Unit 8 (Hiemler)

New Military Alliances (NATO and the Warsaw Pact)

-After World War II the Soviet Union occupied much of Eastern Europe into what's called the Soviet Bloc, or the communist bloc. -In doing this, they installed commuist governments in those countries and made their economies to serve the Soviet Union and not their own populations. -Now, because of this, the countries in Western Europe got a little twitchy at the thought of having all those communists in their backyards. -So as a result of this, these western nations decided to form a mutual military alliance called North Atlantic Treaty Organization or (NATO) in 1949. -And essentially this was an alliance of nations against the Soviets that included the United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Belgium, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, Italy, and the Netherlands. -And not to be outdone, the Soviets formed their own military alliance in 1955 called the Warsaw Pact. -And this alliance included the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Albania, and Bulgaria.

Land Reform in Iran

-And Iran had kind of a tumultuous start to the twentieth century. -During World War II the Iranian shah made it clear that he would support Hitler. -And so, this being an untenable situation to the Allies, Britain and Russia went ahead and invaded Iran and set up a new shah sympathetic to their interests. -The Iranians did not love that situation -And so in 1951 the Iranian nationalists overthrew that shah and established their own prime minister in 1953. -Britain and Russia then engineered a plan to overthrow that guy and put their own guy back in power, and they did. -And his name was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. -He was an authoritarian and harsh in his policies, but he did lead Iran into some good policies like social welfare and women's suffrage. Land Reform: -It was called the White Revolution, not because white people carried it out, but because it was bloodless. -Under this policy the government forcibly bought land from wealthy landowners and then resold it to the peasants at a fraction of the price. -And it helped some, for sure, but it really missed many of the people who would have benefitted from it.

MAD

-And you can imagine with all this one upmanship going on, everybody in both of those two countries is getting a little fearful, not to mention the rest of the world -But despite the development of increasingly destructive bombs, they never fired one of them at each other. -Because each side began to realize that if either of them launched a nuclear bomb at the other, then it would result in mutual assured destruction. -And that conviction kept either one from pulling the trigger because they understood that no matter who started the nuclear war, by the end of it, nobody would be victorious because everybody would be reduced to carbon ash.

Why were the US and Soviet Union in tension? (Styles of Government)

-But they also had a deep difference when it came to styles of government. -The United States was a democracy, which is to say they held free elections to elect their leaders. -The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was an authoritarian government that was dominated by a single political party and had a strong, tyrannical leader. -Why would that start a Cold War? -Well, here's the thing: both capitalism and communism have within themselves the impulse to spread. -Neither of these two ideologies, neither of the two ways of seeing the world are content to stay within its own boundaries. -Both of these ideologies have seeds within them, that when watered and tended, seek to remake the whole world in its image. -The Americans wanted a democratic world. -The Soviets wanted a communist world. -And there was no stopping either of them until the whole world was conformed into one image or the other.

Land Reform in Ethiopia

-In 1974 Mengistu Haile (hilee) Mariam led an overthrow of the Ethiopian government, which, in his estimation, was nothing but a puppet of western powers. -The rebellion was successful and so he established a socialist government in place of the western puppet government. -Of course, the Soviet Union was delighted by such a move and Ethiopia received much support from the Russians. -And under this new government, like the others we considered, land redistribution was a high priority. -But, like most of the other places we considered, it resulted in famine and failed economic policies, and much brutality from Mariam.

How governments took a strong role in the economic development of these new nations (India)

-In the 1960s and 70s the Indian prime minister was a woman named Indira Gandhi, no relation. -And under her leadership India was experiencing rampant inflation and growing poverty, all of which seriously threatened the Indian economy. -And so Indira Gandhi took a heavy handed approach to fixing it. -She had a 20 point plan which included the jailing of her opposition, the reformation of corrupt laws, an increase in national production, and the alleviation of inflation. -Now this kind of government intervention was more successful here than it was in Sri Lanka, but apparently it wasn't successful enough to get Gandhi reelected in 1977.

Decolonization through armed Conflict (Algeria)

-In the middle of the twentieth century Algerians began to rise up against the French colonial government. -Now France had just lost Indochina as a colony and were determined not to lose Algeria as well. -And so the French clamped down hard on these uprisings with strict laws and violence. -At this, nationalism was brought to a boil in the Algerian chest, and in 1954 the Algerian war for independence began. -The Algerians organized themselves into the National Liberation Front and used guerilla tactics and brutalization against the French who brutalized them right back. -And the violence even spilled over into France. -There was a significant division among French citizens about whether Algeria should go free, and the chief proponents of their freedom was the communist party. -However, in 1958 French president Charles de Gaulle organized and planned the steps of Algerian independence.

