Cold war

The Cold war indicates the period of strong tension between the two Superpuissance S which were the the United States and the the USSR and their respective allies of 1947 with 1991.

It is under the feather of the American statesman Bernard Baruch, then popularized by the journalist Walter Lippmann in 1947, that the expression “cold war”, already used at the 14th century, appeared for the first time in the modern Occident. According to Raymond Aron, it was about a “limited war” or “quarrelsome peace” in a bipolar world where the belligerents avoided direct confrontation, from where the expression “impossible Peace, improbable war”.

The Soviets and the Americans fought to impose to them Idéologie, and from many conflicts, since the Guerre of Korea, the Guerre of Vietnam until the war of Afghanistan, resulted from this opposition. Noting that when “the powerful ones clash, the small ones fight” and drawn from the two edges, the India of Nehru, the Egypt of Nasser and the Yugoslavia of Tito succeeded in forming the Mouvement of non-aligned the, wishing to be neutral but having only very little influence on the course of the events, Egypt and the countries lately independent being influenced by a camp or the other.

Designation

The term cold affixed in Oxymore indicates that it is not a question of a Guerre with the usual direction of the term, but of an ideological confrontation between the two large winners of the Second world war; it was also marked by the Arms race, the nuclear threat (balance of terror) and the technological competition in the field of the space conquest.

The Anglo-Saxon thirds-mondistes employ readily the term of “ Third World War ”, which at the same time means “Third World war” and “war with the third world”, underlining by there that this atypical conflict was world, that it made a number of victims of the same order of magnitude as each of the two world wars, and than the majority of these victims were inhabitants of the Tiers-monde.

There exists another definition of the cold war: if one generally appoints the dates of the ideological confrontation between the two East-West blocks (1947-1989), André Fontaine, former editor association of the newspaper Le Monde , as for him, makes go up this confrontation with the Russian Révolution of 1917.

Will of rebuilding and peace the shortly after the Second world war

In 1945, vis-a-vis the European States ruined by the Second world war, two Super power S emergent in the Geopolitical context world. The the United States hold the nuclear monopoly since the atomic Bombardements of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and have an unequalled financial power. The Soviet Union has a decisive military force in Eastern Europe and a considerable political prestige.

An economic rebuilding

A new monetary order and international financier are created around the US Dollar, to avoid the economic instability which existed during the inter-war period and to start again the international exchanges. Instituted in 1944 by the Agreements of Bretton Woods, at the conclusion of a conference which joins together 44 countries, this new organization of the worldwide economy was negotiated in fact between the France, the the United Kingdom and the the United States, the latter imposing their point of view.

The agreements established a Fonds international currency (the IMF), as well as a international Banque for the rebuilding and the development (BIRD), called commonly “the World Bank”. The IMF and the BIRD would have the role in particular of ensuring the stability of the national currencies and of granting loans to the rebuilding and the development.

In addition, the agreements instituted a system of fixed parities compared to the dollar, only entirely convertible currency in Or. As the United States had a gold reserve bordering the three quarters of world reserves, the US Dollar was essential inevitably like Monnaie of international reserve, as well as gold. Indeed, to finance the war, the European powers had had to sell their gold stocks in the United States. Thus, the new monetary system did not rest solely any more on the fine metal held by the central banks, but on the US dollar, ace good ace gold , whose value was guaranteed by the Federal fund of the United States, just as by the formidable economic power of the United States.

In June 1947, in a speech made with the University of Harvard, the American Secretary of State George Marshall offered to the Europe “a fraternal help” in order to overcome “the hunger, despair and chaos”. The “plane Marshall plan” or of European Rebuilding ( European Recovery Program ) was proposed in all Europe, including the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries itself. It however was supplied with two conditions: the American assistance would be managed by common European institutions and Washington would have a right to watch on its distribution. Stalin hesitated, then, at the end of June, announced its refusal. The Poland and the Czechoslovakia, which, initially, had given an answer favorable to the American proposal, are transfered obliged to refuse it in their turn. Finally, sixteen countries, joined in 1949 by the FRG, accepted the Marshall plan: the France and the the United Kingdom, which will be the principal recipients, the Austria, the Benelux, the Greece, the Ireland, the Iceland, the Italy, the Scandinavian Pays, the Portugal, the Suisse and the Turkey. In April 1948, these sixteen countries founded the European Organization of economic cooperation (the OEEC, which will become OECD in 1960), supranational organization whose function first was to manage and to distribute the American assistance between the Member States.

From 1948 to 1952, more than thirteen billion dollars US, 5/6 in the form of gifts, 1/6 in the form of loans, were provided by the United States. This help with the rebuilding was composed of a financial part, Subvention S and Prêt S, and of another in various products and equipment (foodstuffs, tractors, equipments production, etc).

In an economic space “dollarized” by the Agreements of Bretton Woods, the Marshall plan was conceived to fill the “Dollar gap”, thus making it possible to Europeans to buy with the provisioning United States and equipment while ensuring an outlet the American products. Indeed, in 1946,42 % of American exports having taken the way of Western Europe, an economic collapse of the “old continent” would have been reflected on the US economy itself. The assistant secretary with the economy, Will Clayton, expressed it openly: “Let us say, without turning around the pot, that our objectives have as a background the needs and the interests of the United States. We need markets, of large markets, to buy there and to sell to with it. ”

However, the objective of the Marshall plan was not only economic. The government of Washington had understood that the distress of the European populations made the Marxist play of the parties S aligned on Moscow, in France and Italy in particular where more than one quarter of the electorate voted communist. Consequently, the injection of American capital was the economic complement of the doctrines of the Containment : to dam up the Soviet influence by the creation of a space of prosperity in Europe.

