A Battle Never Fought Directly: Cold War
By: Deren E. Akın
Tags: Ww2, Communism, Cold War, History, Cuban Missile Crisis

The Soviet and The United States fought side by side against the Nazi regime in World War II. But as the war came to an end, conferences that were held in post-war Germany showed that neither of these so-called allies were willing to keep their promises that were given during the war. US was always hostile towards the ideology of communism and wanted to prevent a communist state from happening. The Soviet, on the other hand, realized communism’s great influence on imperialized countries and wanted to expand its borders through spreading the ideology from Cuba to Asia. Predictably, neither sides would take a step back for the sake of making peace and that’s how their disagreements and stubbornness led the world into a painfully long conflict that is Cold War. US never battled the Soviet directly but their process of becoming enemies after WW2, foreign policy and atomic diplomacy were able to antagonize them continuously.

During the WW2, The United States alongside with Great Britain had to join their forces with the Soviet Union to strike the Nazi Germany from all sides. When the war was won, both Roosevelt and Churchill saw an opportunity to keep Stalin in the game so that when the new war in Japan broke, they would have the military advantage. They promised to give Stalin the control of Manchuria and in exchange, he assured both leaders that he would allow free elections in free-from-Nazi territories that were under his influence. Stalin, however, was always suspicious that his capitalist allies would try to stop his attempts to expand his nation if it ever came to that.

The Big Three allies, later, came together in Potsdam Conference and it came to light that Stalin would, in fact, not allow free elections in new territories that he invaded and that he wanted to get more reparations from Germany for the damage they caused in the Soviets than the amount that was discussed back in Yalta Conference. By the time Potsdam was over, newly elected Truman was convinced that if they didn’t adopt a different policy towards the USSR, communism would become a real threat to American nation. Stalin, on the other hand, became sure that there was a plot against him after he went back to his country with nothing in hand to keep his alliance with the western bloc countries. Both US’ and the Soviet’s mistrust to each other and their polar adopted ideologies slowly turned these two allies into enemies that would last 45 years long.

Potsdam Conference

This indirect war’s beginning was marked with the Containment foreign policy that initiated the using of many political strategies to stop the Soviet Nation from spreading. President Truman decided to start with Greece and Turkey because they were right under the Soviet geographically and since those both countries had a never-ending tension going on between them, they would be easy to influence by the first person to help them on their cause. Greece already had a communist minority that was causing conflict in the public and Truman was afraid that their increasing numbers would effect Turkey’s domestic & foreign affairs as well. Truman knew the importance of keeping Turkey on their side because an instability in the Turkish politics could also threaten the Middle East political stability as a whole. Taking everything into consideration, he requested the Congress to send both countries a military and economic aid worth of $400 million. In his speech, he said: “It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”.

Right after Truman Doctrine, he announced the Marshall Plan that would be another aid program to keep countries by US’ side. This time aiming at Europe, he presented the four-year plan of helping the European neighbors to rebuild their cities after the destruction of WW2. Stalin, unsurprisingly, refused to join the plan and did not allow Eastern European countries that were dependent on his regime to get any aid provided by the United States. After Stalin’s refusal made it obvious that the line was drawn between Eastern and Western countries, Truman made his last move as a president to counter the Soviet regime by signing the North Atlantic Treaty and becoming one of the founders of NATO in 1949. Both US and Western European countries needed a military alliance that would assure them security against communist upheavals.

NATO Founders (April 4th, 1949)

Following Eisenhower’s takeover of presidency, he created another alliance of nations that would focus on Southeastern Asian countries (SEATO). Even though this alliance turned out to be a failure due to the lack of the use of its military, Eisenhower used it as an excuse to interfere with Vietnam’s policies. As a strong believer of the Domino Theory, he feared that China and North Vietnam’s communist government would cause a communism wave in neighboring countries and that’s the main reason why US got involved in the Vietnam War.

In 1957, he announced the Eisenhower Doctrine that would promise the Middle Eastern countries military backup for communist aggression if they requested such aid. However, especially Egypt and Syria, who were strongly anti-Western, refused any American entrance in the Middle East theater. Consequently, Eisenhower’s tactic only existed as a military support to Turkey and Greece that were already pledged to US.

The atomic bomb tension, however, first began in the Potsdam Conference when Truman decided to mention its existence to Stalin. By slyly threatening him and dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki later, he hoped that the Soviets would reconsider their plans to invade post-war Japan. The knowledge of something new and a highly destructive bomb also helped US to gain long-lasting allies in the Western bloc because the nuclear bomb assured them protection. Only a few years later though, US lost its power on the world when the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949.

From then on, both nations often used atomic diplomacy and it almost every time turned into a political brinkmanship. When the USSR blocked the Western countries from entering West Berlin from any kind of way, Truman told them that he would not hesitate to use the nuclear bombs if they insisted on their decision. But when the Soviets didn’t back down, the Western Allies came together to start the airlift to Berlin that would supply the city for over a year.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Another brinkmanship that almost started a nuclear war between US and the Soviet was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Stalin’s successor Khrushchev supported Cuba’s Castro on his cause to free his country from US’ obligations and wanted to help him build a communist nation, so he agreed to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. When Kennedy found out about it, he enforced a quarantine in Cuba and insisted on all offensive weapons return to the Soviets. Both countries stood on the verge of war for days but Khrushchev agreed to Kennedy’s terms and in return, Kennedy dismantled the missile sites in Turkey. This conflict did not only help both sides to reach to a peaceful agreement but also guaranteed US’ removal from Cuba. The two never got this close to starting a nuclear war again but the debate about the strategies that involved the atomic diplomacy still goes on.

It was obvious that there would be disagreements between two nations after the WW2 but turning those disputes into a decades-long war could have been stopped if those two genuinely wanted to put an end to wars. But instead, both sides chose to believe that they would be safe only if everyone carried the same ideology as they did. Innocent lives were lost for a war that would not have a real winner at the end. The Soviets may have collapsed at the end of the century but the fear of communism still lives in the heart of Americans.