Land Reform in India

-India became an independent state in 1947 after having thrown off the shackles of British colonialism. -And they also instituted land reform but with mixed success. -But one place where it was very successful, in India, was in the state of Kerala. -In 1963 tenants gained the right to purchase land. -And in 1969 laws were passed that allowed tenants to have full ownership of their land.

India and Pakistan

-India won its independence in 1947 from the British, and part of that independence included a partition of Indian into a Pakistan for Muslims and an India for Hindus -Now once the ink was dry on this arrangement, it created the occasion for huge waves of immigration: -you had Muslims going up to Pakistan and Hindus coming down into India. -And with all this great turmoil of migration, there was violence that broke out along religious lines that ended up in the deaths of about 500,000 to a million people. -Now once Indian and Pakistan were separated they had their governments to think about. -India established itself as a democracy. -Pakistan, on the other hand, elected authoritarian leaders. -And there was a persistent conflict between these two states, and that conflict centered on the region of Kashmir. -So in 1947 the Kashmir population was mostly Muslim. -However, the leader of the region was Hindu. -So both groups felt they had claims on this little slice of the nation. -Now neighboring states have always fought over border territory, but this conflict became extraordinarily tense when both countries developed nuclear weaponry. -They never did nuke each other, but eventually India, Pakistan, and China all claimed portions of the region.

How did people resist power non-violently (Mohandas Gandhi)

-Mohandas Gandhi and his nonviolent resistance was against the oppressive British colonial rule in India -Gandhi led the Indian National Congress which was an organization established to resist the British and instead of encouraging Indians to take up arms to oust the British from their land he led them in a campaign of civil disobedience Ex: -first Gandhi and his followers participated in the home spun movement -So ever since the American Civil War caused a shortage of cotton in the world, the British colonial government ramped up its production of cotton in India -they would then buy this cotton from India very low prices ship it back to Britain, make a bunch of textiles out of it in their own factories, and then sell it back to the Indians at inflated prices -it was an unjust system and the response to it was the homespun movement -Gandhi called for a boycott of all foreign fabrics and encouraged Indians to spin cloth for themselves -in fact this particular form of civil disobedience became such a powerful symbol of Indian resistance that the spinning wheel became the sign of the Indian nationalist movement -a second significant act of civil disobedience that Gandhi led his people into was the salt March -and this was to protest the British salt monopoly in India -the British colonial government had made it illegal for Indians to harvest their own salt which was there in abundance along their seashore -and so in order to protest this injustice in 1930, Gandhi led his followers on a march to the sea where they bent down and harvested their own salt -and many of them were arrested for this act, Gandhi included -but through acts like these, the British colonial power structure was undermined and India gained its independence in 1847

Effects of the Cold War: Proxy Wars

-Now because the Cold War was cold, that means by definition there was no direct fighting between the two powers. -But there was all sorts of indirect fighting, and the name for that is a proxy war. -Now a proxy, by definition, is just when one thing that stands in for another thing. -So these proxy wars were just these small, localized wars in Asia, and Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, but they took on this global significance when the United States and Russia started taking different sides of these little wars.

Korean War

-So after World War II ended, the Allies divided Korea into North and South Korea. -Now the north was occupied by the Soviets and the South was occupied by the U.S. and its allies. -Well in 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea in order to create a single state under its own leadership. -And the United Nations came to the aid of South Korea, but it was mostly the United States. -Now the Soviets didn't apply any troops to the North Koreans in order to help, but they did send tons of guns and supplies -And in this way, the United States and the Soviet Union fought each other without actually fighting each other. -And so as the war went on, the UN forces pushed the North Koreans all the way up to the Chinese border. -Now China saw this and started to fear that the UN forces would then go ahead and invade China, so what they did is they sent troops to aid the North Koreans. -And with that fortification, the North Koreans pushed the UN forces all the way back below the 38th parallel. -And by 1953 the conflict ended in a stalemate because everything in the two countries remained largely as they were before the war, except that three million people were dead as a result.

Decolonization through negotiated independence (India)

-So by 1920 Mohandas Gandhi led the Indian National Congress in the movement for Indian independence from Britain. -And Gandhi's chosen means of leadership to this end was non-violent civil disobedience. -This long and arduous non-violent campaign worked. -The British were essentially exhausted and broke from fighting World War II and they realized that they did not have the resources or the power to maintain colonial rule in India. -And so in 1947 India, through negotiation with Britain, became an independent state. -Also recall that there was a significant Muslim minority in India. -And when Indians began dreaming of an independent India, the Muslims in India formed a religious organization called the Muslim League in 1906. -And one of the chief aims of the Muslim league was to advocate for an independent state for Muslims living in India. -And in 1947, when independence came, they got what they wanted, which is to say, the nation of Pakistan in the north of India.