The Soviets were not long in realizing it and, in October 1947, at the time of the conference founder of the Kominform, Andreï Jdanov, secretary of PCUS, joins together with the delegates of the nine European Communist parties, denounced the “American imperialism” which, according to him, vassalized the European economies while placing them under the supervision of Washington. According to the Doctrines Jdanov, the world from now on was divided into two antagonistic camps: a “camp imperialist and undemocratic” whose United States is “the leading main force” and “an anti-impérialiste and democratic camp”, placed under the aegis of Moscow.

A will of peace

In August 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt had signed the Charte of the Atlantic, a Joint Declaration in which, taking as a starting point the principles wilsoniens, the two Heads of State envisaged the installation of a “wide and permanent system of general safety”. In February 1945, the agreements of Yalta took again this matter and announced the convocation of “a conference of the United Nations on the worldwide organization (…) April 25th, 1945, in the United States. ”

June 26th 1945, carried by the movement of a public opinion shocked by cruelty Nazi and the cruelty of the engagements, the delegates of 51 countries approved with San Francisco the Charte of the United Nations, the text founder of UNO, the United Nations, whose most important objective would be “to preserve the future generations of the plague of the Guerre which twice in the space of an human life inflicted with the Humanité inexpressible sufferings. ”

Beginnings

Causes

After the Second world war, the relations between the Americans and the Soviets degrade themselves. The USSR wants to guarantee its safety while being surrounded of countries combined along its borders. The Red Army does not withdraw countries which it released from the Nazism and, contrary to the commitments entered into with Yalta, it does not organize there free elections. The objective of this “war” is to maintain balance nuclear since 1949, year when the USSR has the bomb. It is especially a war of mode, since American capitalism is opposed to Soviet Communism.

Ideological opposition enters the systems capitalist and Communist

As of the 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville predicts that the United States and the imperial Russia have both vocation to become an empire on a worldwide scale and that they will be opposed for the total domination as soon as they come into contact. The Destinée proclamation of the United States cannot accept the existence of a challenge to its vision of the world, not more than the continental vocation of holy Russia (it had become atheistic) cannot admit that a State Eurasia N makes allegiance with another great power.

The economic choices and ideological facts by these two great powers will provide a rationalization of their inevitable opposition, rationalization which will be presented like the essential foundation of the cold war. The two socio-economic systems are indeed completely opposite:

Although the sending of a Western task force in support of the white Armées (1917-1918) is sometimes presented like a convincing argument, it is obvious that the origins of the cold war exceed the socio-economic framework, as shows it the continuation of the competition between the two countries after the entry of Russia in the capitalist system.

The fact that the Soviet Union was a “closed” company where it was extremely difficult to know which had influence on what, which were its truths resources and its real intentions was one of the outstanding features of the cold war, feeding the doubts and real or imaginary fears of the West which, of dimensioned sound, with its changes of government and policy according to the elections made often perplexed the Soviet analysts.

Immediate causes: the situation of the post-war period

Stalin seeks to put the USSR safe from a new attack by the creation of a territorial and ideological “glacis”, i.e. of a protective space which moves away the threat from the Soviet borders:

by pushing back more in the West the borders of the USSR by the annexation of the Baltic States and part of the Poland, whereas the German territories located at the east of the Oder and Neisse of Görlitz are placed under Polish administration (division carried out at the time of the Conférence of Potsdam);
by imposing governments pro-Soviet in the Central European countries and Eastern occupied by the Red Army, countries which will become later “people's democracies”. The Blow of Prague in Czechoslovakia, one of rare the real democracies of pre-war period in Eastern Europe, was the most visible expression for the West of this policy and was perceived like the hegemonic demonstration of the USSR.

Before even the end of the hostilities with Germany, the Soviet Union establishes the communist order in the territories released by the Red Army:

arrest of sixteen leaders of the Polish secret Armed , formally invited to Moscow for “political talks”, the two main leaders of Polish resistance dying in prison a few months later. The Polish Government in exile in London, given up by the Westerners, is seen denying little by little any responsibility and the Comité of Lublin, formed by the Soviets, takes the control of the country;
attribution of the Czechoslovakian province of Ruthénie subcarpatic to the Ukraine, which gets in the Soviet Union a common border with the Hungary;
installation with the capacity of the Communist parties as well with Bucharest as with Sofia, and elimination of any other political training;
installation at Vienna, without consulting the Westerners, of a provisional government pro-Soviet whose chief approved the Anschluss in 1938;
finally, the marshal Tito, now established with Belgrade, refuses, as opposed to what the Kremlin had promised with the Allies, to let the king Pierre II return of his exile.

Increasingly anxious at these violations repeated of the Charter of the Atlantic and the Declaration of Yalta on released Europe, Churchill is alarmed in a telegram of May 12th, 1945 with Truman at the risks to see the Soviet forces advancing to banks of the Atlantic and uses already the expression “Iron curtain”, which will become famous. In March 1946, in a resounding speech, it openly denounces this Soviet seizure on the Central and Eastern Europe. De Stettin in the Baltic in Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain fell on the continent. (…) The Communist parties, which were very weak in all these States of the East of Europe, obtained a capacity which goes far beyond their importance and they seek everywhere to exert a totalitarian control. Police governments settle a little everywhere, so much so that except for Czechoslovakia, there is not a true democracy.

In Germany, in their zone of occupation, the Soviets carry out with strength the denazification decided to the Conférence of Potsdam. More: 120000 people are interned in “special camps”, which will exist until 1950. : 42000 prisoners would have died there of deprivations and maltreatment. This policy of purification goes hand in hand with the nomination of communist frameworks to the key positions of the administration, the police force and justice, and several thousands of agents having worked under IIIe Reich “are recycled” by the new security services of East Germany or maintained in the administration and of many civils servant of the old mode will serve the new capacity until the years 1960.

