Cold War YC

• Superpower relations and the Cold War
• Explain consequences of events

  Why it mattered
• Explain the importance of key events

  What difference it made
• You need to learn WHAT happened and WHY it mattered
• Superpower relations during the Cold War: 1943-1991


  • 1943 - Tehran Conference
  • Feb 1945 - Yalta Conference
  • July 1945 - Potsdam Conference
  • 1948 - Berlin Crisis
  • 1956 - Hungarian Revolution
  • 1961 - Berlin Wall
  • 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
  • 1968 - Prague Spring
  • 1972 - SALT I signed
  • 1979 - Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
  • 1983 - SDI development begins
  • 1987 - INF Treaty signed
  • 1989 - Berlin Wall falls
  • 1991 - USSR dissolved
• Capitalism


  Individual freedom / democracy / private wealth
• Communism


  Limited freedoms / shared wealth / one-party state
• The Grand Alliance


  USA, Russia and UK join forces to defeat Nazi Germany during World War II
• Sphere of Influence


  Region of the world dominated by a particular state, e.g. Eastern Europe for the USSR
• Long Telegram


  Memo sent to President Truman in 1946 describing the USSR as aggressive and recommended firm action
• Satellite States


  Countries under the control of the USSR - People's Democracies such as Romania, Poland and Hungary
• Truman Doctrine


  Announced in 1947 as a response to fears that USSR was trying to spread communism beyond E. Europe. Gave $$$ to help countries
• Marshall Plan


  1947 - $17bn to fight spread of communism, cash, food, equipment to help countries rebuild and not go communist
• Containment


  The US policy designed to stop spread of Communism - used $$$ through Marshall Plan
• Cominform


  1947 - Response to Truman Doctrine - To control government policies of satellite states
• Comecon


  1949 - Response to Marshall Plan gave USSR direct control over economies of Satellite states and their resources
• Berlin Blockade & Airlift

  1948-49 - Stalin seals off access by land to capital of Germany to close 'shop window' for capitalism. US wins with huge airlift
• NATO / Warsaw Pact


  Rival defensive pacts to defend from aggression from other side - NATO 1949 & Warsaw Pact 1955
• Arms Race


  Determination to have an advantage in weaponry leads to development and spending on huge amounts of weapons
• De-Stalinisation


  Attempts by USSR to improve the relationships that the USSR had with its satellites after the death of Stalin - more freedoms
• Imre Nagy


  Leader of Hungarian government that wanted still more freedoms. Tried to leave Warsaw Pact, USSR invades, he dies.
• The Berlin Wall


  August 1961 - Soviet solution to refugee crisis - 4m left through Berlin by 1961. Wall built and Berlin divided.
• Cuban Revolution - Batista / Castro


  Cuba run by US friendly dictator, Batista - US companies control Cuban resources. Castro leads socialist revolution - US unhappy
• Bay of Pigs


  CIA operation using Cuban exiles to get rid of Castro - JFK refused to give air support - mission fails - USSR begins to aid Cuba
• 22nd October 1962


  JFK makes TV address to America describing Soviet missile bases in Cuba and the US planned blockade
• 26th-27th October


  Khrushchev offers to remove missiles in exchange for US promise not to invade then sends second message demanding US remove missiles from Turkey
• 28th October


  JFK ignores second message and agrees to the first BUT USSR must reply or US will invade - Khrushchev accepts
• LTBT, OST, NNPT, SALT - Détente


  Hotline set up and a series of treaties signed to cool the arms race and reduce tensions 1963-69
• The Prague Spring


  Czech economy problems = demands for reform from Dubcek. Socialism with a human face March 1968 - Soviets invade
• The Brezhnev Doctrine


  USSR has the right to invade any country in E. Europe whose actions threatened the breakup of Soviet bloc
• Détente in the 1970s


  SALT 1, 1972 - cooperation over Yom Kippur War, 1973 - Nixon visits Moscow, 1974 - Space Link-up 1975 - Helsinki Agreements
• Afghanistan (1979) - end of détente


  1978 communist coup in Afghanistan - causes Islamic Jihad in response - Soviet forced to send troops - US back mujahedeen
• Carter Doctrine


  US would use military force to defend interests in Persian Gulf - $$ to help all countries bordering Afghanistan
• Reagan


  US President elected 1980 promised to win the Cold War - spent $$$ on weapons to replace MAD with NUTS and SDI
• Gorbachev's New Thinking


  USSR has to end Cold War - poor. Glasnost = openness, Perestroika = restructuring economy - led to Sinatra Doctrine
• Summit Conferences - INF


  Reagan and Gorbachev meet in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986 to discuss disarmament - Reagan keeps SDI - Moscow concedes
• SDI


  Strategic Defence Initiative - satellites to direct lasers onto missiles - Reagan uses as leverage - USSR signs INF anyway, 1987
• Fall of Berlin Wall


  Sinatra Doctrine ends Brezhnev Doctrine - freedom from Soviet control for satellite states - Wall falls Nov 1989
• Collapse of USSR


  Gorbachev forced from power by Gang of 8 communists - Yeltsin ends coup. Satellite states want freedom. USSR ends in 1991
• Write a narrative account of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 1979


  1. April 1978, Taraki leads a communist revolution in Afghanistan leading to the deaths of many Muslims

  2. Brezhnev concerned about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in USSR - which contained 30m Muslims - it could threaten Communist control

  3. December 1979 - more than 50,000 Soviet troops were sent to Afghanistan to defeat the mujahideen

  4. The war was not going well with many Afghan soldiers leaving the army and joining the jihad - the USSR had to send more and more troops

  5. US President Carter was under increasing pressure to show that he was not a weak leader after students in Iran took hostages at the Iranian embassy - making the USA look vulnerable

  6. USA did not force Soviet troops to leave Afghanistan and when it became clear that the USA were supplying the mujahideen, relations between the USA and USSR were at their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis - it was the end of Detente