Two Ways countries gained independence

-So in terms of decolonization throughout the world, there were basically two different means by which these countries gained their independence from their colonial powers: -The first is negotiated independence and the second is armed resistance.

Communist Revolution in China

-So starting in 1927 there was a bitter conflict between the Chinese communists and the Chinese nationalists over who would control China. -But in 1931 Japan went ahead and invaded northern China, and so by 1935 the communists and nationalists put their conflict aside for a minute and united to deal with the Japanese. -This is right before WW2 -And so once World War II was over, and the Japanese had been defeated, the communists and the nationalists went right back to fighting over who would control China. -And the Chinese civil war did go on during World War II also, but it's hard to tell where one stops and one begins. -Regardless, as it turns out, the communists won and had themselves a nice communist revolution in China.

Effects of the Cold War

-So the Cold War did not produce open warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union, but it did produce the following: new military alliances, proxy wars, and the buildup of nuclear weapons.

Yalta Conference

-So when World War II was rapidly drawing to a close, representatives from what was called the Big Three, which is to say the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, met on several occasions in order to figure out how to order the world after the war. -Yalta Conference, which occurred early in 1944. -And there President Franklin Roosevelt, pressed hard for free elections in Eastern Europe after the war was over. -But Stalin, on the other hand, who was representing the Soviet Union, wanted Eastern Europe under Soviet influence so that it could act as like a buffer zone between him and Europe. -He had some bad luck with Europeans trying to invade Russia. -You had Hitler, you had Napoleon. -And so these two powers clashed big time over that disagreement. -But at the end of the day, Roosevelt realized he could really do nothing to stop Stalin on this account. -What was he going to do, start another war with Russia in order to keep him from occupying the Eastern European countries that he wanted to have free elections in? -And so at the Yalta Conference Stalin gave vague assurances that free elections would occur in Eastern Europe after the war.

Migration in these newly formed states

-So when these states became independent, many people in them moved to the metropoles. -Now a metropole is the home territory of a colonial power. -So refugees and immigrants from former British colonies like India and Bangladesh moved to England after World War II. -Significant numbers of Vietnamese and Algerians moved to France. -And Filipinos migrated to the United States. -And the reason why this is significant is because it allowed the metropoles and their former colonies to maintain strong cultural and economic ties.

Dropping of the Atomic Bomb

-So you got the argument over free elections in Eastern Europe -But there was yet another slight dealt by the Americans to the Russians at the very end of the war, and that was the dropping of the atomic bomb. -When the Americans deployed this weapon, it was the first the Soviets had heard of it, which was a smack in the face for Stalin. -How could the Americans have had such devastating technology and not tell their allies? -It was precisely that explosive technology that would define the contention between these two powers for the next forty years.

The Cold War

-That forty year period of tension was called the Cold War. -Now by definition a cold war is a state of hostility between two countries which does not result in open warfare. -This kind of warfare was largely carried out through threats, and propaganda, and an arms race.

Containment and the Truman Doctrine

-The Marshall Plan was part of a larger U.S. policy introduced by George Kennan which was called containment. -And this policy acknowledged that it was dang near impossible to uproot communism where it already existed, and so the containment policy was basically just to keep it from spreading. -And later, president Truman introduced what's called, the Truman Doctrine, and that basically just put firepower into the idea of containment. -He promised military aid to any country that was being threatened by the spread of communism. -And this doctrine had its eyes specifically on Greece and Turkey who were dangerously close to falling to the communists. -Now eventually, these policies are going to lead the United States and the Soviet Union into some proxy wars

How did the US and the Soviet Union fight without actually fighting? (Space Race)

-The second competition between these two countries was the space race. -With all the technology they were developing in rocketry to blow each other up, they decided to divert some of that energy to conquering space. -And so in 1957 the Soviets launched the first satellite into space called Sputnik. -In 1958 the Americans answered with a satellite of their own. -Then in April of 1961 the Soviets sent Yuri Gagarin to be the first man into space. -And in May of that same year, the Americans sent Alan Shepherd to be the second man in space. -But the crescendo of this entire contest came in 1969 when the Americans successfully landed a manned capsule on the moon and claimed it for themselves.

How governments took a strong role in the economic development of these new nations (Sri Lanka)

-There, Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first female prime minister. -And by 1965 the Sri Lankan economy was struggling and she instituted socialist policies like land redistribution, the nationalization of industries, and the restrictions on free-trade enterprise -Now these measures happened to be very unsuccessful in shoring up the Sri Lankan economy, but it is a good example of a government getting involved in its economy.

