The Cold War

What caused Cold War is still a big question to many historians. This dilemma can be understood from the background and nature of Cold war. Blood shed and war time destruction during the Cold War were less harmful when compared with either of the world wars. But mutually assured destruction was present through out the Cold war period.

Mutual suspicions, aggressive steps by both sides in the name of self defense were responsible for Cold war. It is visible in every international affair. Every international issue or conflict was interpreted by each bloc in their own light. Cooperation between both the U.S and Russia during Second World War was a matter of necessity for self preservation against Nazi Germany. Once victory in the war was assured, differences started emerging amongst would be war victors.

Russia, under Stalin leadership decided to gain as much as influence as possible in Europe. His claim was that friendly neighbors and buffer zones against the Western Capitalist States were necessary for the very survival of communist states in Eastern Europe. For him, being communist state was not sufficient it must be Russian style communism. This attitude of Russia was interpreted by West as expansionist tendencies of Tsar Regime in modern Russia.

Mutual cooperation after the Second World War helped to create international organizations like U.N, but this did not settle the scores on the war result. Germany and Austria were divided into 4 regions each, each region under the influence of U.S.S.R, U.S.A, England and France. Instead of settling the war disputes, this division became a fighting ground between Western Bloc led by U.S and U.S.S.R Bloc led by Russia.

Regions under Western Bloc were able to improve their economic conditions by undergoing rapid industrialization with the help of Marshall aid plan from US government where as region under U.S.S.R lagged behind in every aspect of industrialization. This Marshall aid was interpreted by Russia as Dollar Imperialism of West. Though U.S.S.R had its own aid program, popularly known as Molotov Plan, it was not as successful as Marshal Plan.

After the overthrow of elected government in Czechslovika, the iron curtain was complete in the view of Western Bloc. Both sides started building military alliances. NATO led by U.S.A, Warsaw pact led by Russia became the respective military alliances of both the Blocs.

There was a thaw in the cold war after the death of Stalin; Russian communist party leaders started propagating the idea of mutual coexistence. They admitted that they had only two choices either mutually destruction or peaceful coexistence. It does not mean U.S.S.R gave up its communist agenda. They wanted to win the war by proving the ideological superiority not by war.

It is to be noted that Cold War was not completely a war on ideologies, many a time both the blocs proved it. Many a time they acted against their own self proclaimed ideologies. After some distance (historically) from the Cold war we can understand that both blocs led by U.S and U.S.S.R had done so only in their self interest.

Let us consider the following examples.

1. U.S.A provided military aid to monarchist State Greece and Turkey not because both the nations were shining examples of democracy but because of their anti communist stand.
2. Refusal of Western bloc to recognize People’s Republic of China until the visit of Richard Nixon to mainland China in 1971.
3. Forcing Non-Aligned nations like India to side their point of view in international conflicts. Some times bargaining with food aid.
4. Ruthless murders of political opponents by U.S.S.R (Czechslovika and Poland are fine examples in this regard).
5. Both blocs showed no hesitation to surpass democratically elected governments and to support dictators if they found it was necessary to protect their self interests.

Neither U.S. nor U.S.S.R showed interest in the uplifting the undeveloped countries without any self interest.

Luckily both blocs showed maturity when it came to final stages of the conflict. At least in this respect both the blocs should be appreciated.

After the disintegration of U.S.S.R, the Cold war ended without any major ground conflicts, otherwise this Globe might have been a peaceful grave yard forever.