be you know about as as big of a

failure as one could uh as one could

imagine and you know the United States

really felt like it's uh you know it

failed in this it wasn't paying enough

attention to Asia it was too focused on

Europe too focused on Berlin and while

the Americans were too focused there Mao

zong who is the

leader the leader of the Chinese

communists

uh managed to take control of the

country uh Chen Kai and the nationalists

who were you know they were seen as uh

you know the side that the United States

had supported they were forced to

evacuate to the island of Taiwan and

when the peoples of Republic of China

when you know when they came to power

the US

refused to recognize

China as the uh as the legitimate

government but it became clear now that

with Chinese success or with MAO success

and the Communist Party taking over in

China that Joseph Stalin you know the

major adversary of the Cold War now had

a very important Ally in Mao Zong and um

you know and communist China so what was

the United States response to this well

the response was that you know we here

in the United States we dropped the ball

we should have been more Vigilant in

preventing communism around the world

and we need to escalate our involvement

and expand our involvement around the

world now this was already you know we

might say that this idea was already

implicit in the Truman Doctrine when

Truman said that there are free and

subjugated people and wherever there are

free people fighting subjugation we're

going to help you but this was made even

more clear with a uh a National Defense

memo known as NSC 68 this is a

national National Defense

memo uh in

response to communist

China and essentially it said that the

United States was going to be more

aggressive in pursu

um you know anti-communist efforts uh

around the world we just say uh

increased uh we'll say us say

[Music]

militarism and

commitment uh increase us militarism and

commitment to fighting

[Music]

communism

globally so after um you know after that

you find that the United States is much

more involved in places like Asia and

it's fact partially because of the

success of Communists in China that we

have essentially the first quote unquote

Hot War of uh of the Cold War and that

is the Korean War which started in 1950

ended in 1953 and is sometimes referred

to as the forgotten War so you might say

about the Korean War this is the

first quote unquote Hot

War meaning that um this is a war that

would have actual fighting and bombing

and killing and all the other things

that we associate with war but it's a

war that is like pretty much all other

wars during the Cold War and it's not

direct so it's not directly between the

United States and the and the Soviets

but we'll see that the Soviets and the

Americans they're able to fight each

other indirectly right this is a proxy

war so there's a couple of things that

are going on in uh in Korea So

Korea as a country had been a Japanese

colony and had been a colony in fact

even prior to World War II but when the

Japanese were defeated the question was

well what's going to happen with Korea

because Japan can't hold on to it

anymore right they lost the war and so

what ends up happening is that it ends

up being divided by by the powers right

the superpowers the Americans and uh and

the Soviets the northern part of

Korea is controlled by the Soviets and

the southern part of Korea ends up being

controlled by the Americans so somewhat

of a similar circumstance that happened

in Germany but now here happening on the

other side of the world now in some

sense both North and South sought a

United Country

and so there is uh you know when we look

at these various proxy wars there's

layers to it right there's there's a lot

of different layers when it comes to

motivations and reasons and the case of

Korea is uh is the same so there were

Korean nationalists that wanted um you

know to unify the Korean Peninsula but

then you had this you know Cold War

layer on top of it between communism and

uh and capitalism so calls for unified

Korea calls for unified you know

communist or capitalist Korea eventually

resulted in North

Korea

invasion of South

Korea in 1950 right and this started the

crean

war so initially this is a war that

involves North Korea versus South Korea

I mean in some sense it's just Korea um

you know this division between North and

South didn't exist uh when it was a a

Japanese Colony or not in the same way

that it did after World War II now the

United States is worried that by the

north invading the South which they are

having military success they are

emboldened by the communist in China the

the Communist in China were successful

in their War so they think they can be

successful in their War however the

United States uses a new international

tool to um further their own goals and

that is the United Nations and this is

maybe a you might say a clever use of

the UN by the United States because

recall that the United Nations as an

organization this is a you know a a

we'll say a

international

government

to maintain peace you know this was

created following World War II as the

successor to the League of Nations

because the League of Nations failed to

prevent World War II the United Nations

was created so that another War wouldn't

break out well the United States goes to

the United Nations and says look North

Korea's

invasion of South Korea uh how is this

any different different than Hitler's

invasion of Poland how is this different

than Japan's invasion of China and so

the United Nations successfully gets the

United Nations to intervene again their

goal is to maintain peace but they see

um North Korea's Invasion as a threat to

World Peace the United States sees this

as a way to further their policy of

containment right to prevent communism

from spreading to uh you know to South

uh South Korea so we might say that the

forces

led by US

general Douglas

MacArthur about Arthur down

here

oops uh Douglas MTH arur

intervene on the

[Music]

side of South

Korea so technically right technically

the Korean war is not an American war

right it's a un intervention the reality

is is that again this un intervention

was very much to the great benefit of

the United States and um most of those

who were fighting including the person

in charge of it all were either American

or Korean right to to put it frankly um

Douglas MacArthur has a lot of success

with the UN intervention and soon South

Korea is now pushing back North Korea in

fact so much so that not only do they

contain the Communist threat right they

reestablished the border between North

and South but MacArthur and and uh UN

forces end up pushing so far north that

they begin encroaching on the Chinese

border which provokes China to enter

into the conflict so we might say uh

MacArthur's

advancement

provokes

Chinese

entry into the

war right into the war so uh you know

once again we have North

Korea and South

Korea and that's how initially the war

started but you know the

US joins in on one

side

China join in on the another and you

know by the time the war is unfolding

it's much much bigger and of course in

the background you know the Soviets are

sending their port uh support to the

other side so us and Chinese troops do

fight directly in this conflict but

again there's no direct conflict between

the United States and the and the Soviet

so again this is what we mean by proxy

war fighting indirectly now during the

course of the war there's a big

disagreement on the American side

exactly how to conduct this and this is

between the sitting US president Harry

Truman and the war hero uh Douglas

MacArthur uh MacArthur

was you know he was probably one of the

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YouTube Transcript:American YAWP - Chapter 25 - The Cold War

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American YAWP - Chapter 25 - The Cold War