How governments took a strong role in the economic development of these new nations (Tanzania)

-This African country gained its independence in 1961 and its first president was Julius Nyerere. -Like other places, he enacted socialist policies such as a cooperative agriculture program. -He also strove to make Tanzania less reliant on foreign aid. -But ultimately these policies were unsuccessful to bolster the Tanzanian economy.

The Rise of the military-industrial complex

-so fear and economic pressures in some states caused them to worry about the future and one response to this was to build up their military in order to defend that future -and the poster children for this kind of response with the United States in the Soviet Union as they stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to blow everything up -this buildup was a self feeding cycle -as military spending increased so did the number of people who relied on that spending for their jobs -and the problem with that is that if a policymaker decided that they wanted to bump down military spending that meant they were putting tons of people out of work -In fact President Eisenhower on his way out of office warned against the military-industrial complex -saying that it could grow so powerful as to undermine the country's very democratic principle

Failed Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

-so in 1978 communists led a coup in Afghanistan and established a communist government -this government was heartily supported by the Soviets and this new government enacted repressive policies and became deeply unpopular with the majority of the people -the result of this discontent was that in 1979 the Soviet friendly President of Afghanistan norma hamid Taraki was murdered by his second-in-command Hafez Ulla Amin -Amin then became the president and he was patently not Soviet friendly -And so in December of 1979 the Soviets invaded Afghanistan killed Amin and set up another Soviet friendly president -This action was roundly condemned by the United Nations -but the Soviets remained in Afghanistan trying to squash rebellions throughout the country but the problem was that they found they couldn't gain much ground against the guerrilla tactics of the Afghans in the vast Afghan wilderness -because of this, the war stretched on for a decade and it put a tremendous strain on the Soviet economy both because of the fighting and because of all the economic sanctions the rest of the world was putting on the Soviets -They ended up losing this battle -this is a major cause of the fall of the Soviet Union

Fall of the Soviet Union

-with these three causes pressing hard against the Soviet Union it was ripe to collapse and the end came about like this: -in 1985 a more liberal Russian came to power in the Soviet Union and his name was Mikhail Gorbachev he championed two programs that would ultimately undermine the Soviet Union completely -the first was perestroika which allow for some elements of free enterprise in the Soviet economy -the second was Glasnost which allowed for the opening of the political process and the granting of more freedom -and these policies created the occasion for more freedom and Soviet controlled countries as well -it meant that the soviet union would no longer come to the aid of communist regimes in eastern Europe and once some of the economic freedoms of perestroika were felt in some of those countries -they wanted some more and so democratic reforms began sweeping through all those nations and even wound up affecting the Soviet Union -In December of 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dismantled -the Cold War was over

Decolonization through negotiated independence (French West Africa)

-A second example of negotiated independence is French West Africa. -This included places like Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Niger, etc. -France had ruled these colonies since the 1800s, but they did so with relatively small occupational forces. -And in order to maintain dominance, the French relied on cooperation with local governments and chiefs. -However, once this relationship began to crumble and France could no longer maintain power apart from devoting huge amounts of resources to it, they negotiated independence in most of these nations by 1959.

Quebecois Separatist Movement in Canada

-A second example that's a blend of categories is the Quebecois Separatist Movement in Canada: -Quebec was a French colony suffused with French culture. -But back in the 1700s the British ended up controlling most of Canada and that led to a fundamental division between the French Catholics in Quebec and the British Protestants basically everywhere else in Canada. -And there were several movements, over the years, to create a separate state in Quebec, all of which ultimately failed. -And in the 1960s the liberal party was gaining power in Quebec and there was a growing nationalism among them. -And in 1963 all of this flared up into violence which included a series of terrorist bombings. -Ultimately the movement failed and Quebec remained united with Canada.

Martin Luther King

-A second leader who advocated resistance through civil disobedience and non-violence was Martin Luther King jr. -Since the abolition of slavery back in 1865, the American black population had been the recipients of all manner of discrimination and violence -and despite being constitutionally equal with every other citizen of the United States that theoretical equality had not yet reached a reality in America's black population -and so in the 1950s and 1960s we see the rise of the civil rights movement the -Martin Luther king took his inspiration from Ghandi -through nonviolent acts of civil disobedience like bus boycotts, sit-ins, and massive marches -King and his followers achieved the following: -first they won major Supreme Court decisions like Brown versus the Board of Education which integrated public schools -second the movement played a big part in desegregating public transportation -third they won legislative victories as well: major players here with a Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made racial discrimination illegal in U.S. society and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which prohibited racial discrimination at the voting booth

Decolonization through negotiated independence (Gold Coast)

-A third example of negotiated independence was the Gold Coast, which would later become the nation of Ghana. -Now the Gold Coast was also a British colony, and they experienced a similar decolonization process to India. -The nation of Ghana was born in 1957 and its first president was Kwame Nkrumah. -Nkrumah was a nationalistic leader who was careful to construct a national narrative of past glory and present triumph, much like the national narratives he observed in places like America and Europe. -And to this end Nkrumah codified this narrative with a flag, a national anthem, and monuments to symbolize Ghana's glory.

