Origins of the Cold War, 1945 - 48

1
Origins of the Cold War, 1945 - 48
Young Kent International Relations since 1945

• An explanation of how the 1945 tensions in the
  Grand Alliance developed and led to the Cold War

2
The Soviet Approach to the Post War International
Order

• Security through spheres of influence
• Each of the Big Three to be responsible for
  security in areas of vital interests
• Soviet vital interests
• - in Eastern and Central Europe particularly
  Poland and Romania because friendly governments
  there could only be obtained through Soviet
  imposed regimes

3
The American Approach to the Post War
International Order

• Replacing spheres of influence and Roosevelts 4
  policemen idea by principles deemed important
  for the new world order and American economic and
  political interests
• Security to be achieved through the new United
  Nations
• Vital interests
• - Latin America and the Pacific

4
The British approach to the Post War
International Order

• The needs of the British Empire required spheres
  of influence and close co-operation with the
  United States to establish principles which would
  be applied outside the British Empire while it
  was transformed into the new Commonwealth.
• Vital interests
• - the Middle East and the Mediterranean

5
The impact of the differences at the summit
conference of Yalta 1945

• Yalta Feb 1945
• - the postponement of decisions on Germany
• - rhetoric and Declarations
• - not the application of principles
• - nor the translation of power politics and
  vital interests into practical arrangements for
  particular areas
• - agreement on the Eastern frontier of Poland
• - the dominance of discussions on Europe
• The consequences of Yalta in the spring of 1945
• - Western resentment at Soviet failure to
  comply with the Declarations on Poland and
  Liberated Europe
• - success of the May Hopkins Mission to Moscow
  to get Stalin to broaden the Polish government in
  line with the Declaration on Poland

6
The impact of the differences at the summit
conference of Potsdam1945

• Potsdam July/August 1945
• - increased disagreements as areas outside Europe
  were discussed
• - the Mediterranean and the Middle East (the
  Italian colonies and the Black Sea Straits) were
  FIRST added to the disagreements over Eastern
  Europe (the nature of the governments in Romania
  and Bulgaria)
• - German reparations agreement
• The consequences of Potsdam
• - final decision on Polands Western frontier
  postponed but territory up to the W Neisse to be
  administered in the meantime as part of Poland
  with important economic implications for Germany
  and Europe
• - agreement on many specifics postponed to the
  treaty negotiations
• - storing up of suspicions

7
The London Council of Foreign Ministers Sept 1945

• Other factors producing tension between Yalta and
  the London Council
• - the dropping of the atomic bomb and the future
  controls over atomic energy.
• - the Soviet requests for a trusteeship in
  Tripolitania (now part of Libya)
• - the occupation arrangements for Japan
• - the future of Kars, Ardahan and Trieste
• The reasons for the Councils failure
• -the apparent reason
• - Molotovs initial acceptance and subsequent
  rejection of the procedural arrangements for the
  participation of the lesser powers in drawing up
  the peace treaties with Germanys allies
• - the real reason underlying the failure
• - the preference of all powers for
  confrontation in the pursuit of their own
  priorities rather than for co-operation through
  compromise

8
The developing confrontation September 1945
March 1946

• The failure of the Moscow Council of Big 3
  Foreign Ministers December 1945 as the last US
  attempt at compromises.
• Stalins speech on the incompatibility of the
  ideologies, February 1946
• Churchills Iron Curtain speech, March 1946
• Soviet pressure on Turkey
• US public opinion turning against the Soviets
• Kennans idea of containment by which the United
  States secured the industrial areas of Western
  Europe, February 1946
• The Soviet refusal to carry out their treaty
  obligations and withdraw troops from Iran, March
  1946

9
The general causes of the increasing power
political confrontation

• The importance of vital power political interests
  in Eastern Europe, the Pacific and the
  Mediterranean
• The difficulty of reconciling principles with the
  practical pursuit of vital interests
• The problems of each ally accepting the vital
  interests or principles of all the other Allies

10
The specific causes of the growing British
confrontational stance

• If the British denied the importance of political
  principles and accepted spheres of influence on a
  reciprocal basis it would detract from their
  standing as a great world power with interests in
  all areas of Europe
• If the British accepted political principles and
  concessions to preserve co-operation they feared
  that they would be denied their exclusive
  influence in the Mediterranean and Middle East
  which was deemed vital to their position as a
  world power

11
The specific causes of the growing Soviet
confrontational stance

• If the Soviets accepted political freedoms in
  Eastern Europe they would end up in some
  countries with governments traditionally hostile
  to Russia
• If the Soviets accepted the economic
  administration of Germany on a co-operative basis
  they would lose the ability to exploit the German
  resources in the Eastern zone so effectively
• If the Soviets renounced spheres of influence and
  control it was now unlikely that the Americans
  and the British would accept any role for them in
  Western areas of influence (Japan and the
  Pacific, the Mediterranean and Middle East)

12
The specific reasons for the growing American
confrontational stance

• If the Americans accepted spheres of influence
  they feared the impact on US public opinion which
  had been cajoled into accepting a war for freedom
• If the Americans were excluded from other areas
  of vital interest they feared that their vastly
  expanded economy would suffer
• The growing importance of ideology and the
  challenge of the communist and non-communist left
  in Europe
• - the link between communist ideology, domestic
  forces in Europe and the Soviet Union
• - the threat this presented to the
  international economic order dominated by the US

13
American securing of vital interests in Western
Europe and Japan 1946-1947

• The merging of the western zones in Germany and
  the increase in German economic production to
  help European recovery
• The Truman Doctrine of March 1947 promising US
  support for free people who are resisting
  attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
  outside pressures
• The Marshall Plan June 1947 to provide aid for
  European economic recovery
• The American occupation regime in Japan

14
Soviet securing of vital interests in Eastern
Europe 1946-1947

• The imposition of Soviet puppet governments
  through communist coups or rigged elections
• - Romania, November 1946
• - Poland, January 1947
• - Hungary, August 1947
• - Czechoslovakia, February 1948
• - The Bulgarian elections of late 1946 were
  suspect but not so blatantly rigged

15
Cold War replaces tension and confrontation 1948

• The power political attempts at agreement on the
  new world order superseded by ideological
  confrontation from 1946 onwards
• Rhetoric replaced by more concerted propaganda
  campaigns, 1948
• US Containment ends as a purely defensive
  strategy, 1948
• The ideological confrontation between communism
  and capitalism taking place around rival
  socio-economic orders and their political systems
  is now crucial

16
Analytical Summary and Key Points

• 1945-46 the Cold War developed from different
  approaches to the nature of the post-war world
• Preventing aggression and ensuring stability by
  economic recovery through co-operation in a new
  international order leads to the confrontation
  that defines the Cold War
• - combination of power and status
  (international and foreign policy dominated) and
  ideology (domestic and socio-economic policy
  dominated)
• This priority that the Big 3 gave to co-operation
  was replaced by confrontation and securing vital
  interests 1946-49
• The power political priorities in defining the
  new international order gave way to ideological
  concerns that the international order should not
  disrupt the domestic status quo as defined in
  socio-economic terms