The Western allies, on the other hand, misent more on a “rehabilitation” ( Umerziehung ) of the German people, associated with a policy of indulgence with regard to the “follower” ( Mitläufer ) and sympathizers of the mode. German scientists are thus recovered by JIOA in order to work for the United States (Opération Paperclip), while it is allowed former civils servant or soldiers of the III {{E}} Reich, if they were not condemned by justice, to exert their functions again. As of the end of the war, the OS, embryo of the CIA, entrusts to the ex-major-general Wehrmacht Reinhard Gehlen, chief of the Abwehr for the face is ( Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost ), the care to create an intelligence service covering the whole of the territories at one time occupied by Germany. To justify its budget - which is partly used for exfiltrer, in collaboration with ODESSA, of former collaborators or the war criminals Nazis -, this spy network lately created, precursory of BND ( Bundesnachrichtendienst ) and baptized Gehlen Org by American Defense, transmits sometimes information entirely manufactured and increasingly worrying on the power of the Red Army and the expansionist strategy of the USSR. Since 1947, the United States makes of it an element of their Propagande, whereas actually the Soviet Union did not start yet to recover from the world war.

It is necessary to specify however that, even if Stalin undoubtedly did not intend to extend the Soviet sphere of domination by the weapons, the USSR did not vassalize of them less the countries which the Red Army occupied by the progressive installation of “people's democracies” and undertook several attempts to increase by intimidation its sphere of influence in Iran (see Crise irano-Soviet), in Greece and Turkey; As Stalin said it, it could not go too much far if resistance to its ambitions were contracted.

The installation of the blocks and the question of the nuclear weapons

At the center of the cold war the nuclear questions are. It seems that those, thanks to their capacity of unequalled destruction, are mainly responsible for the absence of conflict with large scales between the two blocks, as from the moment when the superpuissances admitted that the use of the nuclear weapons must be restricted to the maximum (admission made at the time of the Guerre of Korea). Thus the nuclear threat of conflict will have defused the Crise of the missiles of Cuba, as well as the Crise of Suez Canal, limiting the conflicts to the regional or local theaters.

The two blocks (1947-1953)

The formation of the blocks is partly explained by the nuclear weapon why the United States has, but not the USSR (which will have it soon however: in 1949). Each State, according to its ideology, thus lines up under the protection of one or the other of the superpuissances: it is the “nuclear umbrella”. The rallying of the States is done by a series of pacts: it is the “pactomanie”, explaining the rapid installation of the blocks lasting the cold war. A block is thus defined as a whole of country under the nuclear umbrella of a super power. Very quickly, the world is divided into two blocks.

The block of the West

The formation of the people's democracies is felt by the Western countries like a threat. They react

politically : March 12th, 1947, one year after the Speech of Fulton, the president Harry Truman announces his policy of Containment (damming up) of Communism, also called the Truman doctrine, which considers the western opposition/is in manner manichéenne, like a conflict between two paradoxical systems: Democracy against Totalitarianism. The bond between democracy and capitalist economy is weak. At the time of the cold war, much of dictatorships of Extreme right-hand side of Latin America and Europe (Spain, Portugal and Greece) support the American policies, who are seen like a rampart vis-a-vis the rise of Communism.

economically : as from 1947, the United States implements the Marshall plan, economic aid for the rebuilding of Europe, as a complement with the Truman doctrine.

militarily : the United States and their allies create an important network of defensive alliances: the Organization of the American States (1948), the treated of Brussels (1948), the Atlantic Pact (1949) equipped into 1950 with a military structure, NATO (with installation of the clandestine cells of the Stay-behind ), ANZUS (1951), OTASE (1954) and the Pact of Baghdad (1955). The countries signatories are committed being been helping mutually in the event of aggression. In 1947, the intelligence services of the United States, of Canada, of Australia and New Zealand sign the agreement UKUSA, within the framework of which the planetary system of listening Echelon will be set up in the years 1970.

The Eastern bloc

The USSR adopts a strictly parallel strategy. It reacts

politically : in September 1947, in response to the Truman doctrine and the Marshall plan, which according to them aims “to the economic and political control of Europe”, the Soviets set up the Kominform or Comité of information of the Communist parties . The official goal of this organization is “the exchange of the experiments and the coordination of the activity of the Communist parties”. During the inaugural meeting, Jdanov, from the same point of view manichéenne as Truman, formulates the Soviet doctrines as regards international policy: the world from now on is divided into two hostile camps, the camp anti imperialist and democratic and the camp imperialist and antidemocratic; the USSR is the leader of the democratic camp, whereas the United States is with the head of the camp imperialist.

economically : in January 1949, following the creation of OEEC, the USSR founds the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (CMEA, in English the Comecon ), which is charged to coordinate the economies of the people's democracies and to plan the commercial exchanges between them.

militarily : in May 1955, following the admission of the FRG in NATO, the USSR creates the Warsaw Pact, which officializes the Soviet authority on the armies of the people's democracies.

Attempts at negotiation

As from 1947, several International Conferences joins together the great powers in order to reach a consensus on the problems which divide them: the fate and the statute of Germany, the conflicts international, general disarmament, etc Although they constitute a species of Armistice in full cold war, these meetings show failures or lead to unimportant results.

The first crises (1948-1953)

The crisis irano-Soviet

The first crisis of Berlin (1948-1949)

The war of Korea (1950-1953)

Ideological “War”: hunting for the witches

In Soviet Union and in the Eastern bloc

Gradually, the leaders of the parties not-Communists are drawn aside, either by discreditation or intimidation, or by political lawsuits followed by imprisonment even of execution.

The block was the theater many political lawsuits in all the countries sympathizers against people marked to be “titists” (term who comes from Tito, chief of the Yugoslavia), shown to deviate of the policy of Moscow, Nationalisme or Sionisme, or to work for the Occident.