Land Reform in Vietnam

-After World War II Vietnam declared its independence from Japan who occupied it during the war and from France who colonized it before the war. -Communists came to power in North Vietnam and they went ahead and seized land from landowners and redistributed it to the poor.

Setting the Stage of Decolonization

-By the start of World War I the process of empire building and colonization had reached its peak. -Imperial states held colonies all over the world. -Colonial soldiers fought in World War I on behalf of their parent countries with the hope that such sacrifice would earn them the right to become free and independent nations. -In fact, after World War I was over, American president Woodrow Wilson was emphatic about allowing nations the right to self-determination, which is to say, that they should have the right to choose their own form of government. -But that movement for self-determination did not occur in the period between the two World Wars. -And so, once World War II springs up, the colonial soldiers came yet again to fight for their parent countries. -But fighting the second world war fundamentally altered the relationship between colonies and their parent countries. -As the war ended and these imperial nations were out of cash and burying their dead, it was very hard for them to imagine sending troops down to all of these colonies to repress all of these calls for independence. -And so colonies from all over the world began garnering support from the U.S. and the Soviet Union in order to become free of their colonial structures. -And whenever it was in the interest of these two powers to intervene in these colonial disputes, they did.

Cambodia

-Cambodia gained its independence from France in 1953. -After the Vietnam War, in which Cambodia participated, a communist organization called Khmer Rouge overthrew the government and established communism in Cambodia. -The organization was led by a guy named Pol Pot who was a ruthless dictator. -And under his leadership over 2 million Cambodians were either slaughtered or died of starvation because of widespread famine. -Because of this there was a growing discontent with Pol Pot's leadership and there was a growing movement to depose him. -And in 1978 Vietnam invaded Cambodia to support those who wanted to overthrow Pol Pot. -It was successful in the overthrow department, but the Vietnamese decided to stick around and occupy Cambodia. -Now the people were none too happy about this, but eventually, which is to say, by 1989, the Vietnamese left Cambodia and in 1991 the Cambodians participated in the first free elections in their newly democratic government.

the Great Leap Forward

-Chairman Mao Zedong stood in Tiananmen Square in 1949 and proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. -Under Mao's leadership, China nationalized its industry and redistributed land to peasants. -Now, Mao's major reform program was called the Great Leap Forward. -And under that program, peasant lands were collectivized by the state. -Stalin did this very thing in Russia and because of all the rebellion that occurred because of it, many, many, many millions of people died as a result of famine and starvation. -And so chairman Mao, not interested in such rebellion, established a place to send all the people who were rebelling and they were called reeducation camps. -No these were internment camps, and if you were sent there you were put under intense physical strain, intense psychological reordering in order that you might believe deep down in your guts that Mao's policies were good and right. -And if the reeducation didn't work, they killed you. -So all this to say, the Great Leap Forward was actually a great disaster of a policy. -One reason for this is that harvests failed in staggering numbers during this period. -But Mao couldn't let it appear to the world that his policies were failing, and so he went ahead and kept exporting the grain they did grow to far off places. -As a result of that, 20 million Chinese people died.

Israel

-From as early as 1897 Jews argued for a separate Jewish state in Israel. -And they wanted it in Palestine because it was their ancestral home. -But there was a problem: by this point Israel was the home to a huge population of Arab Muslims -Now after World War I Israel was made a protectorate of Britain, and Britain was all for the Jews. -And so with this newfound favor, Jews began to migrate to Palestine from Europe and the Middle East. -And this influx of Jews began to pinch the Muslims living there and they thought that their way of life was becoming threatened and thus they started enacting opposition towards this Jewish immigration. -However, after World War II ended the news of the Holocaust got out, there was worldwide sympathy for the Jews and their cause for a homeland also gained sympathy right along with them. -And this led to even more Jewish immigration to Palestine. -Which led to even more opposition from the Muslims already living there. -And so as a result of all this, the United Nations brokered a deal in 1948 to partition Israel into Jewish and Arab sections. -The Jewish section was the new state of Israel. -And it was thought that this partition would work much like the partition of India into Muslim and Hindu states. -However, war immediately broke out between the two peoples. -The United States backed the Jews and the neighboring Arab nations backed the Palestinians. -Now Israel ended up winning this conflict and a ceasefire was enacted. -violence continued after that period and the tension remains between these two people to this day.

