Lesson 14: The Cold War Realities: The Relation between the Capitalist and Communist Blocs
Video Lesson
Lesson Objectives
After successful completion of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Explain the origin and the causes of the Cold War;
- Discuss the major characteristic features of the Cold War;
- Identify the different military blocs which existed during the Cold War;
- Mention the economic groupings of the Cold War; and
- Jot down main principles of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Brainstorming Questions
- What do you know about the origin of the term “Cold War”?
- Why was it called the Cold War?
- When did the war begin?
Key Terms and Terminology
- The Cold War
- NATO
- Warsaw Pact
- Nonaligned Movement
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II, and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere.
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defense treaty established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania (Albania withdrew in 1968).
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was founded in 1961 with the view to advancing interests of developing countries in the context of Cold War confrontation. In its first three decades, the Movement played a crucial role in decolonization, formation of new independent states, and democratization of international relations.
Origin of Cold War
It first came into general use in September 1947, when journalist Walter Lippmann published a series of newspaper columns (and books) on US-Soviet tensions entitled “The Cold War”. Historians differ regarding the beginning date of the Cold War, but 1947 is usually pointed out as the starting year for the Cold War. The Cold War took the form of an arms race involving nuclear and conventional weapons, networks of military alliances, economic warfare and trade embargoes, propaganda, espionage, and proxy wars. The major civil wars polarized along Cold War lines were the Greek Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Soviet-Afghan War, along with more peripheral conflicts in Angola, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. It should be noted that the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the most important direct confrontation, together with a series of confrontations over the Berlin Blockade and the Berlin Wall.
The Major Characteristic Features of the Cold War
- The threat of nuclear war: It was the arms race between the member states of the NATO and those of Warsaw Pact. This resulted in substantial scientific discoveries in many technological and military fields such as in the field of nuclear weapons and rockets, jet fighters, bombers, chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-aircraft warfare, surface-to-surface missiles, inter-continental ballistic missiles, anti-tank weapons, submarines, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, electronic intelligence, signals intelligence, reconnaissance aircraft and spy satellites which led to the space race. The Cold War was primarily fought by intelligence agencies like the CIA (United States), MI6 (United Kingdom), BND (West Germany), Stasi (East Germany) and the KGB (Soviet Union).
- Competition over the allegiance (loyalty) of newly independent nations
- The military and economic support of each other’s enemies around the world.
The End of Cold War
This period began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader in 1985 and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Through his policy of Perestroika (reconstruction) and Glasnost (openness), Gorbachev provided new momentum for political and economic liberalization and the impetus for cultivating warmer relations and trade with the West.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a regional defense alliance created in April, 1949. NATO has its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It was an association of twelve states (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States). It declared that an armed attack on any one of them in Europe or North America would be regarded as an attack on all of them. Greece and Turkey joined the alliance in 1952, the German Federal Republic (West Germany) in 1955 and Spain in 1982. It was a defensive gesture by the principal western powers based on fear of Russian aggression.
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was a military alliance of eight European Communist nations (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR) established by the treaty which was signed in Warsaw, Poland, on May 14,1955. The rearmament of West Germany and its admission to NATO prompted the establishment of the Warsaw Pact.
Non Aligned Movement
The Nonaligned Movement (NAM) was a loose association of countries that had no formal commitment to either of the two power blocs of the Cold War.