Very many people were imprisoned or carried out, the vast majority quite simply because they obstructed the modes then places from there whereas several of them were authentic Communists as László Rajk which in Hungary was one of the first victims with 19 other men of these Grandes purgings in 1949.

In the United States

To the the United States, between 1950 and 1954, the Republican senator of Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, led a true hunting to the “Reds”, beside institutions like the Board of inquiry of the Room of the representatives on the anti-American Activities ( House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC). He made put in charge shovel-mixes all those which he suspected of being members of the Communist party, “fellow travellers” or simple sympathizers: civils servant, artists, intellectuals, scientists and politicians.

The Secretary of State Dean Acheson was suspecté to be “soft in the fight against Communism” ( software one communism ) and George Marshall, the former Secretary of State, was shown to have released Tchang Kaï-chek in 1946. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, an American couple of Juif S, was stopped, condemned to died and was carried out: they would have provided information on the Nuclear bomb to the Soviets. This business caused a sharp emotion in Europe, and particularly in France, where one denounced the climate of collective hysteria which had surrounded the lawsuit. However, it would seem today that, according to the files of the KGB, Rosenberg, at least the husband, are guilty, they will be the only spies carried out after having passed in justice to Occident during the cold war.

Finally, in 1954, McCarthy exceeded the terminals and questioned the honesty of the army. It was then the object of a blame on behalf of his colleagues of the Senate: it was the end of the Maccarthysme.

Peaceful coexistence and new crises (1953-1962)

Peaceful coexistence

The March 5th 1953, Stalin dies. It is replaced by Nikita Khrouchtchev, which condemns the crimes of Stalin and allows the Peaceful coexistence (1956): the two blocks do not clash any more but ideologically.

Although officially the two powers never clashed directly, it seems that more than one hundred of planes - American spies were killed at the time of overflights of the Soviet airspace. As of 1950, a PB4Y Privateer is cut down by the drives out Soviet. Starting from 1956, the Americans use U2 wheel with more: 20000 meters of altitude. But, in May 1960, one of them is cut down and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, is imprisoned following a very mediatized lawsuit. The Americans will create planes then - spies increasingly improved, before developing a program of satellites of monitoring.

During this period, there is a dialog more opened between the leaders of the two blocks. Khrouchtchev meets Eisenhower in 1956 in the United Kingdom, into 1959 in the United States, 1960 in France and Kennedy in 1961 in Vienna. Indeed, the young democrat John F. Kennedy gained the elections of 1960. He prefers a peaceful coexistence with the USSR, but wants at the same time to prevent Communism from spreading himself in the Tiers-monde. He thus created “Alliance for Progress” to help the Latin America, he increases the American assistance with the Congo-Kinshasa, he sends “military advisers” to the Laos and the Vietnam.

Insurrection of Budapest (1956)

The Soviet block saw an important crisis crystallized by the Hungarian revolt in Budapest, which leads to a Soviet repression at the time of the Olympic Games of summer of 1956.

The crisis of Suez (1956)

This crisis does not form part of the cold war in a strict sense term, since it is not a conflict opposing in a direct way the United States and the USSR. Some see however in this crisis the end of the autonomous actions of the two blocks and thus integrate it into the cold war.

In 1956, the world attends a war between the Egypt on the one hand, France, the United Kingdom and Israel on the other hand. France and the United Kingdom undergo the pressures of both superpuissances, which do not appreciate not to be put at the current of the operation around the Suez Canal. The USSR threatens to use the atomic weapon, because she sees a colonial war there. In this file, the two great powers adopt the same position.

The second crisis of Berlin (1961)

Between 1949 and 1961,3,6 million Easts Germany forwarded by Berlin to pass in FRG. This demographic hemorrhage was an economic disaster for GDR, because they was especially Engineer S, Médecin S and semi-skilled workers who made the “hit and run offense” ( Republikflucht ). At the same time, it was a political catastrophe in what it undermined the official brand image of GDR.

In November 1958, this situation gave place to a diplomatic crisis undergone under the name of “Ultimatum of Khrouchtchev” and in which all the western powers were implied. In June 1961, Kennedy and Khrouchtchev meet with Vienna. Khrouchtchev announces that it will sign a peace treaty with GDR, which would deprive the the United States of their access to West Berlin. Kennedy considers the situation unacceptable and the conference does not lead to nothing. Khrouchtchev sends its army in front of West Berlin. Kennedy counteracts by spreading out the American tanks in front of the Soviet forces and by increasing the American military budget. Khrouchtchev moves back its army under the pressure.

The August 13rd 1961, the construction of the Berlin Wall between the Soviet sector and the three sectors Western puts an end to this “systematic laying off citizens of the German Democratic republic”. But, since the East-German and Soviet authorities did not make any attempt to block the transportation routes between FRG and West Berlin and that, in addition, Khrouchtchev did not question the quadripartite statute of the city, the reaction of the Westerners was limited to verbal protests and symbolic gestures: the visit in West Berlin of the general Lucius D. Clay, the organizer of the airlift, and reinforcement of the American garrison by: 1500 men. Indeed, with the eyes of the Westerners, the construction of the wall constituted only one aggression with regard to the Easts Germany and did not threaten the three essentials (i.e. essential interests) of the block of the West.

Conflict Indonesia/Netherlands (1962)

The crisis of the cuban missiles (1962)

The Crise of the cuban missiles more clearly highlighted the threat of a nuclear war. In January 1959, the guerillas of Fidel Castro had reversed the dictator Fulgencio Batista, supported by the United States. The new mode took series of measure which were worth the increasing hostility of Washington to him: in 1959, dismantling of the latifundia ; signature of a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in May 1960, after the reduction of the purchases of cuban sugar by the United States; in June and July, confiscation of the North-American companies, which controlled, in addition to the totality of the Raffinerie S of oil, 40 % of the sugar industry, 80 % of the tobacco and 90 % of the mines.