How did the US and the Soviet Union fight without actually fighting? (Economic Dependence)

-How was it that these two nations fought without actually fighting? -And the first way was to make other countries economically dependent upon them. -For example, the Soviets gathered up many of the nations of Eastern Europe into what became known as the Soviet Bloc. -These countries included, but are not limited to, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. -When these countries came under Soviet influence, Stalin introduced Five Year Plans to collectivize agriculture and develop industry. -And as a bonus, any party but the communist party was outlawed. -And once the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe was complete, the economies of those countries in the Soviet Bloc were made to serve the Soviet Russian economy and not their own populations -So that's how the Soviets made countries economically dependent on them -How did the US do it? -Well, the United States sought to make at least Western Europe in its image by means of something called the Marshall Plan. -America emerged from World War II with a booming economy. -And in order to keep the Western European nations from sliding into communism, The United States offered billions of dollars in aid in the form of the Marshall Plan. -The rationale was that since these European nations are in ruins their economic instability might tempt them to give communism a whirl. -But if said economic instability was cured, then those nations would remain free and democratic. -And as it happened, that worked. -So Western Europe emerged as largely capitalist and democratic, while Eastern Europe was communist and authoritarian.

Why were US and Soviet Union the Super Powers

-Now once World War II was over it was the United States and the Soviet Union who emerged as the two great superpowers in the world. Why whose two nations? United States: -The United States had become a superpower because they had been singularly fortunate during World War II. -None of the fighting had actually taken place in the United States, with the exception of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. -But the mainland of the United States, including its industry and it's infrastructure, all of that remained untouched by the war. -And while all the European nations were licking their wounds and picking up the rubble from all their broken down cities, America offered 12 billion in aid for the rebuilding of European cities -This was called the Marshal Plan Soviet Union: -But if that's the reason why the United States emerged as a superpower, it surely can't be the same reason that the Soviet Union did. -The Russians lost something like 15-20 million people and sustained buttloads of damage from all the Nazi invading. -So how was it the Soviet Union became a superpower in order to rival the United States? -Because even with such losses, the Soviet Union was so large that they had population to spare essentially. -Not only that, but for years Stalin had been aggressively building up the industrial capacity -Not to mention, every other European nation that might have taken a top stop, was broke and exhausted from the war.

Angolan Civil War

-Now the second proxy war we're going to consider is the Angolan Civil War which started in 1975. -So Angola was a colony of Portugal and as is the custom with imperial powers, they went ahead and drew borders around rival people groups and just threw them together under one government. -Now each of these groups fought against the Portuguese and actually won their independence. -But once they were free, the real question became: which one of these rival groups is actually going to have power in a free Angola? -Now again, this seems like a nice, tidy little conflict down in Sub-Saharan Africa. -They'll figure it out for themselves, there's no need for anybody else to get involved OH HERE COMES THE COLD WAR. -And as it goes, the United States backed one of these groups, the Soviet Union backed another, and then South Africa, backed yet another. -And thus the Angolan Civil War became another battle ground for the larger conflict of the Cold War.

Decolonization through armed conflict (Egypt)

-Now, technically Egypt had been an independent nation since 1922, but it's not quite that simple. -British troops remained stationed in Egypt to protect their interests in the Suez canal. -And so after World War II was over General Gamal Abdel Nasser led an overthrow of the Egyptian king and established the Republic of Egypt. -Now Nasser, who was a socialist, became Egypt's second president. -And once he was in power, he nationalized the Suez Canal. -Now remember, there are British troops stationed at the Suez Canal and the Egyptians had signed a contract with France to lease the canal to them for 99 years. -And to Nasser, all of this was a symbol of colonial oppression and he wanted to be rid of it, thus the nationalization of the canal. -And that led us to something called the Suez Crisis. -Now once the declaration was made about the nationalization of the canal, France induced their ally Israel to invade Egypt. -Britain and France then sent troops to occupy the land surrounding the canal. -Now the U.S. and the Soviet Union opposed this action and through the intervention of the United Nations, they brokered an agreement to make the Suez Canal an international waterway under the sovereignty of Egypt.

Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Cuban Missile Crisis

-Okay, now the third effect of the Cold War that we need to talk about is the proliferation, or the buildup of nuclear weapons. -Arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union -But the crisis moment for this race came in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. -So after a failed attempt by the United States to oust communist leader Fidel Castro in Cuba, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev shipped a whole buttload of nuclear missiles to Cuba. -The Soviets had already developed missiles that were capable of carrying nuclear warheads and could hit targets in the U.S. -And that was scary enough, but now these missiles were right in our backyard. -And so in 1962 U.S. spy planes discovered these missile sites, and understandably the U.S. was outraged. -It's not as though America's hands were clean in this respect. -They had basically done the same thing by placing nuclear missiles in Turkey which shared a border with the Soviet Union. -But anyway, after the discovery of these missiles, U.S. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to surround the island of Cuba. -And so for thirteen intense and anxiety filled days, everybody in America, and around the world was starting to wonder: is this the day I'm going to get blown up? -They never actually fired those missiles and that everybody eventually backed down. -But what this event did was to show the world that the buildup, or proliferation of nuclear weapons was a real problem. -Therefore in 1968 we see the creation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. -And what it did, among other things, was to call on nuclear powers to prevent non-nuclear nations from developing such disastrous weapons.

Contra War in Nicaragua

-Okay, now the third proxy war to consider is the Contra War in Nicaragua. -In 1979 the Sandinista National Liberation Front, who were self-proclaimed socialists, seized power in Nicaragua. -And at that, the United States was all like, "Ain't no socialists gonna be on my continent." -And so, two years later the U.S. backed a group of contras who tried to overthrow the Sandinistas, who in turn had support from the Soviet Union. -In this attempted overthrow, the contras committed many human rights violations, and in the end the conflict ended in a cease-fire and the Sandinistas were handily defeated in the next election

Terrorism in Peru

-Peru's Shining Path -so in the 1970s, Guzman created a revolutionary organization in Peru called The Shining Path and their goal was to overthrow the Peruvian government and install a communist government -now Guzman drew his inspiration for the Shining Path from such luminaries of brutality like Mao Zedong and Cambodia's Khmer Rouge -In the 1980s The Shining Path began engaging in terrorist acts against Peru including assassinations and bombing -this campaign of violence eventually led to the deaths of 37,000 Peruvians -but by 1992, Guzman was captured and the movement disintegrates

Non-Aligned Movement

-This conflict between these two super powers became so large that it began to dominate the world stage. -And in that way it became almost inevitable that smaller, less powerful countries would get swept up in the conflict. -But there was a movement brewing in these countries who wanted to declare on the world stage that they wanted nothing to do with this conflict. -It was called the Non-Aligned Movement. -It basically consisted of new Asian and African nations who had recently shaken themselves free from colonial rule. -And, understandably, they wanted to distance themselves from this conflict between the two superpowers. -And so in 1961, the Non-Aligned movement was formally established. -And its goal was to represent the interest of developing nations. -Member nations of the movement desired an alternative framework for their budding social, political, and economic lives than the one dominated by the U.S.-Soviet conflict. Notable Leaders in this movement: -First is Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. -Under his leadership Ghana won its independence from Great Britain. -He also created the Organization of African Unity in which he advocated for the unity of Africans no matter which country they were from. -Second, you've got the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno. -And he became president in 1945 and was the one responsible for the organization of the Bandung Conference in 1955 which was responsible for the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Decolonization through armed conflict (Vietnam, or Indochina)

-Vietnam was a colony of France. -Anyway, two things happened to Vietnam after World War II. -First, France was ousted from their colonial occupation. -However, second, almost immediately France came back and occupied the southern portion of the nation. -And in the north, a communist government was established under Ho Chi Minh. -And his goal was to oust the French from Vietnam altogether and unite the country under a communist government -So Ho Chi Minh initiated the Vietnamese war for independence which ended in 1954. -And the result of this war was that Vietnam was officially separated into two countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. -this partition would lead to another proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union since the north was communist and the south was democratic.

Why were the US and Soviet Union in tension? (Economic Systems)

-Well, the first thing to mention is that they had competing systems of economics. -The United States was a capitalist economy. -And capitalism is just an economic system characterized by the private ownership of capital goods. -And capital goods are goods that are used to make other goods like a machine in a factory. -So in a capitalist economy, those capital goods are owned by individuals, which is to say, privately. -And those individuals make economic decisions that are in their own self-interest. -Communism, on the other hand, is an economic system characterized by government ownership of capital goods distributed to the people evenly. -This is not communism defined in its theoretical sense as outlined for us by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels. -This was communism in its historical form as it was worked out in the Soviet Union. -So these two super-powers had a deep difference when it came to economics.

