1 17 42 Causes and Prevention of War Stephen Van Evera THE COLD WAR AND KOREA I HOW THE COLD WAR ERUPTED EVENTS A Poland and Eastern Europe 1 Warsaw uprising 1944 Stalin induced the Polish non communists into a futile rebellion against Hitler then watched inertly while Hitler slaughtered them Americans wondered what else Stalin intended 2 Stalin made a vague promise at Yalta Feb 1945 to allow democracy in Poland then he imposed communism instead B Iran 1946 Stalin wouldn t leave northern Iran until pressured C Turkey 1946 Stalin said I want some Turkish territory Instead Truman sent the Missouri to the Mediterranean as a threatening show of force D Greece 1947 the West thought Stalin was instigating the Communist revolution in Greece He wasn t Yugoslavia s communist Tito government was aiding the Greek communists but not Stalin E The Berlin Crisis of 1948 1949 This grew from the struggle for Germany F Military aspects 1 Illusions of Soviet military superiority U S intelligence and the Western press depicted a vast Soviet conventional superiority in Europe and downplayed the implications of the U S atomic monopoly Hence a Soviet threat that was largely political the Soviets had some capacity to disrupt or subvert Western Europe was also perceived as military 2 The Soviet atomic bomb explodes September 1949 Now the West is really scared What if Stalin isn t deterrable Western responses the Marshall Plan 1947 the Berlin airlift 1948 49 the formation of NATO 1949 and a vast American military buildup 1950 53 This triggered a large Soviet counterbuildup II WHAT CAUSED THE COLD WAR WHO CAUSED THE COLD WAR SEVEN EXPLANATIONS A Communist totalitarian expansionism The totalitarian Soviets were the aggressor the democratic West the defender Soviet aggression sprang from the aggressiveness of Communist political systems Communist governments are aggressive because they are a inherently messianic Communist ideology preaches global communist rule and or because they are b frail hence aggressive for Orwellian reasons they needed enemies to legitimate their totalitarian rule Variant 1 Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe threatened U S security causing the Cold War Variant 2 The Soviets conquered the homelands of powerful U S ethnic groups especially Polish Americans when they seized Eastern Europe These ethnic groups then pushed Washington to respond B Communist totalitarian cruelty and barbarism The U S opposed the USSR less because the USSR was aggressive than because it was tyrannical The Cold War was a Western human rights crusade But if true why didn t the Cold War blossom fully in 1919 C U S Softness U S softness early in the Cold War made things worse the U S led the Soviets forward by appeasement 2 D E F G What if instead the U S had given Stalin an ultimatum in 1946 Get out of Eastern Europe or we ll throw you out The Soviets would have left removing the Cold War s cause Capitalist expansionism The capitalist U S was the aggressor the socialist Soviet Union was the defender The U S feared a new depression It hoped to avoid such a depression by finding market outlets for surplus goods It sought to control Eastern Europe to compel it to be such a market U S imperialism in Eastern Europe collided with a defensive Soviet desire to maintain a neutral buffer to its west This is the now largely discredited left revisionist view See e g the writings of Gabriel Kolko and Lloyd Gardner Revolutionary vs Oligarchic states Both sides were aggressors for reasons Stephen Walt describes Revolutionary states are messianic and frightened their neighbors are defensively aggressive and polluted by emigres But if true why didn t the Cold War blossom fully in 1919 The Unshaped Postwar European Order Collapse of German Empire The lack of a clear Soviet American wartime agreement on the postwar partition of the German empire caused a collision of the two major allied powers in a zone of uncertainty Had each side s sphere of influence been more clearly delineated earlier the Cold War might have been milder Shades of the 7 Years War International System Bipolarity and the Security Dilemma The world s two strongest states rarely get along well because each is the main threat to the other They will always compete for security The Cold War was an inevitable result of the rise of the U S and USSR to the pinnacle of world power Variant 1 The two superpowers were in fact insecure and contested for resources of real value especially the industry and buffer room of Eastern Europe Variant 2 The superpowers were secure due to the nuclear revolution their vast size and their distance from each other But didn t know it and they contended for assets Eastern Europe of no real value Soviet control of Eastern Europe made the USSR less not more secure by provoking the rest of the world into a hostile stance against the USSR Variant 3 spiral model variant The two superpowers felt insecure and contended for security but both thought the other pursued unprovoked aggression for non security reasons and overreacted accordingly Question what does this systemic explanation portend for the future of U S China relations III THE KOREAN WAR 1950 WHAT HAPPENED A The U S and USSR agreed to partition Korea at the 38th parallel in 1945 B The U S pulled its troops out of Korea in 1949 A U S blunder C Communist victory in China in 1949 triggered a bitter who lost China debate in the U S D Dean Acheson gave a speech at the Washington Press Club in January 1950 delineating the American defense perimeter in Asia He omitted South Korea Another U S blunder E North Korea attacked South Korea by surprise June 25 1950 Why Kim Il Sung and Stalin expected the U S would not intervene or that the North could crush the South before the U S could intervene effectively A huge miscalculation F Truman decided to intervene Reasons 1 To preserve American credibility But was it engaged in 3 Korea To avert a worldwide pro Soviet bandwagon effect U S officials feared that other states would jump to the Soviet side thinking it the tide of the future if North Korea seized South Korea 3 Domestic politics Truman feared being pilloried for losing another Asian country to Communism U S forces landed at Inchon on Sept 15 1950 and routed the North Korean army from South Korea In late September 1950 Truman decided to cross 38th parallel and conquer North Korea Part of the U S reasoning We must punish the aggressors to deter them from other aggression elsewhere An American