As reprisals, the US government, subjected to the pressure of the mediums of businesses, set up a economic Embargo of the island in October 1960 and, on January 2nd, 1961, it broke the diplomatic relations with Havana. At the same time, the CIA recruited “forces anticastrists” among the cuban refugees. At the beginning of April, Kennedy gave his agreement to a project of invasion of the island, while refusing to engage of the American troops and by limiting manpower to: 1200 Cubans. The unloading, which took place on April 17th, 1961 in the Baie of the Pigs, was a disaster. Kennedy declares only person in charge, but, in deprived, shows the CIA to have lied to him and to have handled it. The president scrambles himself with the agency. He declares with his advisers: “I will cut the CIA in parts and will spread of them the scraps with all the winds. ” The CIA works from now on clandestinely against Castro, while collaborating with the Mafia, which frustrated Kennedy.

In July 1961, Cuba means its membership of the “socialist block”. September 4th, 1962, the country concludes an agreement of military aid with the Soviet Union and, one week later, Moscow declares that any attack against Cuba would cause a nuclear response. The American Congress for its part vote on October 3rd a resolution which puts in residence against all “subversive action in the Western hemisphere”. Kennedy prohibits however the Opération Northwoods developed and proposed by the staff, which envisaged to orchestrate a series of attacks against the United States, then to show of it Cuba in order to mobilize the public opinion against Castro.

October 14th, 1962, an American plane U2 photography on the island of Cuba of the launching pads for nuclear missiles with average carried (IRBM and MRBM), able to reach the American territory. At the same time, the White House learns that 24 Soviet cargo liners transporting of the rockets and the bombers Iliouchine travel towards Cuba (Opération Anadyr).

In the day of the 22, Kennedy, after having hesitated between the inaction and the bombardment of the launching pads, decides for the maritime blockade of the island. This “measured reaction”, proportioned with the threat, leaves with Khrouchtchev the choice between the climbing or the negotiation. But Kennedy uses greatest firmness, in order to force Khrouchtchev to move back. October 24th, the first Soviet cargo liners make half-turn. Moscow cannot contact immediately the Sous-marin S armed with torpedes with nuclear warhead (Opération Kama) which accompany the convoy with mission of protecting it (fact which will be revealed only in 2001). Meanwhile, an arrangement making it possible Khrouchtchev to save the face is negotiated in slide between semi-official emissary. The 26 and on October 27th, in two messages, the the Kremlin proposes the shrinking of the offensive weapons; n the other hand, the Americans should commit themselves not to reverse the cuban mode and withdrawing the Jupiter rockets installed in Turkey, and pointed towards the USSR. October 28th, Kennedy accepts this compromise in extremis . He asks however to hide the fact that the United States withdrew their missiles of Turkey. Khrouchtchev accepted, and he believed to have gained the part. However, he had been deceived. Kennedy had decided to withdraw the missiles of Turkey well before the crisis. Moreover, the backing of Khrouchtchev humiliated it in front of Castro, Mao Zedong and the other chiefs communist. It is definitely Kennedy who gained the part, in more he sees his popularity and its world prestige to go up out of arrow. Kennedy will say nevertheless after this diplomatic crisis that it “negotiated at the edge of the pit”.

The outcome of the crisis was a political success for the United States, though they must tolerate a communist country inside their “perimeter of defense”. In addition, this “diplomacy at the edge of the pit” had frightened “to the highest decision makers, at the point to recall them to a rational behavior. ” The installation of a hot Line, hot line between Moscow and Washington, and opening of negotiations on the limitation of the armaments concretized this return to rationality. Kennedy, become even more popular, changes the policy of his country towards a plan a little more peaceful. But it does not have time to set up all its ideas: the November 22nd 1963, on a journey to Dallas, Texas, Kennedy parades in the streets of the city in the convertible limousine. At the time of the procession, he is assassinated in full glory by a marksman embusqué, and this in front of the eyes horrified at crowd. Khrouchtchev, as for him, leaves very weakened crisis. In 1964, it was replaced by Brejnev.

“Relaxation” (1963 - 1974)

Nuclear agreements

The shortly after the crisis of the cuban missiles, which failed to plunge the world in a Third World war, the United States and the USSR decides to approach to control, in a spirit of transparency, a balance from now on founded on a “assured mutual Destruction” ( MAD in English).

As of June 1963, a “hot Line”, permanent connection by Teleprinter between the the Kremlin and the White House, enables them to act in concert immediately and to thus avoid a diplomacy “at the edge of the pit”.

In August 1963, they sign the treated of Moscow, which prohibits the atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy to Dallas on November 22nd, 1963 upsets planet, everywhere people cry this young president, the USSR included/understood there. The successor of Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, commits himself continuing the relaxation. Johnson unfortunately will engage her country in the Guerre of Vietnam.

In January 1968, by the Treated nuclear non-proliferation (NPT), resulting from an American-Soviet joint project presented to the Commission of disarmament with Geneva, they engage, together with the United Kingdom, not to transfer neither weapons nor nuclear engineering to the ENDAN (States not equipped with nuclear weapons).

In May 1972, the agreements SALT I ( Strategic Armaments Limitation Talks ), signed by Nixon and Brejnev, limits the anti-missile defensive armaments (ABM) to two sites for each of the two countries and freezes for one five years duration the offensive nuclear weapons, i.e. the fixed launching pads for intercontinental missiles (ICBM) and the missiles installed on submarines (SLBM).

In June 1979, Casing and Brejnev sign the agreements SALT II, negotiated since 1974 in the prolongation of SALT I. These agreements envisage a gel of the launchers with multiple warheads (MIRV) and a reciprocal control of the nuclear weapons. They were not ratified by the American Senate because of the invasion of the Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the two parts declaring however that they would respect the clauses of them.