Uganda

-a similar situation over in Uganda from 1971 to 1979, Uganda was led by Idi Amin who is a military dictator -his brutal policies earned himself the nickname the butcher of Uganda -he declared himself president for life and under his leadership he intensified existing ethnic tensions and denied basic human rights -anyone who dissented to his policies were either exiled or killed and under his hand -something like 500,000 Ugandans died

Violent resistance to power structures (Al-Qaeda)

-another terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda under the leadership of a Saudi billionaire named Osama bin Laden -Al Qaeda carried out attacks against many Western countries -this was a resistance not of their own government but what they considered to be the oppressive policies and intrusion of countries like the United States -the crowning achievement of violence committed by al Qaeda was their attack against America on September 11th 2001 -They hijacked and flew planes into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon in Virginia

Military and technological advancement of the United States

-by the early 1980s the United States and the Soviet Union combined have produced over 12,000 nuclear missiles and all of those missiles were pointed squarely at each other -now a major consideration that kept their fingers off the launch button is that they knew that if either of them launched, the resulting war would leave neither of them alive -MAD -even so it was still tense between these powers for a very long time -so in the 1980s US President Ronald Reagan spearheaded the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI -It was a system that rendered any attack on the United States obsolete -well the SDI sought to launch defense systems into space that could detect a nuclear launch and then shoot them down from space with lasers -they were going to shoot down nuclear weapons from space with lasers -but as it turned out this was going to cost way too much even though they did start spending on it and the technology for it -so the plan was eventually scrapped -this shifted power to America

Nelson Mendella

-in South Africa, the white minority had established a system of racial discrimination called apartheid -and in resisting this, Nelson Mandela and his followers initially took up violent means but eventually they turned the corner and went the nonviolent route -As a result of this, Mandela was arrested and put in prison for life in 1964 -and the news of this got out into the world it inspired a global movement for the end of apartheid over the next three decades -and under such pressure the end of apartheid came in 1994 -at this Mandela was released from prison and elected president of South Africa

Public Discontent and Economic Weakness in the Soviet Union

-now even before the economic turmoil the Soviet economy had been in a bad way since the 60s -foreign trade was extremely limited -government control of agriculture stifled that industry because farmers didn't have control over what to plant or how much to charge for what they did harvest -Eastern European countries in the Soviet bloc were growing more and more discontent with the repressive policies of the Soviet Union -example of this is the Prague Spring which was a series of mass protests in Czechoslovakia in 1968 -the Soviets violently crushed this outcry but the sentiment was spreading -and they were having to devote more and more resources they didn't have to putting down these rebellions

Francisco Franco

-now some states in light of all this resistance used violence to squash the resistance -and that ended up exacerbating the issue in many places -for example in Spain, Francisco Franco came to power in 1939 by an overthrow of the popularly elected government -and he was a fervent anti-communist and so anyone who challenged his power even through nonviolent means like protests were either executed imprisoned or sent to labor camps

Nigeria

Okay, now let's consider two examples of decolonization that don't really fit neatly into either category, they're sort of a blending between negotiation and armed conflict. -First is the African nation of Nigeria. -So, in 1960 the Nigerians negotiated their independence from Britain. -But a civil war broke out by 1967 over who would control this newly independent Nigeria. -It began when the Igbo people who were a westernized Christian people in the south tried to secede and form their own nation called Biafra. -Now because their land was rich in oil the northern government resisted this secession violently. -Ultimately the north won out in 1970 and established at last a united Nigeria.

Potsdam Conference

Potsdam Conference in July of 1945: -This was also a meeting of the Big -by this point, President Roosevelt had died and now Harry Truman, the new President, had come to represent the United States. -And Truman, like Roosevelt, insisted on free elections in Eastern Europe. -But as it turned out Stalin's troops had already occupied much of those Eastern European countries, and so he flatly refused Truman's demands. -And it was this act that deepened an already growing rift between these two powers.

How did the US and the Soviet Union fight without actually fighting? (Arms Race)

What are some other ways the Soviets and the Americans fought each other without actually fighting each other? Arms Race: -One of the real points of contention between these two powers was the United States decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in order to end World War II. -Stalin saw that and his eyes grew wide with jealousy over such destructive power. -And so began the race to build bigger and bigger bombs, with greater and greater destructive capacity -So in 1945 the U.S. dropped the first iteration of their atomic bomb. -By 1947, the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb which was bigger and more destructive than that American bombs. -Early in the 1950s both powers developed a hydrogen bomb which was about a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb. -The atomic bomb could basically kill everyone within about a mile radius. -The hydrogen bomb could kill every human being in a 5-10 mile radius. -By 1959 the Soviets developed an intercontinental ballistic missile which was capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the mainland of the United States.