The mobiles of this bringing together are multiple. There is initially obviously the will to be released from an arms race increasingly expensive, and absurd because of the “capacity of surextermination” ( overkill ) of the nuclear arsenals; in addition, the USSR is disputed by the Popular republic of China, the rupture allowing sino-Soviet, within the framework of a triangular diplomacy from now on, a bringing together sino-American; at the same time, because of an economy which stagnates, the USSR needs an outside assistance which the United States binds to political agreements (the linkage of Henry Kissinger); and finally, the United States, on their side, is engaged in the Guerre of the Vietnam who absorbs an excessive share of the American budget: from where the desire of the two “adversary-partners” (Raymond Aron) to lead to a reasonable management of the cold war.

“Relaxation” in Europe (1962 - 1975)

In each of the two blocks, pro-Soviet and pro-American, the two Large ones are disputed. The Soviet model is disputed in Europe of the East. In 1968 Czechoslovakia is invaded by the troops of the Warsaw Pact: the Printemps of Prague touches at its end. In the West, De Gaulle takes her distances with the E. - U. and NATO. In 1969, Willy Brandt becomes chancellor of FRG and engages a policy of bringing together and opening to the East called the Ostpolitik . The two States are recognized mutually in 1972 and enter with UNO in 1973. The Berlin Wall becomes increasingly permeable.

In 1975, the agreements of Helsinki are signed by 33 European States, of which the USSR (but also Canada and E. - U.). The agreements must allow the co-operation between the States, freedom of movement of the people and the respect of the human rights.

The Popular republic of China, the 3rd actor

The apparent cohesion of the communist bloc fissures starting from the Rupture sino-Soviet, which sees these two modes clashing on the ideological and diplomatic ground.

The risk of a war between these two giants was taken very with serious at the time of the frontier Conflit sino-Soviet of 1969. Noting that Beijing could not face at the same time Moscow and Washington, Mao chooses to approach the United States. The geographical proximity of the USSR indeed posed according to him a threat differently larger than the the United States.

In order to weaken the Soviet Union in the communist world, the United States seizes the ball with the jump and approaches the Popular republic of China which launches out in an arms race (Bombe has the October 16th 1964, Bombe H the June 14th 1967). Nixon seeks to insulate the Soviet Union more, especially in the Tiers-monde.

The team of Ping-pong of the the United States goes on a journey in China the April 10th 1971: it is the “ ping pong diplomacy ”. The October 25th 1971, under the pressure of the the United States, UNO recognizes the popular China which sits from now on at the Safety advice (76 votes for, 35 against, 17 abstensions) and at the Safety advice in the place of Taiwan, excluded. Lastly, the president Nixon, invited by Mao Zedong, goes in China (February 1972).

In spite of the Anti-Americanism of most of the population and Chinese administration, the strategic and economic relations between the United States become more and more extensive with in particular the installation of two stations of listening of the network Echelon at the border sino-Soviet between 1981 and 1989, when the repression of the Manifestations of the place Tian' anmen led to a stop of this collaboration.

Limits of the “relaxation”

The two Large ones are implied in important conflicts. Both carry out a fight of influence in the Third World countries: it is what one names the peripheral conflicts.
Of 1964 with 1975, the Guerre of Vietnam indirectly opposes the great powers, through Stalinist North Vietnam and the South capitalist Vietnam . The United States engages militarily in Vietnam as from 1962.

See also: War of Vietnam

The United States supports many dictators and causes several coups d'etat (Kampuchea in 1970, Chile in 1973…), with an only aim of containing the Soviet empire. In Latin America, the mode castrist supports revolutionary guerillas against these dictators, who show failures.

The fresh war (1975 - 1985)

Expansionism of the Soviet Union
Benefitting from the decline of the the United States on the international scene because of humiliation undergone with the Vietnam and of the pacifist policy of the president Casing, the Soviet Union benefits from it to engage more, in particular in Asia, Africa and South America, but also in Europe (crisis of the euromissiles). The Soviet Union starts to deploy weapons of new generation more and more worrying the technological advance of the West.

America is back ! (1981)
In the United States, discredited by its international policy considered to be disastrous and in spite of a good management of the economic crisis, Carter is beaten with the elections by Ronald Reagan. Under the presidencies of Reagan (1981-1989), then from George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-1993), the the United States return to their traditional values: the puritan moral and the economic Liberalism. The external interventions develop: outside, they disavow the relaxation, thus start again the cold war by denouncing the Soviet Union like “the Empire of the Evil” (at the national convention of the evangelists) and give to the the United States the average soldiers “to defend freedom and the democracy”. The interventions multiply in the world: Nicaragua in 1981-1986 and Grenade in 1983.

The arms race, its rupture and balance of terror
With a military aim, several countries are equipped with material, often beyond what is in practice necessary to ensure their survival and their domination, that it is geopolitical or economic. The United States and the USSR acquired in a frantic way of the material of destruction where each one tried to show its superiority on the other. However, with wear, this Arms race, technological advances being continuous, it was the too important weight of the Complexe militaro-industrialist on the economy of the USSR which put an end to this race.

During this race, these two countries created a climate of terror at their enemies. Making way, they showed that they had a sufficient nuclear arsenal to destroy whoever would be opposed significantly to their plans. Being ensured of their mutual destruction, they maintained what is called the balance of terror, i.e. a situation where nobody can gain following a nuclear conflict.
The March 23rd 1983, Ronald Reagan announces the project IDS (Initiative of strategic defense) or “Star Wars”: the the United States would be protected from the nuclear weapons by a “space shield” very expensive which would deviate them. The Soviet Union cannot follow, gives up the arms race and agree to negotiate. Clinton will give up IDS in 1993 and it is Bush wire which will carry it out (December 2001).

Wars in Africa
In Africa, communist guerillas seize the power after 1975 in the countries lately independent of old the colonial Empire Portuguese (Angola, Mozambique…) and start military actions in direction of the South Africa with the innate support of the army Cuba, which involves true pitched battles in particular in Namibia. In Ethiopia, the Red Army and the cuban forces intervene against the movements fighting against the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam as from 1976. Actions of destabilizations are sometimes thwarted, like the Sauvetage of Kolwezi by the French Army.

The crisis of the missiles in Europe
This period is marked by the expansion of the USSR and its influence in new territories, in particular in Europe, with the reinforcement of the Warsaw Pact. This expansion involves the Crise of the euromissiles of 1979 to 1985: NATO installs cruise missiles and Pershing 2 to make counterweight with the missiles Soviet SS-20.
That involved great peaceful demonstrations , supported by the Communist parties in the countries concerned of which the principal slogan “Rather red that dead” ( Lieber belch als early ) involved, in others, this sentence of the French president François Mitterrand with the Bundestag: “Pacifism is in the West, the missiles are in the East”.
In spite of the pressures, these missiles will be finally installed as from 1985 and in front of the accomplished fact, the USSR started negotiations which will give place to the American-Soviet agreement of the May 27th 1988 on the elimination of the nuclear missiles of intermediate range of the arsenals of the two States.

The problem of the Poland
Poland plays a great part in the weakening of the Soviet Union and the fall of Communism:

the October 16th 1978, Karol Wojtyla is elected 262e pope under the name of Jean-Paul II. Pole, he is the first pope not-Italian since Adrien VI († 1523). Implying itself on the international scene, it will fight actively against Communism;

the August 31st 1980, the metal-worker Lech Walesa founds the trade union Solidarnosc, supported by the Westerners who disapprove the installation of a very hard mode, that of the general Wojciech Jaruzelski, supported by the Soviet Union in Warsaw (Dec. 13, 1981).

The first war of Afghanistan
In 1978, there is proclamation of the République of Afghanistan. Socialist, it is pro-Soviet. The Islam Afghan ists enter in conflict with the capacity in place. In 1979, Moscow sends the Red Army , inaugurating the first war of Afghanistan. The United States implies itself in this conflict by feeding anti-Soviet resistance on the spot, while financing and by proposing a military formation with groups of Moudjahiddin , “warlike saints” islamist resistant to the Soviet occupant. The armies of the USSR are withdrawn from Afghanistan in February 1989.

See also: First war of Afghanistan

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The work of Gorbatchev: “new relaxation” at the end of the Soviet block

The March 11th 1985, after the death of Tchernenko, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev (54 years old) arrives at the capacity in Soviet Union. It will launch shortly after the policies of Glasnost and Perestroïka .

the research of disarmament : Gorbatchev wants to leave his country of the cold war ruining the Soviet Union which devotes approximately 16 to it; % of sound GNP against 6.5 % for the the United States (Mr. Vaïsse, 2004). The 11 and October 12th 1986, Ronald Reagan and Gorbatchev meet with Reykjavik, which inaugurates a new “relaxation” marked by the resumption of the dialog, stopped in 1979: the United States refuses to give up IDS, but an agreement is almost concluded on the reduction in the strategic weapons, while Gorbatchev evokes the “common House European”, denuclearized and neutralized. Thus, the December 8th 1987, in Washington, Reagan and Gorbatchev decide to eliminate all the missiles present in Europe within a three years deadline: it is “zero option”, first real treaty of disarmament:

Europe is emptied nuclear missiles of the two Large ones;

It is the end of the “Crise of the euromissiles”;

It is the race end to the armaments (even if 4 % of the nuclear warheads only disappeared).

the “Revolution of Velvet” and end of the “people's democracies” (1988-1990) : The December 7th 1988, with the platform of UNO, Gorbatchev announces the reduction of the Soviet armed forces in GDR, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which means the end of the “doctrines of limited sovereignty”: the Soviet Union disengages Eastern Europe. This speech inaugurates the “velvet Revolution”, i.e. the soft transition from the countries of Eastern Europe between a Communist regime and a democratic regime multipartist by new constitutional laws of 1988 with 1990, without hardly of combat nor of versed blood. In GDR, the inhabitants start to migrate towards the FRG by free Hungary (summer 1989). Then, under the pressure of the population, the Berlin Wall falls the November 9th 1989 and the Germany will be reunified the following year (October 3rd 1990). In Romania, the autocratic mode of Ceauşescu is the last to fall, the December 26th 1989 and the dictator is assassinated like his wife. In 1990, Gorbatchev obtains the Nobel Prize of peace.

the payment of the peripheral conflicts : Little by little, because of the disengagement of the Soviet Union and the end of the communist threat, a wind of freedom blows on the world and several peripheral conflicts are regulated. For example, the troops of the Vietnam leaves the Kampuchea (September 29th 1989) and the cuban troops leave the Angola and the Nicaragua. Many dictatorships of Latin America, supported by the the United States like rampart against communist temptation, fall: Argentinian (1984), Brazil (1985), Chile (1989), Paraguay (1989). In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is released (February 12th 1990), which will put an end to apartheid (1991). In Afghanistan, the Red Army leaves the country (1988-1989) but the civil war continues between the islamist moderate ones of the commander Massoud and the islamist hard ones supported by the Pakistan.

a hope with the the Middle East? : At the time of the war Iran/Iraq (1980-1988), the Occident arms officially Iraq, and sells some in Iran in hiding-place. The Soviet Union supports the two camps. The August 20th 1988, UNO arrives to a cease-fire without there not being a real winner. However, to the Lebanon, the Taïf agreements subject the country to the Syria. In the israélo-Palestinian conflict, whereas the first Intifada beats full sound, of the secret negotiations are carried out.

Implosion of the Soviet Union and the completion of the cold war (1989-1991)

implosion of the USSR : In the context of the glasnost (“transparency”) and perestroika (“reorganization”) and of an attempt at democratization of the Soviet Union, its implosion is done in five great stages:

As of March 1989, the Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) proclaim their sovereignty. Moscow reacts by sending troops, but must withdraw them under the international pressure because the Soviet Union does not make any more fear;

the June 12th 1990, the Soviet socialist Republic of Russia which elected Boris Eltsine with his presidency, although Gorbatchev did everything to avoid this election, proclaims in its turn its sovereignty (June 8th 1991);

the August 18th 1991, the Red Army , which comprises many Communists, tries a putsch against Gorbatchev which is sequestered a few days in its datcha in the Crimea. Eltsine, deputy of Sverdlovsk, succeeds in restoring the situation. The other republics leave the Soviet Union of August to December 1991);

the December 8th 1991, by the agreements of Minsk in Bielorussia, noting that “the USSR does not exist any more”, 10 Soviet socialist ex-republics found the CEI (the Community of the independent States), which is confirmed with Alma-ATA (Kazakhstan) a few days later (December 21st 1991);

the December 25th 1991, president of a State which does not exist any more, Gorbatchev is constrained to resign.

the completion of the cold war : As of August 1990, George Herbert Walker Bush, new president of the the United States, announces the end of the confrontation Western East/, i.e. of the cold war and the bipolarisation of the world. The United States gained it without direct military confrontation. In 1991, the two international main organizations of the communist countries, the the Comecon, which give an economic support, and the Warsaw Pact, which gives a military support, dissolve in their turn.

Conclusion
The cold war - or “Third World war” - was an international conflict “total”, i.e. having required an important mobilization of the resources until disintegration, then with the destruction of the adversary (1991). In its Speech on the state of the Union of the January 28th 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush declares: “Thanks to God, the United States gained the cold war; a world formerly divided into two armed camps recognizes today the superiority of only one power: the United States; this observation does not inspire any fear because the world has confidence in our nation and it rightly. ”

Indicative chronology of the cold war in East Asia

October 1st, 1949: the Chinese Communist party gains the civil war and proclaims the creation of the Popular republic of China. Independence de facto of Taiwan proclaimed Republic of China. The naval presence E. - U. neutralizes the resumption of the conflict.

June 25th - August 1950: Offensive of the troops North-Korean in South Korea.

June 27th, 1950: Truman US president sends the American army to support South Korea after the call of UNO

September-October 1950: American counter-offensive in Korea

November 1950 - January 1951: Counteract of the North Korea, constant by China

March 1951: The face is stabilized.

July 27th, 1953: Both Korea sign an armistice.

August 1954 - May 1955: Bombardment intensives of islands depending on Taiwan by RPC.

August-July 1958: Bombardment intensives of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu and confrontations naval and air between the RPC and Taiwan. The presence of the US Navy prevents the unloading of Chinese troops.

December 20th, 1960: Creation of the National front for the release of Vietnam

1961: Kennedy sends the first military advisers in République of Vietnam.

November 1963: The CIA foments an inversion of the Head of South Vietnamese State, Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy does not want to make kill Diem, but the CIA is unaware of this point. Diem is wounded by bullets, then stabbed mortally.

November 22nd, 1963: John Kennedy is killed in Texas.

November 25th, 1963: The new chief of the White House, Lyndon Johnson, cancels the decrees of Kennedy concerning the withdrawal of Vietnam.

August 1964: Fixing enters the American fleets and North-Vietnamese the Golfe of Tonkin.

March 1965: The American forces decide to intervene in Vietnam

January-February 1968: The North-Vietnameses advance: 70000 men on the South-Vietnamese soldier Nam

May 1968: Negotiations between the various parts take place

1971: The RPC is allowed with UNO and obtains a permanent headquarter with the Safety advice in the place of Taiwan which is excluded from the organization.

February 1972: Visit Richard Nixon in RPC.

January 27th, 1973: Peace agreements of Paris. Withdrawal of the American troops

April 17th: Catch of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge.

April 30th, 1975: Saigon is taken by the North-Vietnameses.

April 25th, 1976: Election of an National Assembly Vietnamese.

June 1978: : 70000 Vietnamese soldiers occupy a border zone inside Kampuchea

January 1st, 1979: the United States recognizes Beijing as a capital of China and close to them Ambassade with Taipei.

January 7th, 1979: Catch of Phnom Penh by Vietnam. Beginning of a Guerilla antivietnaniemme.

February 1979: War sino-Vietnamese

September 1989: Withdrawal of the forces Vietnameses of Kampuchea

Summary
The cold war is characterized by the bipolar division of the world, between the East dominated by the Soviet Union, socialist, and the West dominated by the United States, capitalist. The “ glacis ” protective required by Stalin in 1945 the formation of the “ accelerates largely; two Grands ”. During the conflict enters the Western block and the communist bloc, the world forever be also close to a Third World war, mainly in 1962 at the time of the Crise of the missiles of Cuba. However, the fear of a Third World war feeds the desire to remove the tensions, which brings a relaxation .

military Confrontation : The “ Ouest ” NATO founds, whereas Is form the Warsaw Pact

Political confrontation and ideological : The “ Ouest ” defends the Capitalisme and the Western Démocratie, while the East defends the Socialisme and the democracy known as “popular”.

economic Confrontation : The “ Ouest ” on the Private property is based and defends the Marshall plan, while the East creates the Comecon and preaches the socialist mode (capitalism of State). An economic confrontation based on the possession of energy like oil or the matters to produce the nuclear weapon is set up in this cold war.

religious Confrontation : The “ Ouest ” Christian is mainly , while the East is officially atheistic.

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